Salem stirs with whispers of treachery. A troubling disappearance on a Mediterranean cruise, furtive meetings in shadowed mansions, and the rumble of a clandestine lab all point toward one unnerving possibility: EJ DiMera—the family fixer with charm and a cold edge—might have crossed a line no brother should. What began as a frantic call from Anna about her missing husband, Tony, spiraled into a web of suspicious deflection, dropped explanations, and a chilling reminder that in this family, loyalties are negotiable.

It all started with a phone call that demanded immediate alarm. Anna rings the DiMera household in hysterics: Tony is gone. For any brother worth his salt, this would spark immediate action—rally the family, launch searches, dig into every lead. But EJ’s response was odd and offhand. He claimed to be busy, passed the grim news along through Cat, and didn’t race to the family’s side. It was a shrug where one might expect fury. At the time, it seemed callous—now, in hindsight, it looks calculated.

Theo’s investigation deepens the unease. He tracked down the man in Greece who met with Tony and learned the meeting ended on time—Tony didn’t run late, didn’t miss a rendezvous, and there was no reason he should have failed to return to his cruise. Theo brings this to the mansion, expecting alarm and action. Instead, EJ remains oddly blasé. He brushes aside Anna’s frantic calls, dismissing her as someone who gets worked up too easily, and lightens the moment with a crude joke about how he’d vanish occasionally too if he were married to Anna. It’s flippant, almost gleeful—a reaction that stokes suspicion rather than quells it.

Then the story takes a darker turn when Gwen—EJ’s recent confidante and partner in dubious ventures—drops the bomb. Gwen, who has a history of manipulating disappearances (remember her involvement in making her own husband vanish?), reminds EJ that she and he made her estranged husband Dmitri disappear in the past. She suggests, with chilling casualness, that the same hands that erased Dmitri might have had a part in Tony’s disappearance. Say it out loud: a woman who benefited from an engineered vanishing now nudges her cohort to consider doing the same for another man. That chilling admission reframes everything. Gwen’s revealed willingness to manufacture a person’s absence implies a method, a motive, and a precedent.

Speculation explodes. Could Tony actually have been made to vanish—sequestered somewhere off the grid? Was he swapped out for another DiMera, perhaps the notorious Andre, or is he being held for use in a more grotesque purpose? Enter Dr. Rolf—Salem’s resident mad scientist—who has a history of bending life and identity to his will. With Rolf resurfacing and EJ reportedly funding a secret lab, fans fear the cruelest possibility: Tony as raw material for a Frankenstein‑style resurrection. Imagine Stephano DiMera, the family’s monstrous patriarch, given new life using an unsuspecting body. The notion is ghastly, but it fits the DiMera playbook: power reclaimed by any means necessary.

EJ’s motives—even if unspoken—are plausible within that ruthless logic. He’s lost much: Belle has left him, Johnny won’t speak to him, and access to his grandson is blocked. Stripped of anchors and left with only Gwen and this shadow project, EJ could be dangerously unmoored. If resurrecting Stephano—or securing leverage through biological experiments—promises the return of legacy and control, what won’t he risk? The lab offers a terrifying answer.

Gwen’s role deepens the conspiracy. She’s not a passive investor; she demanded full plans, layouts, and assurances about how her money would be used. She was the one stuck during a blackout while inspecting the lab, which suggests she knows far more than she admits. Her earlier lies about not seeing Stefan in Alamania now look like deliberate obfuscations designed to mislead and manipulate allies and enemies alike. If she can willingly erase Dmitri, what’s to stop her from conspiring in a larger, darker scheme involving other missing men?

And then there’s Mark Green—a once‑respectable doctor whose life collapsed after legal troubles. EJ brought Mark into the lab fold, making him sign nondisclosure agreements and ordering him to follow instructions without question. Mark, desperate to practice medicine again, may have believed this was a lifeline. But the cost could be his freedom or his soul: the lab’s hinted at illegal work could send him back to prison or implic