The Wedding
The first time I lied to Adrian Cross, I was standing at the altar.
I smiled at him as though he were the man I had dreamed of marrying.
As though my heart wasn’t pounding for an entirely different reason.
Revenge.
The church was filled with people who had spent the last seven years pretending my family had never existed.
Powerful men in tailored suits. Women glittering beneath crystal chandeliers. Business partners who had once shaken my father’s hand before abandoning him the moment his name became poison.
They had come to watch me marry into the family that had destroyed mine.
How ironic.
I tightened my fingers around my bouquet and looked at the man waiting for me.
Adrian Cross.
My husband-to-be.
He looked nothing like the monster I’d imagined during all those sleepless nights.
He was taller than I’d expected, dressed in a perfectly fitted black tuxedo. His dark hair was pushed neatly away from his forehead, exposing a sharp jaw and eyes so cold they made it difficult to hold his gaze.
He wasn’t smiling.
Neither was I.
Not really.
Seven years.
I’d waited seven years for this moment.
Seven years since my father had been dragged from our house in handcuffs while reporters crowded our gates.
Seven years since his company had collapsed beneath accusations of fraud and embezzlement.
Seven years since my mother had stopped leaving her bedroom.
And seven years since I had watched the Cross family walk away from the ruins of ours without looking back.
Everyone had their version of what happened.
The Crosses had theirs.
The police had theirs.
The newspapers had theirs.
But I had my mother’s final words.
The Crosses did this.
She had repeated them until the day she died.
I had been seventeen.
Old enough to understand that something had been taken from us.
Too young to understand how to get it back.
So I waited.
I learned.
I saved every piece of information I could find about the Cross family.
Their businesses.
Their investments.
Their enemies.
Their weaknesses.
And eventually, I found Adrian.
The younger Cross brother.
The quiet one.
The one who stayed away from the family’s public scandals.
The one people described as ruthless but disciplined.
The one who, unlike his older brother, didn’t seem interested in destroying everyone who stood in his way.
He was supposed to be my way inside.
I had spent months making sure he noticed me.
A meeting here.
A charity event there.
A carefully timed conversation.
A few smiles.
A few carefully chosen secrets.
He had taken the bait.
Or at least, that’s what I believed.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Adrian thought he was marrying a woman who loved him.
I was marrying a man I intended to destroy.
The priest’s voice pulled me back into the present.
“Adrian Cross, do you take Elena Vale to be your wife?”
Adrian looked at me.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then he said, “I do.”
Two words.
Calm.
Certain.
Almost too certain.
My stomach tightened.
The priest turned toward me.
“Elena Vale, do you take Adrian Cross to be your husband?”
I looked into his eyes.
The man whose family had taken everything from me.
The man whose trust I intended to earn before taking everything from him.
“I do.”
Applause erupted around us.
I smiled.
Adrian didn’t.
Instead, he leaned slightly toward me as the guests stood.
His lips barely moved.
“You should be careful what you wish for, Elena.”
My smile froze.
I turned my head.
“What?”
His expression remained perfectly composed.
“I said congratulations.”
The photographer called for us to smile.
So I did.
Because that’s what brides did.
They smiled.
They kissed.
They pretended their hands weren’t trembling.
Adrian’s hand settled against my waist.
His fingers were warm through the fabric of my dress.
The camera flashed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Everyone saw a newly married couple.
No one saw the war that had just begun.
The reception lasted nearly three hours.
I smiled until my cheeks hurt.
I accepted congratulations from people who couldn’t remember my father’s first name but suddenly remembered how much they admired my family.
I listened to women whisper about how lucky I was.
Lucky.
If only they knew.
Adrian barely touched his champagne.
He spoke to his business partners, nodded at relatives and occasionally glanced in my direction.
Every time our eyes met, I felt the same uncomfortable sensation.
As if he were trying to see beneath my skin.
At eleven forty-five, he disappeared.
No explanation.
No goodbye.
I waited.
Twenty minutes.
Then thirty.
At forty, I stood.
“Where are you going?” one of his relatives asked.
“To find my husband.”
The woman laughed.
I smiled politely.
Inside, I was relieved.
The Cross mansion was enormous.
I’d only seen photographs before tonight.
Dark wood. Marble floors. Expensive paintings. Portraits of dead Crosses staring down from the walls as though they were still judging everyone beneath them.
It was less a home than a monument.
A monument to everything I hated.
I climbed the staircase quietly.
I’d memorized the floor plan before the wedding.
Adrian’s study was on the second floor.
