Callahan Meyer didn’t sleep a wink during the twelve-hour flight.

His mind played the surveillance footage on a loop: Maya Cole dragging her suitcase, pausing at the threshold of the Cole house to look back. Her face was small and slightly blurred in the recording, yet he felt as if he could see her expression clearly.

There was no longing, no resentment. Just a hollow, dead stillness.

Then, she turned, climbed into a car, and vanished into the flow of traffic. It was crisp. Decisive. She never looked back—just as she had when she pried his fingers off her wrist.

The plane touched down at Toronto Pearson at dusk. Canada was already gripped by biting late-autumn winds and a heavy, overcast sky. Callahan didn’t bother adjusting to the time difference; he left the airport, hailed a cab, and headed straight for the hostel.

The building was tucked away on a run-down street, the storefront entirely nondescript. Pushing the door open, he was hit by a cocktail of stale coffee, industrial cleaning agents, and the damp, musty scent of a dozen travelers. In the lobby, backpackers lounged around, their laughter clashing in a jumble of languages.

The front desk was manned by an older woman with graying hair. She peered over her reading glasses, buried in a newspaper.

Callahan stepped up, his voice tight. "Excuse me. I’m looking for a guest. Maya Cole. She would have checked in about a week ago."

The woman looked up, lowered her glasses, and gave him a slow, appraising look. He was impeccably dressed, radiating an air of status, but the dark circles under his eyes and his frantic energy made him look entirely out of place in the cramped lobby.

"Ms. Cole?" The woman pondered for a moment, then shook her head. "She only stayed one night. Checked out at dawn."

Callahan’s heart sank. "Did she say where she was going? Did she leave any contact info?"

The woman set her paper aside. Her tone sharpened, laced with suspicion. "Who are you to her?"

Callahan faltered, answering on instinct. "I’m her fiancé."

"Fiancé?" The woman’s lips curled in a sneer. She swept her gaze over him, her eyes cold. "I was on duty the night she checked in. When she walked through that door, she couldn't even stand straight. Her face was flushed, she was clutching her forehead, and she wouldn't stop coughing. I asked if she needed a doctor, but she just shook her head and said she was fine. Just tired."

The woman’s look grew colder. "Later that night, I heard someone crying. It was soft, but it went on for hours. I went to check and found her huddled at the end of the hall, hugging her knees, shaking. I brought her a cup of tea, but her hands were like ice. She couldn't even say thank you. She just kept sobbing."

Callahan stood rooted to the floor. Every word from the woman was like a jagged blade of ice, twisting deep in his chest.

Feverish. Coughing. Huddled in a corner, alone, crying.

"And..." Callahan’s voice trembled, raspy and raw. "What happened to her after that?"

The woman looked away. "The next morning, before sunrise, she dragged her suitcase out and left. Her face was paper-white. She looked like the wind could knock her over." She met his gaze. "Young man, I can tell you’re a man of means. But that girl... there was no light left in her eyes. She was shattered. If you really care about her, stop looking. Give her a way out—and give yourself one, too."

Stop looking.

Give her a way out.

Callahan stood in the doorway of the dim, foreign hostel. The late-autumn wind whipped into his open collar, but the cold paralyzing him came from the suffocating panic rising from the depths of his soul.

The woman’s words felt like a final sentence.

He hadn't just lost Maya. He’d lost the light in the eyes of the girl who had once been entirely his—the girl who would be happy for days just because he’d smiled at her once.

But how could he stop?

If he couldn't find her, he’d spend the rest of his life in a living hell.

Callahan forced himself to focus. He leveraged every connection he had in Canada, contacted local business associations, hired the best private investigators, and even turned to illicit channels to track her through medical records.

But Maya was a drop of water in an ocean. She had vanished without a trace, as if she’d prepared for this—cutting every thread that could lead back to her. That hostel had likely been a deliberate red herring.

Just as he reached the brink of despair, his phone rang. An international call from Alexandria Rodriguez.

Her voice on the other end was a carefully practiced, soft-hearted sob, layered with a trace of subtle probing. "Callahan? When are you coming back? The house feels so empty without you. Mom and Dad have been so distracted lately... they keep bringing up Maya. Are... are you still thinking about her?"

If this had been before, hearing her voice—so vulnerable, so reliant—he might have offered a few words of comfort.

But right now, his mind was trapped in the image of Maya’s pale, broken face. Alexandria’s performance filled him with a surge of cold, visceral disgust.

"I'm busy," he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion.