Chapter 8 - THE WEDDING HE STILL WANTED
Christian had become obsessed with the wedding.
At first, nobody understood why.
Then Sabrina did.
“It wasn’t the ceremony.”
We were gathered inside a secure FBI field office outside Louisville.
Sabrina sat beside Leo.
Sarah sat beside Evie.
Gabriel and Rebecca stood across from us.
I looked at Sabrina.
“What do you mean?”
“The wedding venue.”
My stomach tightened.
The ceremony had been planned at Ashford Hall, a historic estate outside Columbus.
Nearly four hundred guests.
Media perimeter.
Massive security.
Christian had chosen it.
I thought because it photographed beautifully.
Sabrina shook her head.
“He used the estate before.”
“For what?”
“Private meetings.”
Gabriel frowned.
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
Christian had rented an underground wine-storage section years earlier through a production company.
Sabrina had once attended a secret meeting there.
With whom?
A label executive.
A doctor.
A private banker.
And Richard Prescott.
That last name stopped me.
“Richard?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About four years ago.”
Around the time of my third pregnancy.
We pulled old venue records.
Christian’s company had maintained a storage lease at Ashford Hall under a shell corporation.
The lease was still active.
Federal agents searched the property.
In a climate-controlled room beneath the west wing, they found hard drives.
Financial files.
Nondisclosure agreements.
Medical records.
Surveillance.
Years of Christian’s private life.
He had used the wedding venue as a vault.
The irony was almost obscene.
He had planned to marry me directly above the evidence of how he destroyed me.
One drive contained audio recordings from Richard Prescott.
Richard had apparently learned years earlier that Christian recorded everyone.
So he started doing the same.
In one file, Christian screamed at his father for interfering with Lawson.
Richard’s voice remained calm.
“You are not killing that girl’s child because you’re afraid of losing sponsorships.”
Christian answered.
“It’s my life.”
“No.”
Richard said.
“It’s hers.”
I stopped the recording.
Couldn’t continue.
Later, I listened.
Richard told him the baby had survived.
Christian demanded the child’s location.
Richard refused.
Then Christian threatened Claire.
My chest tightened.
Three years later, Claire died.
The FBI reopened her accident.
The deeper investigators went, the worse it became.
A mechanic received forty thousand dollars through a company linked to Christian’s former security chief.
No proof yet that Christian had directly ordered the crash.
But the pattern was there.
Fear.
Money.
Silence.
The attacker who burned my face was identified too.
His name was Daniel Crowe.
Former tour security.
Christian paid him through a merchandise company.
Crowe never left the country.
Gabriel had refused to help him escape.
Instead, Christian’s security chief hid him.
When the FBI arrested Crowe in Missouri, he confessed within two days.
He said Christian specifically instructed him to target one side of my face and avoid my eyes “if possible.”
That detail made me sick.
Calculated cruelty.
Christian had designed my injury like stage lighting.
Crowe also admitted an innocent man had been deliberately framed.
The arrested man was released.
I wrote him a letter.
Then tore it up.
What could I possibly say?
Sorry my fiancé chose you as collateral damage?
Rebecca suggested letting the attorneys handle compensation.
Money felt insufficient.
But it was at least tangible.
Then we found the biggest reason Christian cared about the wedding.
A contract.
My endorsement partnership with Aurelia Cosmetics.
Worth thirty-eight million dollars over five years.
The contract activated after our legal marriage.
Christian’s entertainment company received a percentage because our “couple brand” had negotiated the campaign.
If the wedding collapsed because of his affair, the deal vanished.
If the wedding was delayed by my injury while Christian publicly remained devoted, the contract could be renegotiated later.
Money.
Again.
Always money.
Sabrina laughed when she saw the figures.
“I spent years thinking he wouldn’t choose me because he loved you.”
I looked at her.
“He didn’t choose either of us.”
“No.”
“He chose revenue.”
That was almost freeing.
Christian’s cruelty wasn’t proof Sabrina was more beautiful.
More lovable.
More valuable.
It wasn’t evidence I had failed.
His decisions had been about control.
We had simply occupied different positions inside his machine.
The FBI wanted to use the wedding venue to catch him.
I hated the idea immediately.
“He knows you searched it.”
“Yes,” Agent Rivera said.
“Then why would he come?”
“Because we haven’t disclosed what we found.”
“He’ll assume.”
“Maybe.”
Rebecca watched me.
