PART 2 — THE LAST VIDEO MY MISSING WIFE LEFT BEHIND

“Ethan, I’ve called you seventeen times. I kept thinking you’d answer the next one.”

My wife’s voice trembled through the speakers of my private jet.

Behind her, the screen was almost completely dark. A weak flashlight illuminated half her face, revealing dried blood along her temple and a terrible exhaustion in her eyes.

I had seen Clara cry before.

At her father’s funeral.

When our first business nearly collapsed.

And once, years earlier, when we learned that the baby we had been expecting would never be born.

But I had never seen her look like this.

She looked like someone who had already accepted that nobody was coming.

I leaned closer to the screen.

“Clara,” I whispered.

Of course, she couldn’t hear me.

The video had been recorded four days earlier.

While I was lying beside Sophia in an eighty-thousand-dollar-a-night villa, my wife had been sitting somewhere beneath the frozen Colorado mountains, trying to survive.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever watch this,” Clara continued. “I don’t even know if this phone will survive long enough for someone to find it.”

She paused as something rumbled in the distance.

The camera shook.

Clara covered her mouth, waiting until the noise faded.

Then she looked directly into the lens.

“I came here because I needed to find out whether the man I married still existed somewhere inside the man you’ve become.”

My throat тιԍнтened.

She reached into her coat and removed a folded pH๏τograph.

Even through the damaged video, I recognized it.

Our wedding pH๏τograph.

Eleven years earlier, Clara and I had stood outside a tiny chapel near Breckenridge, surrounded by snow-covered pine trees.

I had been thirty-one.

She was twenty-seven.

I had less than twelve thousand dollars in savings, a mountain of debt, and a real estate business that existed mostly on paper.

Clara had worn a simple ivory dress.

I had borrowed my best friend’s suit.

And when the pH๏τographer asked us to smile, Clara had laughed because I couldn’t stop looking at her.

That pH๏τograph had once been the most valuable thing I owned.

Now my wife was holding it in a freezing mountain shelter while I wore a watch worth more than our first house.

“You remember this place, Ethan?” she whispered.

I covered my mouth.

“Of course I remember.”

“We promised we’d come back every year. Just the two of us. No business calls. No meetings. No expensive parties.”

Her voice broke.

“You haven’t come back in six years.”

Tears blurred my vision.

She was right.

Every anniversary, I had an excuse.

Dubai.

Singapore.

New York.

Los Angeles.

There was always another project, another investor, another deal worth millions.

And somehow, the woman who helped me build that empire became the one person I never had time for.

Clara wiped her eyes.

“I rented the cabin because I wanted one last weekend to remember us before I made my decision.”

My heart stopped.

What decision?

Then she said something that made my stomach turn.

“Ethan, I know about Sophia.”

I closed my eyes.

“I’ve known for three months. I know about the apartment in Manhattan. I know about Rome. And I know you lied about Singapore.”

She swallowed hard.

“I wasn’t calling to accuse you.”

A tear slipped down her cheek.

“I was calling because I wanted to tell you that I was ready to let you go.”

I stared at the screen.

Clara had been preparing to leave me.

She hadn’t gone to Colorado to beg for my attention.

She had gone there to say goodbye to the marriage we once believed would last forever.

“I brought the papers with me,” she continued.

My blood turned cold.

“What papers?”

As if answering my question, she reached into her backpack and pulled out a yellow envelope.

Written across the front were three words.

DIVORCE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT.

I stopped breathing.

Clara looked at the envelope for several seconds.

Then she gave a sad little smile.

“I wanted to tell you myself. I didn’t want lawyers to be the first people to explain why our marriage was ending.”

I pressed my palm against the screen.

For years, I had imagined that if Clara ever discovered my affair, she would scream, demand money, or threaten to destroy my reputation.

But she had done none of those things.

She had simply reached the end of loving someone who no longer chose her.

And she had wanted to say goodbye with dignity.

Then the recording shifted.

A sudden crack echoed somewhere above her.

Clara looked toward the darkness.

Her breathing quickened.

