In the world of The Young and the Restless, danger rarely announces itself with raised voices or broken doors. Sometimes it arrives quietly, wrapped in fear, love, and a mind pushed past its breaking point. That is exactly how Genoa City is plunged into chaos when Mariah Copeland disappears with baby Dominic, leaving Abby Newman and Devon Hamilton reeling in a nightmare they never imagined possible.

For Mariah, the line between instinct and delusion has been eroding for weeks. Under the relentless psychological pressure of Ian Ward’s manipulation, her thoughts no longer follow a straight path. Every doubt feels like a warning. Every ordinary moment feels like a threat waiting to strike. In her fractured perception, Abby and Devon’s carefully protected home morphs into a place of danger, and Dominic — the child she carried, nurtured, and bonded with — becomes someone she believes only she can truly protect.

What makes this storyline so chilling is not brute force or violence, but intention. Mariah doesn’t see herself as a criminal. She sees herself as a rescuer.

Convinced that invisible enemies are closing in, Mariah begins planning with terrifying calm. She studies the Chancellor estate without even realizing she’s doing it, memorizing rhythms and routines. She notes the moments when Abby retreats upstairs, exhausted. She clocks Devon’s absences when work pulls him away. She watches security patterns refresh and recognizes the brief windows where the house exhales.

By the time she acts, the decision feels inevitable to her.

The night Dominic vanishes, the house never stirs. No alarms blare. No locks are broken. Mariah moves through the nursery with reverence, lifting the sleeping baby from his crib and holding him against her chest as if shielding him from the world. She whispers apologies that echo only in her own mind, convinced that love — not harm — is guiding her hands.

When she leaves, she leaves nothing behind. No signs of struggle. No clues. Not even a hint that a crime has occurred.

Inside the house, time stretches cruelly until Abby returns to the nursery. At first, denial sets in. Surely Dominic has been moved. Surely she’s mistaken. But the empty crib tells a truth too loud to ignore. Abby’s scream tears through the mansion, summoning Devon in seconds. He checks the room again and again, refusing to believe what his eyes confirm.

Dominic is gone.

The realization shatters everything. Abby collapses, terror turning her body weak as she dials 911 with shaking hands. Devon searches the house like a man possessed, calling his son’s name as if sheer will might bring him back. Within minutes, flashing lights transform the Chancellor estate into a crime scene.

Detectives arrive to a puzzle that makes no sense. Doors locked. Windows untouched. No forced entry. Whoever took Dominic knew the house — or was meant to be there. The implication hangs in the air, unspoken but heavy.

When investigators ask whether anyone had an emotional attachment strong enough to blur judgment, Devon stiffens. A name flickers through his thoughts, one he doesn’t want to entertain.

Outside, Devon makes a snap decision fueled by fear and fury. His private jet is ordered prepped immediately. If Dominic is anywhere within reach, he will find him. Money, power, and influence mean nothing if his son is lost — but he will use every one of them to bring Dominic home.

Miles away, in a dim motel room, Mariah watches the crisis unfold on her phone. Police cars. Abby sobbing. Devon issuing urgent statements. The world knows Dominic is missing, but Mariah’s expression remains eerily calm. She has disguised herself, paid cash, avoided cameras, and turned her phone on only in brief bursts to monitor the search.

Dominic sleeps peacefully beside her, unaware that his disappearance has torn Genoa City apart.

Mariah clings to the belief that this is temporary. That once the “danger” passes, she will return him. They will understand. They have to. Yet beneath that conviction, dread stirs. Abby’s desperation is boundless. Devon’s reach is vast. And the longer Mariah stays hidden, the harder it will be to explain that she believed she was saving a child, not stealing one.

Back in Genoa City, the shockwaves spread far beyond the Chancellor estate.

For Tessa Porter, the news hits like a physical blow. Dominic is not just a headline — he is the child who reshaped her marriage, the baby whose existence exposed emotional fractures she and Mariah never fully healed. The connection is immediate and terrifying. If Dominic is missing, where is Mariah?

Memories resurface with brutal clarity: Mariah’s fixation on stories of children being taken from their mothers. Her discomfort whenever custody was mentioned. The intensity in her eyes when she looked at Dominic’s photos, not nostalgic but desperate, as if memorizing something she feared losing forever.

What Tessa once labeled grief now looks like warning signs she ignored.

Guilt floods in. Walking away from Mariah had felt necessary at the time — a step back from a relationship that had grown too heavy with trauma. But now, distance feels less like self-preservation and more like abandonment. And the possibility that Mariah is spiraling alone terrifies her.

Unable to pretend life is normal, Tessa puts her budding connection with Daniel on pause. Something far more urgent demands her attention. She seeks out Sharon Newman, the one person who has always understood how trauma hides beneath silence.

Sharon doesn’t dismiss Tessa’s fears. She’s had her own unease about Mariah for some time — the evasiveness, the missed calls, the closed-off demeanor. Together, they begin piecing together not a crime timeline, but an emotional one. Receipts for baby supplies. Mentions of quiet places on the outskirts of town. Patterns that suggest not malice, but a woman unraveling under the weight of love and fear.

They make a choice that could change everything.

Instead of turning Mariah into a headline or a suspect, Sharon and Tessa decide to reach her as family. Tessa begins sending messages that carry no accusations, only care. Sharon quietly maps the places Mariah might hide, guided not by logic, but by understanding how a frightened mind seeks safety.

Their goal is simple, but the stakes are enormous: bring Dominic home before the situation hardens into something irreversible — and save Mariah from destroying herself in the process.

As Genoa City holds its breath, one truth looms over every character involved. This crisis will not end cleanly. Trust has already been shattered. Abby and Devon’s lives have been forever altered. And Mariah’s belief that she was acting out of love may not protect her from the consequences of what she’s done.

In The Young and the Restless, secrets always surface. And when this one does, no one — not Mariah, not Abby, not Devon — will escape unscarred.