Chapter 2 - The Six Witnesses
The police arrived before Adrian did.
Two patrol cars stopped outside the Mercer estate, followed minutes later by an ambulance. The sound of doors slamming downstairs carried through the house.
Dad put the hammer on the vanity.
Too late.
Rosa pointed at it the moment the first officer entered.
“That’s what he used.”
Dad’s face turned crimson.
“This is a family misunderstanding.”
The officer looked at my face.
Then at the hammer.
Then at the destroyed gown.
“I don’t think so, sir.”
Mom immediately changed tactics.
She became the frightened mother.
“There was an argument. Harold lost his temper. Evelyn fell—”
“I didn’t fall,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
My voice was weak, but it was steady.
“He hit me.”
Dad stared at me as if I had betrayed him.
That look almost made me laugh.
Nathan stepped forward.
“I saw it.”
The seamstress followed.
“So did I.”
Then the florist.
The caterers.
Rosa.
One by one, the room my parents had controlled for decades stopped belonging to them.
Paramedics examined me.
The injury looked frightening, but I could see normally. The medic told me I needed imaging and stitches, and possibly a specialist depending on the swelling.
I should have been terrified about the wedding.
Instead, I kept thinking about Grandmother.
Dad was escorted downstairs.
Mother followed the officers, demanding lawyers.
Chloe remained behind.
For a moment, we were alone except for the paramedics.
She looked at the floor.
“I didn’t know he would actually hit you.”
I stared at her.
“But you knew there was a plan.”
Silence.
“You wore my robe.”
Her eyes filled.
“Mom told me to.”
“You’re twenty-six.”
“I know.”
“Then stop talking like you’re six.”
She recoiled.
I had spent my entire life protecting Chloe.
When she crashed Dad’s car at seventeen, I said I had borrowed it.
When she dropped out of college for a semester, I convinced our parents to let her return.
When she accumulated nearly eighty thousand dollars in credit-card debt, I helped her negotiate repayment.
Every rescue had taught her the same lesson.
Someone else would absorb the consequences.
Not anymore.
“What was the plan?” I asked.
Chloe shook her head.
“Tell me.”
“Mom thought if Adrian saw you injured…”
Her voice disappeared.
“He’d what?”
“She said men like Adrian can have anyone.”
I felt sick.
“And you believed he would choose you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
She finally looked at me.
“For once, I wanted something you had.”
That sentence told me everything.
An hour later, I was being taken to the hospital when a black sedan shot through the estate gates.
The rear door opened before the vehicle fully stopped.
Adrian stepped out.
He saw the ambulance.
Then he saw me.
I had never seen his face lose color that quickly.
“Evelyn.”
He ran.
The paramedic tried to stop him.
I reached out.
“Let him.”
Adrian climbed into the ambulance and took my hand.
He didn’t ask whether the wedding was canceled.
He didn’t ask how badly my face was damaged.
He asked one question.
“Can you see me?”
“Yes.”
His eyes closed briefly.
When they opened, they were wet.
“Good.”
He kissed my fingers.
“We can deal with everything else.”
At the hospital, doctors confirmed that the injury was serious but treatable. No skull fracture. No damage to my eye. I needed stitches and would have significant bruising.
Adrian stayed.
Hours later, when we were alone, I finally said it.
“The wedding.”
“We’re still getting married.”
I looked at him.
“My face—”
“Is your face.”
“I’ll be bruised.”
“Then you’ll be bruised.”
“People will stare.”
“Let them.”
A laugh escaped me before turning into a sob.
Adrian pulled his chair closer.
“I’m not marrying your photograph, Evelyn.”
That was when I broke.
I cried against his chest until there was nothing left.
Near midnight, Nathan arrived.
He carried an envelope.
The moment I saw it, my heart accelerated.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your grandmother’s attorney.”
Adrian looked between us.
Nathan placed the envelope on my blanket.
“I called him after the police left.”
Inside was a certified copy of Grandmother’s estate document.
But there was something else.
A letter.
My name was written across the front in Grandmother’s handwriting.
Evelyn.
My hands began shaking.
I opened it.
The first line made me stop breathing.
My dearest Evie, if you are reading this because your family has interfered with your marriage, then I owe you the truth about why I wrote the clause.
I looked at Adrian.
Nathan pulled his chair closer.
And I kept reading.
May you like
By the time I reached the second page, I understood that the hammer was only the beginning.
My grandmother had been expecting this betrayal for more than twenty years.
