Chapter 5 His Disappearance, Her Madness

# Chapter 5: His Disappearance, Her Madness

Three days after the Callista incident, Damon vanished.

No calls. No texts. No emails. Nothing.

At first, I was relieved. The night in the car after he'd slapped Callista had been tense, filled with arguments that ended with him dropping me at my apartment without resolution. His final words—"You'll never understand how far I'd go for you"—had haunted me since.

But as one day turned to two, and then three, unease began to creep in. This wasn't like him. Even during our worst disagreements, Damon had never gone silent. His pursuit had been relentless from the beginning.

"Have you tried calling him?" Ava asked when I finally admitted my concern.

"Seventeen times," I confessed, staring into my untouched coffee. "It goes straight to voicemail."

"Maybe he's just busy. He is running a corporation."

I shook my head. "Something's wrong. I can feel it."

"Or maybe," Ava suggested gently, "he's finally respecting your boundaries."

Was that it? Had my horror at his behavior with Callista finally convinced him to back off? The thought should have brought relief. Instead, it left a hollow ache in my chest.

By the fourth day, I broke down and called his office.

"Mr. Whitlock is unavailable," his assistant informed me coolly. "He's taken a leave of absence."

"For how long?"

"Indefinitely."

I tried his penthouse next. The doorman confirmed he hadn't been home in days.

That night, alone in my apartment, I poured myself a generous glass of whiskey—Damon's preferred drink. The amber liquid burned my throat, but I welcomed the sensation. It was better than the numbness that had settled over me.

My phone buzzed. For a moment, hope flared—but it was just Charlotte.

"How's the Victor piece coming?" she texted.

I stared at my laptop screen, at the half-finished exposé that now felt hollow without Damon's guidance. Without him.

"Still working on it," I replied.

"Deadline's Monday," came her swift response. "Board's getting antsy."

I set my phone down without answering and took another swig of whiskey. The alcohol was beginning to blur the edges of my anxiety, but the core remained sharp and insistent.

Where was he?

Was he hurt?

Had something happened with Victor?

Or had he simply tired of me, moving on to his next obsession?

The thought triggered a surge of pain so intense it took my breath away. I'd been so careful not to admit, even to myself, how much Damon had come to mean to me. How deeply I'd fallen into whatever this was between us.

By midnight, the whiskey bottle was half empty, and I was scrolling through our text history, reading his messages over and over, looking for clues, for warnings, for anything that might explain his disappearance.

I called again. Voicemail.

"Damon," I slurred slightly, "where are you? Just... just tell me you're okay. Or that you're done with me. But this silence..." My voice broke. "It's cruel."

I hung up, tears burning my eyes. This wasn't me. Emery Collins didn't cry over men. Didn't let them affect her this way. I'd built walls for a reason, kept people at a distance to protect myself.

Yet here I was, coming undone over Damon Whitlock's absence.

The next morning, my head throbbing from the whiskey, I dragged myself to a bar across town—a place Damon and I had never been, where no memories lurked in corners or by the bar.

"Double scotch, neat," I told the bartender, ignoring his raised eyebrow at my 11 AM order.

Two drinks in, a man sat beside me—attractive in a conventional way, with a practiced smile.

"Bad day?" he asked, nodding at my glass.

"Bad week," I corrected.

"Want to talk about it?"

I studied him—mid-thirties, expensive watch, wedding ring tan line poorly concealed. Exactly the type of man I would have eviscerated in my column a few months ago.

"No," I said finally. "But I'll let you buy me another drink."

He did. Then another. His hand found my knee under the bar, and I let it stay there. The physical contact, even from this stranger, was a momentary balm for the ache of Damon's absence.

When he suggested we go somewhere more private, I almost said yes. Almost let myself be swept away in the numbing escape of a meaningless encounter.

But Damon's face flashed in my mind—the intensity in his eyes when he looked at me, the way he'd whispered my name like a prayer against my skin.

"I can't," I told the stranger, sliding off the barstool. "Sorry."

Outside, the afternoon sun was harsh and unforgiving. I wandered aimlessly, eventually finding myself in front of The Metropolitan's offices. Charlotte would be there, probably wondering why I hadn't made more progress on the Victor story.

The story. The reason Damon and I had connected in the first place. The mission that had brought us together.

What if Victor had discovered Damon was my source? What if he'd done something to his son to prevent the story from coming out?

The thought sent a chill down my spine. I needed to finish the article. For Damon. For the truth.

Back in my apartment, I forced myself to focus, channeling my worry and longing into the piece. I worked through the night, fueled by coffee and determination, crafting what might be the most important story of my career.

By dawn, it was done. I sent it to Charlotte with a simple message: "It's ready."

Then I collapsed into bed, emotionally and physically exhausted.

When I woke hours later, my apartment was dark. For a moment, disorientation clouded my mind. Then reality crashed back—Damon was still gone. Six days now.

A wave of despair washed over me, more intense than anything I'd felt before. I stumbled to the bathroom, flipping on the light, and caught sight of myself in the mirror.

