Chapter Three
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One week after her flight lifted off from Miami, Elizabeth sat at the small wooden dining table of a sublet apartment in the Heartlands of Singapore, staring at a meticulously formatted spreadsheet on her laptop screen.
She’d managed to sell off her new watches and jewelry, taking a loss, but still walked away with nearly seventy thousand dollars.
She had eighty thousand sitting in front of her and it was a substantial amount of money by almost any standard.
In most parts of the world, that sum could buy a small home or fund a comfortable life for years. But Singapore, as she quickly realized during her first few days of navigating its gleaming avenues, was one of the most expensive city-states on the planet.
If she spent carelessly, that money would evaporate before the month was out.
For the first time in her life, Elizabeth was running her own finances without her father’s black card or husband’s backing. And surprisingly, she loved the autonomy.
She carefully budgeted every single dollar and had bypassed the glittering luxury condos of Orchard Road and found herself a cosy, fully furnished HDB sublet. It was compact, quiet and tucked away from the sprawling tourist hubs and she was absolutely in love with it.
It was homey, unlike the cold mausoleum she shared with her husband back in Miami.
She registered for a local prepaid SIM, bought a transit card for the subway system and resolved to live like a local.
She had a single, burning mission: complete and total transformation.
Elizabeth had enrolled in an intensive, customized weight-loss and physical conditioning program at an independent high-performance gym in her neighbourhood. It was rigorous, unforgiving and exactly what she needed.
Every morning at six o’clock, she was on the treadmills, pushing through high-intensity interval training, lifting weights under the watchful eye of a strict local trainer and drenching sweat all over her clothes until her muscles were screaming.
She changed her diet completely, cutting out processed sugars and emotional comfort food. Instead, she threw herself into the vibrant, healthy side of Singapore’s legendary food scene.
She explored the local hawker centres, discovering new foods that included local delicacies like grilled sambal fish, curries, and steamed chicken rice packed with herbs and spices.
As the weeks quickly flew by, her body began to change rapidly. The heavy frame that she’d come to be associated with began to shed weight.
Her posture shifted and her jawline tightened, revealing high, elegant cheekbones that had spent years hidden behind her soft cheeks.
Her skin took on a healthy, sun-kissed glow from her daily walks through the city’s lush botanical gardens complemented by the many spa treatments she’d recently indulged in.
Every time her lungs burned on the rowing machine or her legs trembled under a heavy squat rack, she remembered the cruel, mocking laughter of Sebastian and his wealthy friends floating through the terrace curtain.
Fatter, you mean? Saddle you with his ugly daughter.
Those words were no longer a source of tears; they were fuel. She was going to forge herself into someone unrecognizable. By the time she ever set foot back in that vain, superficial city filled with shallow people, no one, least of all Sebastian Moore, would ever dare to look down on her again.
Meanwhile, back home in Miami, the search for the missing heiress was reaching a fever pitch.
Front pages splashed Elizabeth’s face beneath bold, sensationalized headlines, while televised press conferences showed her father looking grim and defiant.
Search parties combed the coastline while private investigators questioned every contact in her address book and the local news churned out endless theories, turning Beth’s disappearance into the city’s most captivating mystery.
When Elizabeth vanished, she had done so with a terrifying, surgical efficiency. She cut off contact with every person she had ever known, erased her digital footprint and dropped off the face of the earth.
Initial annoyance on Sebastian’s part had quickly turned into concern, which then spiralled into sheer terror as the days ticked by with zero sign of her. He had pulled every string he had, hiring high-priced private detectives and hounding the police department around the clock
A massive, high-stakes search effort launched across South Florida. Arthur spared no expense, hiring elite private investigators, former FBI agents, and forensic accountants to trace his only child.
They pulled security feeds, audited credit card transactions and monitored flight manifests. But because Elizabeth had paid for her ticket in cash at a busy airport terminal and used a burner identity upon arrival in Asia, her trail ended abruptly where she had stepped into an unmarked taxi.
With no leads, no phone activity and a total blackout from a woman who had never spent a single night away from home without calling her father, the narrative shifted rapidly.
Everyone, from law enforcement and the media to Arthur himself, began to suspect Sebastian of foul play.
