It was three nights later, deep in the dark, before anyone pushed open the mansion doors again.

Bruno came home reeking of liquor. He shoved Irma off where she clung to him and kicked open the door to the child's room. "Ruth, how long are you going to keep up this act? Enough already!"

But all that greeted him was an empty bed.

His heart skipped a beat for no reason he could name.

Then he caught himself. "Fine. Very good! Grown so bold you'd actually run away from home! If you've got the nerve, then go die out there and never come back!"

He strode into the master suite and yanked open the lavish walk-in closet.

Every piece of her lingerie was still there. He let out a breath.

The next morning, with one sweep of his hand, Bruno summoned dozens of servants and moved Irma into the mansion in grand style.

In the days that followed, Bruno ruled the boardroom by day, cutting and ruthless, and squired Irma to glittering society dinners by night.

Everything ran like clockwork, yet his eyes grew darker by the day, his gaze fixed again and again on his phone, lost in some place no one could reach.

By the seventh day since I vanished, Bruno couldn't stand it anymore.

He dragged Rosie back from the old house and shoved the phone up to her mouth. "Say Mommy! Tell her to get her ass back here!"

Rosie shook all over in terror and burst into wailing sobs.

Bruno's eyes went red at the corners with rage. "Useless. Is crying all you can do? Can't even call her? What good are you to me at all?"

"Daddy, don't be like this. Is that... is that Mommy? I'm so scared..."

Bruno cut the recording short and sent it.

Then, after a moment's thought, he added a voice message. "Ruth, Rosie is in my hands. If you're not back here within half an hour, you can forget about ever seeing her again in your life!"

Irma had stood beside him listening in silence all this while. She sighed. "Bruno, there's no need for this. You know how Ruth is. When she comes back she'll understand how much you've gone through for her. It's just... it almost seems like Rosie doesn't matter all that much to her either..."

Bruno didn't take in a word of it.

He just glared, hard, at that screen that gave no flicker of a reply, then dialed my number again and again.

And through one unbroken stream of "the phone is turned off" tones, he suddenly snapped his arm up and smashed the phone against the floor, shattering it.

Irma went white with fright.

She had never seen Bruno, always so steady, always in control of everything, lose his grip like this.

"Bruno, since she's heartless enough to stay out of sight, then just file for divorce! With the Gilbert legal team, you could leave her without a penny, send her out with nothing. Why torture yourself like this?"

The word divorce drove into Bruno's strung-tight nerves like a blade pulled red from the fire.

He let out a cold laugh that bordered on madness. "She thinks she's worthy of saying that word to me?"

Then Bruno went still and calm. He bent down, picked up the phone with its screen webbed in cracks, and called my mother.

The ringtone went on a long time, picked up only in the last second before it would have cut off on its own.

Bruno gave her no breath of warning, hurling the words at her the moment the line connected. "Mom, is Ruth hiding out at your place? Put her on the phone right now. I have things to say to her!"

The other end was dead silent for a moment, then came my mother's hoarse, grieving cry.

"Bruno, you soulless animal... you drove my daughter to her death, and now you're satisfied? You will never lay a hand on her again as long as you live!"

The dial tone cut the call dead in an instant.

Bruno stood frozen where he was, as though struck by lightning.

But he quickly forced down the panic that nearly broke over him like a collapsing mountain, a crashing sea.

The veins stood out at his temples, and though his back was already soaked through, Bruno stubbornly went on sending me messages.

“Ruth Stephens, so even your mother's in on the act now? Dragging your elders into this, have you no shame?

“If you really want the divorce, then crawl back here and sign the papers! Don't force me to take drastic measures and make sure the Stephens family never holds its head up again!”

The message went out. Still nothing came back.

Beside him, Irma Finch caught the word “divorce,” and the elation in her eyes nearly spilled over.

She spun around at once and hurried toward the master bedroom, eager to dig out all their documents.

But before she could even pull the drawer open, a violent, ugly racket erupted from the living room.

Like a madman, Bruno snatched up Rosie, still sobbing helplessly on the sofa, and stormed out the front door of the mansion trailing a cloud of pure menace.

“Wait! Bruno! Where are you taking the child?”

Irma's frantic shout was cut off cold by the slam of the door.

On the highway, deep in the night, the car Bruno drove tore through the traffic like a beast off its leash.

My spirit hovered tight against the back seat, my phantom arms locked around Rosie, who was nearly unconscious.

Bruno, you complete madman!

If you want to die, don't drag my daughter down with you!

The streetscape blurring past was unmistakably the road to my mother's home.

Five minutes later, brakes screaming, the car lurched to a stop, blocking the gate.

The moment Bruno stepped out, he saw the funeral banners hanging high on either side.

“No. It can't be!”

“Ruth Stephens! Stop pretending. Open this door for me!”

He pounded his fist against the gate like a cornered animal driven wild, even as his legs buckled out from under him.

“Stop using this cheap, filthy trick to curse yourself! If you've got the nerve, come out and say it to my face!”

“Enough!”

A figure he knew better than any other appeared before him.

The fury and the shouting died in Bruno's throat.

He went rigid where he stood, sheer terror on his face.