I barely recognized the woman staring back at me. Dark circles shadowed my eyes. My hair was limp and unwashed. My skin pale.

"What are you doing to yourself?" I whispered to my reflection.

Rage—at Damon, at myself, at the situation—suddenly surged through me. With a cry that was half sob, half scream, I slammed my fist into the mirror. The glass cracked, spiderwebbing outward from the point of impact.

Blood dripped from my knuckles, but I barely felt the pain. I hit the mirror again, and again, until shards fell into the sink and onto the floor, my distorted reflection breaking into a thousand pieces.

Sliding down to the bathroom floor, surrounded by broken glass, I finally let myself cry—deep, wrenching sobs that tore from somewhere primal within me.

I don't know how long I sat there. Eventually, the tears subsided, leaving a hollow emptiness in their wake. My hand throbbed, blood drying on my skin.

This wasn't me. This broken, desperate woman wasn't Emery Collins.

I cleaned up the glass, bandaged my hand, and took a long shower. Then I called Ava.

"I need help," I admitted when she answered. "I'm not okay."

She arrived thirty minutes later with food, first aid supplies, and no judgment.

"God, Em," she whispered, examining my hand. "What happened?"

"I lost it." My voice was flat. "I'm losing myself."

"Over him?" She didn't need to say Damon's name.

I nodded, shame burning my cheeks.

"He's not worth this," she said firmly, cleaning the cuts on my knuckles. "No one is."

"I know." I winced as she applied antiseptic. "But I can't stop thinking about him. About where he is. If he's okay."

"Have you checked hospitals? Police reports?"

I shook my head. "I didn't want to seem paranoid."

"It's not paranoid if there's genuine cause for concern." Ava finished bandaging my hand and pulled out her phone. "Let's make some calls."

We spent the rest of the evening calling hospitals across the city. Nothing. No Damon Whitlock had been admitted anywhere.

"That's good news," Ava insisted, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

As she was leaving, Ava hesitated at the door. "Promise me you'll eat something. And sleep."

"I promise."

"And Emery?" Her expression was serious. "If he does come back... think hard about whether this relationship is healthy for you."

After she left, I tried to follow her advice. I ate a few bites of the food she'd brought, then curled up on the couch, too drained to make it to bed.

I must have fallen asleep because the sound of my buzzer jolted me awake. The clock read 3:07 AM.

Stumbling to the intercom, my heart racing, I pressed the button. "Hello?"

No answer.

"Hello?" I repeated.

Still nothing.

It had to be him. Who else would be at my door at this hour?

I buzzed the visitor in without further hesitation, then unlocked my apartment door and waited, every nerve ending alive with anticipation and fear.

Footsteps in the hallway. Slow, heavy.

And then he was there.

Damon stood in my doorway, looking nothing like the polished businessman I knew. His clothes were rumpled, his jaw dark with several days' stubble. But what shocked me most were his eyes—bloodshot, haunted, with a wild gleam I'd never seen before.

"You're hurt," were his first words, gaze fixed on my bandaged hand.

"You're back," was all I could manage in response.

He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. In the dim light of my apartment, I could see dark bruises on his face, a cut above his eyebrow.

"What happened to you?" I whispered, reaching toward the injuries.

He caught my wrist before I could touch him. "I had some business to take care of."

"For a week? Without a word to me?" My voice rose. "Do you have any idea what I've been through?"

Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, perhaps, or satisfaction. "I only wanted to see if you'd look for me."

The simple statement hit me like a physical blow. All this time, my worry, my desperation—it had been a test?

"You disappeared to see if I cared?" Anger surged through me. "What kind of sick game is that?"

"Not a game." He moved closer, still holding my wrist. "I needed to know if what was between us was real. If you would feel my absence as deeply as I would feel yours."

"So you put me through hell for an experiment?"

"For the truth." His free hand came up to my face, thumb brushing my cheek. "And now I have it."

I should have pushed him away. Should have screamed at him, thrown him out, never spoken to him again.

Instead, I found myself melting into his touch, the relief of his presence overwhelming my anger.

"You found me," he murmured, his eyes locked on mine. "You looked for me."

"Of course I did," I whispered, the admission tearing from somewhere deep inside me.

His lips crashed down on mine then, hungry and demanding. I matched his intensity, my hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer even as part of my mind screamed that this was wrong, that he didn't deserve my forgiveness.

He backed me toward the couch, never breaking the kiss, his hands roaming my body as if to reassure himself that I was real, that I was his.

When he pulled back slightly, his breathing ragged, his eyes were darker than I'd ever seen them. "You can't live without me," he said, the words somewhere between a statement and a question.

The truth of it terrified me. This man had consumed me, had become as necessary as oxygen. In his absence, I'd shattered like the bathroom mirror.

As he pressed me down onto the couch, his weight a welcome anchor, I knew I was lost. Whatever game he was playing, whatever darkness drove him, I was irrevocably entangled in it.

In him.

And the most frightening part was that despite everything—the manipulation, the disappearance, the casual cruelty of his test—I didn't want to escape.