I reached the door.
Locked.
Of course.
I glanced down the hallway before reaching beneath the folds of my dress.
My fingers closed around a small brass key.
My father’s key.
The only thing he had left me before disappearing.
For seven years, I had carried it without knowing what it opened.
Tonight, I was about to find out.
I slid it into the lock.
Click.
The door opened.
I stepped inside.
Darkness swallowed me.
I closed the door behind me and switched on the desk lamp.
The room smelled faintly of cedar and something distinctly masculine.
Everything was perfectly arranged.
Books aligned.
Papers stacked.
Nothing out of place.
I began searching.
Desk drawers.
Nothing.
Cabinet.
Nothing.
A locked compartment beneath the desk.
I tried the key.
Nothing.
I cursed under my breath.
Then I noticed a thin folder partially hidden beneath a stack of financial reports.
I pulled it free.
My breath caught.
My name was written across the front.
ELENA VALE.
For several seconds, I simply stared at it.
Then I opened it.
The first photograph fell onto the desk.
It was me.
Standing outside my university.
Another showed me leaving a café.
Another showed me entering my apartment.
My hands went cold.
Someone had been watching me.
For how long?
I flipped through the pages.
A copy of my passport.
My university records.
My mother’s death certificate.
My father’s financial records.
Then I found something that made the room seem suddenly smaller.
A photograph from seven years ago.
My father was standing beside Adrian’s father.
They were shaking hands.
Behind them stood a third man.
I knew him.
Everyone in the Cross family knew him.
Damian Cross.
Adrian’s older brother.
My eyes dropped to the handwritten note beneath the photograph.
Three words.
HE KNOWS EVERYTHING.
A sound came from the hallway.
I froze.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Coming closer.
I shoved the photograph back into the folder.
The doorknob turned.
I stepped backward.
The door opened.
Adrian stood there.
His tie was loosened.
His jacket was gone.
His expression was unreadable.
But he wasn’t surprised.
Not even slightly.
His eyes moved from my face to the folder in my hands.
Then back to my face.
“You really shouldn’t go through your husband’s things, Elena.”
I forced myself to breathe.
“I was looking for you.”
“Liar.”
The word came so quietly that it frightened me more than if he’d shouted.
I stared at him.
He closed the door behind himself.
Click.
Locked.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
He walked toward me.
One step.
Then another.
I refused to move.
“You’ve been searching for something since you arrived,” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
It wasn’t warm.
It wasn’t amused.
It was knowing.
“Of course you don’t.”
He stopped in front of me.
His gaze dropped to the folder.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
I said nothing.
His eyes returned to mine.
For the first time that night, I saw something behind the coldness.
Not anger.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
As if he had been waiting for this exact moment.
My fingers tightened around the folder.
“Why do you have a file about me?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
Instead, he reached past me and took the photograph from my hand.
He looked at it for several seconds.
Then he looked at me.
“You’ve spent seven years believing my family destroyed yours.”
My blood turned cold.
I hadn’t told him that.
Not directly.
He stepped closer.
“And I’ve spent seven years believing yours destroyed mine.”
Silence.
The words seemed to drain all the air from the room.
“What?”
He placed the photograph on the desk.
“Seven years ago, our families went to war.”
His voice remained calm.
“Neither of us knew who started it.”
I stared at him.
“You knew who I was.”
“Before you ever walked down that aisle.”
My stomach dropped.
“Then why did you marry me?”
For the first time, his expression changed.
Something dark flickered across his eyes.
“That’s the question you should be asking yourself.”
He leaned closer.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“Why did you marry me, Elena?”
I couldn’t breathe.
He knew.
Somehow—
Adrian knew.
He reached for the folder.
I didn’t let go.
For one tense second, we stood there holding opposite ends.
Then he released it.
Unexpectedly.
His gaze never left mine.
“Keep it.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“Take the file.”
My fingers loosened.
“Why?”
He walked toward the door.
Then stopped.
Without turning around, he said:
“Because tomorrow, I’m going to show you what happened to your father.”
My heart stopped.
He opened the door.
I found my voice.
“Adrian.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Where is my father?”
His eyes held mine.
And for the first time since I’d met him, I saw something that looked dangerously close to pity.
“That’s what you’re going to wish you never asked.”
Then he walked away.
Leaving me alone in the study.
With the file.
With the photograph.
And with the first real fear I’d felt in seven years.
Because if Adrian Cross was telling the truth...
I had spent seven years preparing to destroy the wrong enemy.
