Victoria clung to the daughter she thought was dead, her tears soaking Emma’s ruined white lace. A collective gasp rippled through the two hundred guests. Adrian stumbled back, his face pale as he processed the horrific reality: he had been moments away from marrying his own sister.
But as Victoria sobbed into her neck, Emma’s hysterics vanished. The trembling stopped. Her panicked, tear-stained face instantly cooled into a mask of chilling composure.
Slowly, Emma’s arms wrapped around the older woman, pulling her in impossibly tight.
“You always were a terrible actress, Victoria,” Emma whispered, her voice a deadly hiss only the bride and her ‘mother’ could hear.
Victoria froze, the breath leaving her lungs. She tried to pull back, but Emma’s grip was like iron, her manicured nails digging into Victoria’s spine.
“I found the orphanage,” Emma murmured. She kept a bright, emotional smile plastered on her face for the stunned crowd, but her words were laced with venom. “I found the blackmail letters. You didn’t lose a baby twenty-two years ago. You paid a fixer to make me disappear so your husband wouldn’t find out his precious heir, Adrian, was the product of your affair.”
Victoria began to shake violently. Her eyes darted toward the flashing red-and-blue lights suddenly tearing up the estate’s driveway.
“The scar? The necklace? All real,” Emma whispered, her eyes locking onto the arriving detectives. “I spent two years orchestrating this romance, designing a dress I knew you’d tear, just to make you confess in front of two hundred witnesses.”
Emma finally released the terrified woman and stood tall, wiping away a fake tear. She didn’t come to marry an Ashford. She came to take everything.
The wedding was over. The execution had just begun.