“What aren’t you saying?”
I looked at the printed message.
FINISH THE WEDDING.
“He wants me there.”
Everyone went silent.
Gabriel shook his head.
“No.”
“He does.”
“No.”
“He keeps turning everything into the wedding because he hasn’t accepted that I ended it.”
Agent Rivera leaned forward.
“You are not bait.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“But if I announce something—”
“No.”
Rebecca sighed.
“Genevieve.”
“What if I announce I’m going to Ashford Hall?”
Gabriel looked furious.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I didn’t say alone.”
“No.”
“Christian wants the old story.”
“What?”
“The bride who still chooses him.”
I looked at the FBI agents.
“Give him enough of that story to make him curious.”
The plan took three days to approve.
It did not involve me wandering around a dark estate alone.
Despite what television might suggest, federal agents were extremely opposed to dramatic stupidity.
We released a statement.
For the first time since my attack, it came directly from me.
I would appear publicly at Ashford Hall on the date that had originally been scheduled for my wedding.
Not to marry Christian.
To address the public.
The statement said nothing else.
Media exploded.
By Friday, hundreds of reporters surrounded the estate.
Christian’s fans arrived.
Protesters arrived.
Curious strangers arrived.
My face appeared everywhere.
Before-and-after photographs.
Speculation about my scars.
My surgeries.
My daughter.
I refused to read anything.
At 4:00 p.m., I stood in a private room wearing a simple ivory pantsuit.
Not my wedding dress.
That had been Christian’s fantasy.
I chose my own clothes.
Dr. Hart had cleared limited makeup around the healed areas.
I used none on the right side.
The scars were visible.
Red.
Uneven.
Real.
Gabriel stood behind me.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
I met his eyes in the mirror.
He corrected himself.
“You want to.”
“Yes.”
“That’s different.”
I smiled.
He had changed too.
Two months earlier, Gabriel solved problems for Christian.
Now he checked himself before deciding what other people needed.
Progress.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
I stared at him.
“Careful.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
That was what made it dangerous.
Something had been growing quietly between us.
Trust first.
Then tenderness.
We didn’t name it.
Not yet.
I was still learning how to inhabit my own life.
At 5:00, I walked onto the terrace at Ashford Hall.
The crowd below went silent.
Some people gasped when they saw my face.
That hurt.
I kept walking.
Cameras flashed.
I reached the microphone.
“My name is Genevieve Harper.”
Not Genevieve Prescott.
Never.
“A week before I was supposed to be married here, a man attacked me.”
My voice trembled once.
Then steadied.
“For weeks, strangers have discussed whether my face is ruined.”
The crowd remained silent.
“So I thought I should answer.”
I looked into the cameras.
“My face is healing.”
A pause.
“My life is healing.”
More flashes.
“And neither belongs to Christian Prescott.”
Somebody cheered.
Then hundreds.
I continued.
“I will not discuss evidence in an active criminal investigation. But I will say this.”
I touched the scar along my cheek.
“Anyone who believes a woman becomes easier to control because somebody hurts her has misunderstood survival.”
The applause became louder.
I almost cried.
Then my earpiece crackled.
Agent Rivera.
Movement, east service corridor.
My pulse changed.
Christian.
Maybe.
I continued speaking.
Inside, tactical teams moved.
I had one more paragraph.
“Seven days ago, I thought this estate would be where I promised my future to another person.”
I looked toward the open doors.
“Today, I promise it to myself.”
The crowd erupted.
Then a gunshot cracked from inside the building.
People screamed.
Security moved.
Gabriel grabbed me.
“Down!”
He pulled me behind the stone podium.
Agents rushed through the doors.
Another gunshot.
Then someone shouted through the estate’s sound system.
“GENEVIEVE!”
I knew the voice.
Christian.
The crowd went silent again.
He had taken control of the internal audio.
“My love.”
My stomach turned.
“You wanted to finish the wedding.”
Agents surrounded me.
Agent Rivera spoke into my earpiece.
“We’re locating him.”
Christian continued.
“So let’s finish it.”
A screen behind the terrace flickered.
Then video appeared.
Christian sat inside the underground archive room.
He held a gun.
Beside him—
Gabriel’s younger sister, Hannah.
I had met her once.
Teacher.
Mother of two.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
Christian smiled into the camera.
“You took my family.”
May you like
He looked directly at us.
“So I borrowed yours.”
