Chapter 2 - The Shattered Mirror
Steven Daniels burst through the front door of the penthouse at 9:42 PM, reeking of expensive scotch and the freezing drizzle he hadn't bothered to shield himself from.
“Angela!”
His voice echoed off the cavernous double-height ceilings of the foyer. The apartment was pitch-black except for the city lights cutting across the marble.
“Angela, answer me!”
He had abandoned Sloane at Bellamy’s the second he realized the sheer catastrophic gravity of Angela’s exit. Sloane had protested, her lacquered hand catching his sleeve, purring that Angela was simply being dramatic, that wives always made threats before settling for a larger townhouse or an increased allowance. Steven had ripped his arm away with such sudden violence that Sloane’s champagne flute had overturned, spilling Vintage Dom Pérignon across the white damask cloth.
He had sprinted three blocks in the Chicago cold before his driver managed to pull the Maybach alongside him.
The penthouse was suffocatingly quiet.
“Angela!”
He threw his coat onto the Italian sofa and marched down the hallway toward the master suite. The door was ajar. When he flicked on the recessed lighting, the sterile perfection of the room struck him like a physical blow.
Nothing was overturned. There were no shredded clothes, no smashed mirrors, no tear-stained letters written in frantic script.
Then he saw the valet tray.
Steven took two slow, cautious steps forward, his heart hammering against his ribs in a cadence he hadn't experienced since his company went public. On the dark polished walnut lay the five-carat diamond ring. Next to it was the simple platinum band he had slipped onto her finger in a sun-drenched chapel five years ago, promising before God and two hundred witnesses to love and honor her until death.
Underneath the metal rested the single sheet of his own stationery.
*You are finally free.*
“No,” Steven muttered. The word tore from his throat, dry and cracked. “No, no, no.”
He pulled open her side of the closet. The couture dresses were still hanging in pristine rows. The Birkin bags sat undisturbed on their suede-lined shelves. Her collection of Italian leather heels remained aligned with mathematical precision.
She hadn't taken the things that defined Mrs. Steven Daniels. She had discarded them like costume jewelry after a play had closed.
He yanked his phone from his pocket and hit speed dial.
“Mark,” Steven barked into the receiver the second the line connected.
“Mr. Daniels? It’s nearly ten on a Friday—”
“I don’t give a damn what time it is,” Steven snarled, his voice cracking with an edge his chief of security had never heard before. “Angela has left the penthouse. Her phone is off. I want her located. Now.”
A beat of hesitation on the other end. “Sir, did Mrs. Daniels take her car? The Range Rover is registered with GPS tracking—”
“Check the garage!” Steven shouted, striding back toward the living room with frantic, uneven steps. He pressed the intercom button connecting to the building's basement. “Hector! Is my wife’s car downstairs?”
“Yes, Mr. Daniels,” the doorman replied instantly, his voice guarded. “Mrs. Daniels left on foot about forty-five minutes ago. She had a small travel bag. She took a street cab heading south.”
Steven’s hand tightened around the phone until the metal casing groaned. “Did she say where she was going?”
“No, sir. She only asked me to hold any couriers.”
Steven disconnected the intercom and brought the phone back to his ear. “Mark. Pull city traffic cams around the Gold Coast from 8:45 PM onward. Find that cab’s medallion number. Trace its drop-off point. Check all private jet charters out of O’Hare and Midway. Check commercial flights, Amtrak, rental car agencies. I want her bank accounts monitored for every transaction.”
“Understood, Mr. Daniels. We’ll flag her credit cards immediately.”
“Do it.”
Steven dropped the phone onto the kitchen island. He walked to the vast glass wall overlooking Lake Michigan. The black water stretched endlessly into the night, capped with white foam beneath the gale.
He stared at his own reflection in the glass. He saw the sharply tailored suit, the custom cuff links, the jawline that financial magazines praised as the embodiment of modern American capitalism.
And he saw a man whose house had turned into an empty mausoleum in the span of thirty minutes.
*“She is not my mistress,”* he had told Angela at the restaurant.
It was a technical truth that felt like the foulest lie in human history. Sloane Mercer was the daughter of Senator Thomas Mercer, the primary gatekeeper for the federal regulatory approval Daniels Global needed for their twelve-billion-dollar infrastructure buyout. Steven had played the game. He had allowed Sloane to flirt, had leaned into her vanity, had let her believe he was captivated by her runway allure because her father watched how Steven treated his daughter.
Tonight’s dinner had been supposed to seal the final introduction to the regulatory board.
*Then why was your thumb stroking the inside of her wrist?*
The question hit him like a bullet. Steven buried his face in his hands. He couldn't lie to the reflection in the glass. He had liked the thrill. He had liked having the most photographed woman in the country looking at him with naked hunger, validating that even with all his wealth, he was still dangerous, still desirable.
He had sacrificed the only woman who had ever loved him for who he was when he had nothing—all to feed an ego that had never known when to stop consuming.
His phone chimed. It was Mark.
“Mr. Daniels. We tracked the cab.”
Steven straightened instantly. “Where did she get out?”
“Union Station. But she didn't buy a ticket using any of her credit cards or bank accounts. She hasn't touched the joint accounts, her personal checking, or the emergency reserves. Sir... she’s completely off-grid. If she bought a ticket with cash, there are forty-two trains departing between nine and midnight.”
Steven felt the room tilt beneath his feet. “Then pull the station security footage. Check every platform.”
May you like
“We’re working on the warrants and station cooperation now, but it will take hours. Mr. Daniels... I think your wife knew exactly what she was doing. She didn't run away in a panic. She disappeared.”
***
