[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":10},["ShallowReactive",2],{"viewer-data-26032289AC7C-174":3},{"id":4,"number":5,"name":6,"content":7,"isLocked":8,"price":9,"hasRead":8},174,13,"Chapter 13: The Heartbreak Inside The Hidden Safe","\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Callahan Meyer squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw aching as he swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Panic clawed at him, raw and unrelenting.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"I need her details. Her address in Toronto, any contact info you have.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Sir... we’re not authorized to disclose guest privacy, and as for Canada...\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Get your manager on the line! Now!\" Callahan’s patience had evaporated. His voice boomed, turning heads among the hotel staff nearby.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">After hours of pulling strings and trading thinly veiled threats, he finally secured an address and a phone number at 4:00 AM.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">It was a budget youth hostel in downtown Toronto.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">The phone number was a burner. It was already dead.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Callahan stared at the screen, his heart dropping into a dark, frozen abyss.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">She had planned this. Every last detail.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">It wasn't a snap decision; it was calculated.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Severing ties, ending the engagement, vanishing—without a single glance back.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">With trembling hands, he booked the first flight to Toronto. Noon tomorrow.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">When he stepped out of the airport, the horizon was bleeding a faint, sickly gray. The biting late-autumn wind sliced through his thin shirt, but he felt nothing. Only a massive, hollow void in his chest.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He drove to the Cole estate.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">The living room lights were still burning. Peter and Martha Cole sat on the sofa, slumped in haggard, silent misery.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Martha jumped up the moment he walked in. Her voice was thin, frantic. \"Callahan? Did you find her? Did you find Maya?\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Callahan’s voice was raspy, stripped of its usual authority. \"She went to Toronto. I’m flying out tomorrow.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Martha froze, her face turning sheet-white. \"Toronto? She... she’s still recovering. She just had a miscarriage. If she’s all alone out there, will she give up?\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"She won't!\" Callahan barked, cutting her off, desperate to convince himself as much as her. \"I will find her. I swear it.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He spoke through gritted teeth, his hands balling into white-knuckled fists.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Peter clutched his head in his hands, his voice thick with suppressed sobs. \"It was us. We were the ones who drove her away.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Callahan looked at them—a couple who seemed to have aged a decade in a single night. He felt no sympathy. Only a cold, bitter, shared misery.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He turned and left. He didn't head home. He went to his office.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">The sun was high now. The executive office felt like a mausoleum.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He walked to a hidden wall safe he rarely touched. It was packed with Maya’s things.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Every year on his birthday, she’d given him gifts—some clumsy, all of them heartbreakingly earnest.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">A hand-knitted scarf with crooked stitches.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">A handwritten book of poetry, the penmanship meticulous.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">A ceramic mug with a lopsided rim.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Then there were the binders. Clippings of him from financial magazines. Recorded interviews. Blurry side-profiles from charity galas, all carefully cut and pasted.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">And a stack of boarding passes. Domestic. International.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Cities where he’d gone for business.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">The dates matched his trips perfectly. She had bought tickets for the same flights, stayed at the same hotels.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He’d been in the presidential suite; she’d been in the cheapest single room.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">All those years, it wasn't a coincidence that she was in the same city. She had been following him.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Just to catch a glimpse from a distance.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">At the very bottom of the safe sat a giant glass jar. It was filled with 365 handwritten letters.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">A sticky note on the lid read: *One for every day of the year. When you find the last one, I hope you finally see me.*\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Callahan’s fingers shook as he opened it. He pulled out a few envelopes and unfolded one.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">On the cream-colored stationery was her elegant script:\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">*Saw Callahan in the magazine today. He looks so handsome.*\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">*Learned how to brew his favorite roast, but he didn't come home today.*\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">*Callahan, I’ll keep waiting for you, until you finally see me.*\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Callahan collapsed, his back sliding against the cold metal of the safe. He clutched the letters, staring at the scattered notes filled with her secret heart, until he finally broke.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">His shoulders heaved. Hot tears splashed onto the paper, blurring the ink into ragged blotches.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">What had he missed?\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">What had he destroyed?\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">The girl who had loved him with every fiber of her being. The girl who had cherished him for five years. The girl he had pushed away, hurt, and trampled on again and again.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He had lost her.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">No. Not lost.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He had forced her out.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Callahan wiped his face and dialed his assistant.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"What’s on the schedule for tomorrow?\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"A merger meeting with Goldman Sachs at 10:00 AM, a project negotiation at 2:00 PM, and in the evening...\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Cancel it all,\" Callahan interrupted.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Sir?\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"I said, cancel everything,\" Callahan repeated, enunciating every syllable. \"Suspend all my engagements for the next six months. Meetings, negotiations, banquets—clear the board. If the company isn't literally on fire, do not contact me.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">The assistant was stunned into silence.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">Callahan took a ragged breath. \"And one more thing. From now on, I don't want to hear a single word about Alexandria Rodriguez or the Cole family.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He hung up and tossed the phone aside.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He looked out the window at the city waking up—the traffic, the noise, the relentless, hollow prosperity.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">His world had ended the moment he saw those two documents on the coffee table last night.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">He couldn't find her.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">The thought sent a shiver of pure, cold-blooded terror down his spine.\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"Maya,\" he whispered to the empty office. His voice was shattered. \"Wait for me.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"This time, let me be the one to wait for you.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"No matter where you go. No matter the cost.\"\u003C/p>\u003Cp class=\"chapter-paragraph\">\"I will find you.\"\u003C/p>",false,0,1774272930405]