Chapter 2
I cleared the ballroom.
No speeches.
No explanations.
The wedding guests left through the side doors while my bodyguards kept Vivienne and Tristan inside. Elena remained because I would not make another decision about her without letting her decide whether she stayed.
Isla stayed too.
That mattered.
She held Elena’s hand with one hand and kept glancing toward me every few seconds as if checking I had not disappeared.
I understood that feeling too well.
I sat across from Tristan.
“Start.”
He laughed once. “You think this began with Elena?”
Vivienne’s face hardened.
Interesting.
I leaned back.
“No. I think it began with whatever made you record your own mother.”
He looked at Isla’s smartwatch.
“That wasn’t meant for you.”
“Obviously.”
“It was meant for me.”
Elena frowned.
Tristan rubbed one hand over his jaw.
“Isla found the old file on my phone when Elena came back into town. I connected her watch earlier today so she could call Elena if she got separated during the wedding.”
I looked at Elena.
She nodded slowly.
“He offered to help.”
Of course he did.
People like Tristan always help when helping gives them access.
“What was the file?”
“A voice note.”
“Why did you make it?”
Silence.
Vivienne stepped forward. “Because he’s weak.”
Tristan laughed bitterly.
“There. That.”
I looked between them.
He continued.
“She tells different people different versions of the same order. If something goes wrong, she says you misunderstood.”
That sounded like Vivienne.
I knew because I had watched men around her doubt their own memories for years.
“So you recorded her.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night Elena disappeared.”
My entire body went still.
Elena inhaled sharply.
Vivienne closed her eyes.
I looked at Tristan.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At the Morelli lake house.”
Elena took one step backward.
She knew the place.
We had planned to marry there.
Tristan continued before his mother could stop him.
“Elena didn’t leave from her apartment.”
I looked at her.
She stared back at him.
“She was taken to the lake house first.”
Vivienne snapped, “Enough.”
Tristan turned on her.
“No. You wanted me to carry this for three years.”
He looked at me again.
“She made Elena believe you were inside.”
The room became very quiet.
I felt cold.
Not because Vivienne had lied.
Because I suddenly understood how precise the lie had been.
Elena had not merely been told I rejected her.
May you like
She had been brought somewhere important to us—
and shown something designed to make the rejection feel real.
