Beg On Your Knees: Erasing My CEO Husband Chapter 17

Beg On Your Knees: Erasing My CEO Husband Chapter 17: Disconnected Number in the System

The fluorescent lights of the telecom store hummed, a sterile vibration that grated against my nerves. I sat at a sleek glass counter, the immense weight of the last twenty-four hours finally lifting from my shoulders.

“I need to terminate this line,” I said confidently, sliding my phone across the table. “Immediately.”

The clerk, a young man with a bored expression, didn’t look up from his screen. “We can just suspend it for a small fee, ma’am. In case you change your mind.”

“I won’t,” I replied. My voice was flat, totally devoid of the tremor that used to define me. “Close the account. Wipe the cloud storage. I want every trace of this number scrubbed entirely from your servers.”

He finally looked at me, his eyes lingering on the faint bruise near my jaw. “It’ll be a permanent deletion. You’ll lose all your contacts and messages.”

“That’s the point.”

I reached out and popped the SIM tray myself. The tiny piece of plastic sat in the palm of my hand. This was the exact bridge Julian used to haunt me. Through this chip, he had sent a thousand pleading texts, a hundred threatening voicemails, and that final, manipulative video.

I pinched the card firmly between my thumb and forefinger.

*Snap.* The sound was small, but in the quiet of the store, it felt like a satisfying gunshot. I dropped the broken pieces into the metal trash bin beside the counter.

“Now,” I said, leaning forward purposefully. “I need a new plan. Something untraceable. I want a private server, an encrypted line, and a number that doesn’t show up on any public registry.”

The clerk straightened his posture, instantly sensing the lethal shift in my tone. “That’s our ‘Ghost’ package. It’s popular with high-profile clients who need… privacy.”

“Sign me up.”

Ten minutes later, I walked out of the store with a new, completely anonymous device. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, I pulled my old phone—the expensive one Julian had bought for me—from my bag. I didn’t hesitate. I walked to the edge of the storm drain and let it go. It vanished into the dark, oily water with a dull splash.

My social media accounts followed. One by one, I hit ‘Deactivate.’ Clara Vance, the dutiful wife, the socialite, the victim—she was being deleted in real-time. By the time I reached the curb where Elias’s car waited, Clara Whitmore was the only one left. And she was a complete stranger to the system.

—

The air at LAX was thick with the scent of jet fuel and expensive perfume. Elias stood casually by the private terminal entrance, his hands buried in his coat pockets.

“The luggage is already on board,” he said, his eyes scanning the perimeter like a hawk. “The flight plan is filed under a shell company. Not even the FAA’s public tracker will show your name.”

“And the orchestra?” I asked.

“They’re waiting for you in London. The tour starts in forty-eight hours. You’re the new lead soloist, Clara. No one knows your history there.”

I looked at the boarding pass in my hand. It was a one-way ticket to a life where Julian Vance simply didn’t exist.

Elias stepped closer, handing me a small, encrypted tablet. “This is your new life. Your new bank accounts, your new contacts. Julian is blocked completely at every digital border.”

I looked toward the runway, where the silver nose of the Gulfstream pointed toward the Atlantic. “Thank you, Elias,” I said.

“Don’t thank me yet. Just play your music. Let that be the only thing he ever hears of you from now on.”

I turned and walked toward the gate. I didn’t look back at the Los Angeles skyline. I didn’t think about the penthouse or the broken man I had left crying on the hospital roof. As the cabin door sealed shut with a pressurized hiss, I felt a strange, cold peace. I was no longer a target. I was a ghost.

—

Julian Vance threw his entire weight violently against the hospital’s heavy exit doors, completely ignoring the protests of the head nurse.

“Mr. Vance! You haven’t been cleared! Your heart rate—”

“Get out of my way!” he roared.

He stumbled into the California sunshine, his eyes squinting painfully against the glare. He was still wearing his suit trousers, though they were wrinkled and deeply stained. His shirt was unbuttoned, his chest still sore from the paddles. He reached frantically into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

His fingers shook as he tapped the contact labeled ‘My Life’.

*The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.*

Julian froze. He pulled the phone away, stared at the screen in horror, and redialed.

*The number you have reached is no longer in service.*

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”

He tried her Instagram. *User Not Found.*

He tried her Facebook. *Content Unavailable.*

He felt a massive surge of nausea that had nothing to do with the alcohol in his system. He lunged wildly toward his waiting town car, where Marcus was standing with a look of pure dread.

“Where is she?” Julian grabbed Marcus violently by the lapels, shaking him. “Why isn’t she answering? Where did she go?”

“Sir, please, you need to sit down,” Marcus stammered in fear.

“Where is she!”

“She’s… she’s gone, Julian. She went to the telecom office an hour ago. She killed the line. She wiped everything.”

“Find her,” Julian hissed, his face contorting with a mix of fury and pure panic. “Call the hackers we used for the merger. I want her GPS coordinates. I want her location pinned within the meter!”

“We already tried,” Marcus said, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. “The hackers said the account was purged. It wasn’t just a cancellation; it was a professional scrub. There’s no digital footprint left. It’s like she never owned a phone.”

Julian shoved Marcus away aggressively and scrambled into the back seat of the car. He pulled a laptop from the seat pocket and began typing frantically.

“The flight records,” Julian muttered. “She’s a musician. She’ll head for a theatre. Check the manifests for every flight leaving LAX, Burbank, and Van Nuys.”

“We checked,” Marcus said, leaning into the open door. “Nothing. No Clara Whitmore. No Clara Vance.”

“She’s using an alias! Check the Sterling Global manifests!”

“They’re encrypted, sir. We can’t break into Elias Sterling’s private flight logs without a federal warrant. And even then, he’s got enough lawyers to stall us for years.”

Julian stared blankly at the laptop screen. He refreshed the search for her name.

*0 Results Found.*

He felt a cold sweat break out across his forehead. For seven years, he had known exactly where she was at all times. He had known what she ate, who she talked to, and what she felt. He had mapped her life until it was just an extension of his own.

Now, the map was totally blank.

He dialed her number one last time, holding the phone to his ear as if he could force her voice to appear through sheer willpower.

*The number you have reached is no longer in service.*

The robotic voice was incredibly final. It was a digital tombstone.

Julian let the phone slip uselessly from his hand. It clattered onto the floor of the car. He looked out the window at the endless stream of traffic, realizing with profound terror that any one of those cars could be hers, or none of them. She could be ten miles away or ten thousand.

“She left me,” he whispered, the words tasting like copper.

“She didn’t just leave, sir,” Marcus said softly, closing the car door.

“She erased you.”