“I don’t know how much time I have.”

The camera moved as she tried to stand.

She winced and pressed her hand against her side.

For the first time, I noticed something terrible.

Her left leg was trapped beneath a fallen wooden support.

She wasn’t simply hiding from the storm.

She was injured.

And alone.

“After the avalanche, part of the cabin collapsed,” she explained. “I managed to reach the old storage tunnel beneath it. I thought it would lead outside.”

She looked behind her.

“But the entrance is blocked.”

My stomach twisted.

I immediately grabbed my satellite phone.

“Daniel!”

My ᴀssistant answered after two rings.

“Mr. Black?”

“I’m watching Clara’s video. She says she’s in a tunnel beneath the cabin!”

Daniel hesitated.

“The rescue team knows about the damaged basement, sir.”

“No, listen to me! She says there’s an old storage tunnel. Did anyone search it?”

“Deputy Mercer said the lower structure was unstable.”

“Then tell him to send someone back!”

“Mr. Black, the avalanche risk—”

“Tell him!”

I ended the call.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the laptop.

The recording continued.

Clara had managed to free her leg.

She was crawling now.

Every movement seemed to hurt.

Then she stopped.

“Ethan, there’s something else.”

Her voice had changed.

There was fear in it.

But not only fear.

Something darker.

“I didn’t come here just because of our marriage.”

I leaned closer.

She looked toward the blocked tunnel entrance.

“Three weeks ago, someone contacted me about the land your company purchased near Silverpine Ridge.”

I frowned.

Silverpine Ridge.

One of my largest Colorado developments.

A luxury resort project worth nearly four hundred million dollars.

I had approved the acquisition eighteen months earlier, leaving Daniel to supervise most of the local negotiations.

Clara continued.

“The woman said the property records had been altered. She said families were losing land they never agreed to sell.”

My throat тιԍнтened.

I remembered Clara mentioning concerns about the project.

I had dismissed them.

She had asked why several elderly residents were challenging the acquisition.

I told her the disputes were routine.

She had asked to see the original contracts.

I told her not to interfere in business matters.

Now she was looking into the camera with an expression I had never seen before.

“Ethan, I found something.”

She reached for another envelope.

Inside were pH๏τographs, copies of deeds, and a small black flash drive.

“Someone has been using your company’s name to take property from people who don’t understand what they’re signing.”

I stared at the screen.

“No.”

Clara swallowed.

“I wanted to believe you didn’t know.”

The words felt like a physical blow.

She wanted to believe I wasn’t involved.

My own wife no longer knew whether I was capable of something cruel enough to destroy other families.

She held up a document.

I recognized the company letterhead immediately.

BLACKSTONE DEVELOPMENT GROUP.

My company.

My signature appeared at the bottom.

But I had never seen the document.

Clara looked directly into the camera.

“Whoever signed these contracts used your authorization.”

My mind raced.

Dozens of employees had access to company templates.

Only a handful could approve major property acquisitions.

Daniel was one of them.

I gripped the edge of the table.

Then Clara whispered something that made me go completely still.

“I think someone followed me here.”

I stopped breathing.

“What?”

She looked toward the darkness again.

“I saw another vehicle near the mountain road yesterday. The driver stopped when I stopped. I thought it was a coincidence.”

Her voice trembled.

“But just before the storm, someone came to the cabin.”

My pulse hammered.

The recording showed her turning the flashlight toward a narrow opening.

Snow had piled against the far wall.

Clara whispered, “I heard someone outside after the avalanche. I shouted for help.”

She paused.

“They didn’t answer.”

My heart began pounding.

“Instead, I heard footsteps.”

Then she said:

“Whoever it was came close enough to hear me.”

I felt a cold sensation spread across my chest.

She had been alive.

She had called for help.

Someone had heard her.

And instead of rescuing her, they had walked away.

Clara’s eyes filled with tears.

“Ethan, if I don’t make it out, please find out what happened to those families.”

She looked down at her wedding ring.

Then slowly removed it.

I began shaking my head.

“No, Clara. Please.”

