Chapter 17 - THE WEDDING THAT NEVER HAPPENED
The Hawthorne Estate looked exactly as it had during our final walkthrough.
White columns.
Long lawn.
Glass doors facing a lake.
Six weeks earlier, I had stood beside Bianca in the ballroom arguing playfully about flower arrangements.
Now I walked through the same doors wearing my wedding suit and a wire taped to my chest.
Police teams waited outside the property.
Ortiz had cameras on every exit.
I carried a briefcase filled with fake cash and copies of the documents.
No notebook.
No originals.
At exactly six, music started playing in the ballroom.
Our wedding song.
I stopped.
Bianca stepped out from behind the curtain near the altar.
She wore a simple white dress.
Not her wedding gown.
Something cheaper. Almost mocking.
“You came,” she said.
“For my mother’s card.”
Her mouth tightened. “Of course.”
I placed the briefcase on a table.
“Give it to me.”
Instead, she held up my mother’s missing shoe.
The tiny memory card was taped beneath the sole.
“You know what Martha recorded?” Bianca asked. “You apologizing to me for her behavior. You telling me she was getting worse. You promising you’d handle her.”
“I know what I said.”
“And people will hear it.”
“Let them.”
She looked surprised.
For months, shame had controlled me. Bianca knew it. She expected me to keep protecting my image.
I was done.
“I was wrong about my mother,” I said. “I was manipulated, and I hurt her. I’ll say that in front of anyone you want.”
Something changed in Bianca’s face.
Her leverage was gone.
“You think admitting it makes you noble?”
“No. It makes me honest.”
She threw the shoe across the room.
I moved toward it.
“Don’t.”
Her hand came out of her purse.
She was holding a syringe.
I stopped.
Bianca smiled, but her eyes were empty.
May you like
“Adrian always said you were easier than your mother.”
Then the ballroom lights went out.
