Chapter 3 - Red Carpet Retribution
The grand entrance of the Downtown Symphony Hall was packed with over three hundred guests. The high-profile merger of the Reed and Hawthorne families had drawn local politicians, wealthy investors, and the cream of Southern society. The air was filled with the soft music of a string quartet and the chatter of people expecting a fairy-tale wedding.
My parents and Olivia arrived forty minutes before the ceremony, their faces tight with anxiety. When Olivia walked into the holding room, she was already wearing her dusty-rose maid of honor dress. She wouldn't look me in the eye.
"Emily," my mother whispered, closing the door behind her. "Thank God you're dressed. Nathan looks terrified. Did you say something to him?"
"Just checking in on my groom, Mom," I said, adjusting the long white veil over my hair. I wasn't wearing my grandmother's pearl hair comb. I had left it on Olivia's kitchen table.
"We need to sign those papers, Emily," my father said, stepping in. "The Reed family lawyers are getting suspicious. Just get through the vows, smile for the cameras, and we can handle the rest of the drama in private. I promise you, we will make Nathan pay for what he did after the business is secure."
"Oh, he's going to pay, Dad," I said, turning to look at them. "But we don't need to wait for the reception."
Ten minutes later, the music shifted. The heavy oak doors of the sanctuary opened, and the guests stood up. Nathan stood at the altar beside his best man, his posture rigid, his eyes locked on the back of the church.
Olivia walked down the aisle first, holding her bouquet of white roses. Her hands were shaking so violently that a few petals fluttered to the runner carpet.
Then, it was my turn.
I didn't walk down the aisle with my father. When he had reached out his arm to guide me, I had simply walked past him, leaving him standing in the foyer in stunned silence. I walked down the aisle alone, my head held high, my long train sweeping behind me.
When I reached the altar, Nathan let out a visible sigh of relief. He thought he had made it. He thought the luxury life, the corporate bailout, and the cover-up were secure. He reached out his gloved hand to take mine.
I didn't take it.
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Instead, I turned around to face the crowded sanctuary. I reached up, calmly unpinned my wireless microphone from the inside of my dress bodice—the microphone the videographer had attached so the guests could hear our vows—and turned the volume switch to maximum.
The high-pitched whine of feedback echoed through the vaulted ceilings of the hall, shocking the entire audience into absolute, breathless silence.