The media caught wind of the story within forty-eight hours. News outlets ran endless prime-time specials on the mystery: Where is Elizabeth Murray?
Headline after headline splashed pictures of the handsome, rising fintech CEO beside his plain, missing wife. Commentators picked apart their marriage, questioning why a young, wealthy tech prodigy would stay married to an unattractive heiress unless there was a dark motive beneath the surface.
Sebastian found himself hauled into police station interrogation rooms, sitting beneath harsh fluorescent lights while homicide detectives grilled him for hours.
They asked about their marriage, his company funding, his prenup and his whereabouts on the night of the Four Seasons gala. The public scrutiny was brutal. Paparazzi camped outside his condo building, shoving microphones in his face every time he stepped outside.
Every finger in Miami was pointing directly at him. They thought he had killed her. They believed he had murdered his heiress wife to inherit her fortune or free himself from her family’s thumb before disposing of her body in the ocean.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, but it didn’t matter to the general public. Elizabeth was the perfect victim. A devoted wife, the sweet girl next door, saddled with an asshole for a husband.
One month passed and nothing was forthcoming. The police searches turned up zero bodies and zero evidence.
Then two months passed, and the whispers grew louder in every room Sebastian walked into.
Before anyone knew it, they were marking three months since Elizabeth’s disappearance. The media’s fascination hadn’t waned; if anything, it had mutated into a grotesque, daily true-crime spectacle.
At this point, federal authorities were deeply involved, and Sebastian remained the prime suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation.
The cruellest part of the entire spectacle was the knowledge that Elizabeth was somewhere out there, completely unharmed, while his life imploded.
He needed to find her, and fast, before he was made to pay for a crime he hadn’t committed.
He had already paid a steep price for her little vanishing act.
PayVault suffered massive fallout. The company’s planned public stock offering was officially cancelled by the board so they could deal with the catastrophic PR fallout and legal nightmare.
Investors pulled back and potential partners stopped returning his calls, and the empire he had sold his soul to build began to shake at its foundation.
One afternoon during the fourth month of her absence, Sebastian was summoned to a private lunch at Arthur’s waterfront estate in Star Island.
When he arrived, he was directed to the dining room where Arthur sat at the head of the long table, looking ten years older than he had at the gala. His hair was entirely white, his eyes were bloodshot and the immense power he usually projected was wrapped in a dangerous, volatile grief.
She had done this! Sebastian thought bitterly, his jaw clenching.
Sebastian sat across from him, looking equally worn. The sharp, immaculate tech poster-boy had lost weight with dark circles around eyes. His jaw was set in a tight, defensive line.
Arthur didn’t touch his food. He stared at Sebastian across the polished mahogany table for three full minutes before speaking in a low, gravelly voice.
“Tell me,” Arthur said, his eyes burning into Sebastian’s face. “Did you kill my daughter?”
“No,” Sebastian answered, his voice raw. “I swear to you, Arthur. I didn’t.”
Arthur slammed his palm on the table, making the fine china rattle. “Then where is she? People don’t just evaporate, Sebastian! My daughter just vanished. How do you explain that?”
“I don’t know!” Sebastian snapped back, running a trembling hand through his hair. “The last time I spoke to her at the party, she was headed to the reception desk. She told me she had a headache.”
Arthur leaned forward, resting his heavy forearms on the table.
“My private investigator spoke to the hotel staff again yesterday. A worker claimed she was spotted walking in the garden after going to the service station. And another worker claimed to see her on the terrace right before she vanished.”
Sebastian froze. The colour drained from his face as a sudden, sickening realization slammed into his chest.
“The terrace?” Sebastian repeated softly.
“Yes,” Arthur said, his sharp eyes narrowing as he caught Sebastian’s sudden change in demeanour. “Why?”
“Uh...” Sebastian stammered, lost for words. His throat felt like sandpaper.
He distinctly remembered the exact conversation that had taken place next to that terrace.
He remembered Carter laughing. He remembered mocking her frame and dropping the brutal truths: Fatter, you mean?
I had no choice. Start-up funding was contingent on me marrying her.
I got a vasectomy a week before I married her.