Chapter 4
That was why no one’s phone worked.
Guests pulled out their phones and stared at dead signals.
Murmurs turned into panic.
Eric raised both hands.
“Everyone calm down.”
Nobody did.
A bridesmaid began crying.
An older man shouted that he needed his medication.
Vanessa backed toward the altar, still in her perfect gown, stepping over pieces of the truth she had tried to destroy.
Dad turned to his security chief, Marcus, who had been seated near the back.
“Can you open the doors?”
Marcus checked the main lock.
Then the side door.
Then the old chapel emergency exit.
His face tightened.
“They’ve been chained from the outside.”
Dad looked at Eric.
“You chained guests inside a chapel?”
Eric’s jaw flexed.
“It was temporary.”
Adrian lifted the jammer.
“And this?”
“Insurance.”
Dad moved toward Eric.
I grabbed his hand.
“Daddy, don’t.”
He stopped.
Not because he was afraid of Eric.
Because he felt my fingers shaking.
He knelt in front of me right there in the aisle.
The ring was still in his hand.
The ring he had almost given Vanessa.
He looked at it.
Then he closed his fist around it.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
I cried harder.
“I tried to tell you.”
“I know.”
“Clara tried too.”
His eyes moved to Clara’s red cheek.
“I should have listened.”
Vanessa laughed suddenly.
The sound was sharp and ugly.
“You should have listened to me. I told you the nanny was turning her against me.”
Dad stood.
“No. You were turning me against my own child.”
Vanessa’s face twisted.
“I gave you everything.”
“You gave me a performance.”
Eric shouted from the door.
“You’re wasting time.”
Then he pulled out another phone.
A satellite phone.
Marcus stepped forward.
Eric held it up.
“One call from me and every file about Harlow Technologies goes public. Client contracts. Private code. Tax problems. Your father’s old offshore accounts.”
Dad froze.
I looked up at him.
I did not understand all the words.
But I understood fear.
Eric smiled.
“There he is. My careful brother.”
Adrian looked at Dad.
“He’s bluffing.”
Eric’s eyes flashed.
“Am I?”
Then Clara stepped forward, holding the torn paper pieces.
“No,” she said quietly. “But you made one mistake.”
Everyone turned to her.
May you like
She lifted the pieces.
“You brought the wrong transfer papers.”