She placed the ring inside the envelope with the documents.

“I don’t hate you,” she whispered.

The words nearly destroyed me.

“I wish I did. It would make everything easier.”

She gave a broken smile.

“But I remember the man who once drove through a snowstorm to bring me soup when I was sick.”

I covered my face.

“I remember the man who cried when we bought our first little house.”

Her voice trembled.

“And I remember the man who promised that no matter how rich we became, we would never forget who we were.”

She wiped her cheek.

“I don’t know where that man went.”

I was sobbing now.

Not quietly.

Not with the dignity I had always demanded from people around me.

I was crying like someone watching his entire life collapse.

Clara leaned closer to the camera.

“If you ever become that man again, please don’t do it for me.”

She swallowed.

“Do it because he’s the only version of you worth becoming.”

Then the recording went dark.

For several seconds, I heard only wind.

I thought the video had ended.

But it hadn’t.

At the nine-minute mark, Clara’s flashlight switched on again.

Her breathing was faster.

She appeared to be crawling through a much narrower space.

“I found another pᴀssage,” she whispered.

The camera shook violently.

Water dripped from somewhere overhead.

She moved forward a few feet.

Then froze.

A sound echoed through the darkness.

Footsteps.

Clara stopped breathing.

“Hello?” she whispered.

No answer.

Then a man’s voice spoke.

The recording was muffled, but I could make out the words.

“Mrs. Black?”

I sat upright.

Someone had found her.

“Thank God,” I whispered.

Clara began crying with relief.

“Please! I’m trapped! I need help!”

The man stepped closer.

Only his boots appeared in the flashlight beam.

Heavy brown boots.

A dark workman’s coat.

And a silver wristwatch.

Clara looked up.

Her expression changed instantly.

The relief disappeared.

She recognized him.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

The man said nothing.

Clara began backing away.

“What are you doing here?”

Silence.

Then she spoke again.

“Did Ethan send you?”

My heart stopped.

The man’s answer was quiet.

“No.”

Clara’s breathing became ragged.

“Then how did you know where I was?”

A long pause.

Then he said:

“Because you found something you weren’t supposed to find.”

The camera fell sideways.

I heard Clara gasp.

Footsteps scraped against the stone.

Then came a terrible crash.

The flashlight rolled across the ground, illuminating an empty section of tunnel.

For almost thirty seconds, nothing moved.

Then a voice spoke again.

A voice so familiar that I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Where’s the flash drive, Clara?”

I knew that voice.

I had heard it thousands of times.

In boardrooms.

On private jets.

In my office.

And only minutes earlier, over the satellite phone.

It belonged to my ᴀssistant.

Daniel.

I stared at the screen.

The man I trusted to manage my business.

The man who had contacted me about the rescue.

The man who had access to Clara’s travel information.

He had been inside the mountain tunnel.

With my injured wife.

And he had demanded the evidence she was carrying.

The final seconds of the recording were almost completely dark.

But I could hear Clara crying.

Then Daniel spoke one last time.

“Your husband was never supposed to find out about this.”

The video ended.

I sat frozen.

For four days, I had believed my worst mistake was abandoning my wife when she needed me.

Now I understood something even more horrifying.

Clara might have survived the avalanche.

And someone I trusted had reached her before the rescuers did.

I slowly picked up my phone.

Daniel had sent me another message.

Sir, I’ve arranged a vehicle to meet you at the airport. I’ll personally take you to the search command center.

I stared at those words.

Then another message arrived.

Please don’t contact anyone else. I’ll handle everything.

My hands went cold.

Because Daniel didn’t know I had watched the final minutes of Clara’s video.

He didn’t know I had recognized his voice.

And he had just offered to pick me up at the airport.

I looked toward the cockpit.

Then made a decision.

I wasn’t going to tell Daniel what I knew.

Not yet.

Because for the first time in my life, I realized that the most dangerous man in my world might not be a business rival.

He might be the man waiting to greet me when my plane landed.

END OF PART 2

Continued in Part 3 — The Man Who Found My Wife Before the Rescue Team.