Chapter 2: The Message

Betty had barely reached the front gate when her phone vibrated.

She ignored it.

Freddie was still inside the mansion, trying to calm his mother. Betty could picture him standing in that grand living room, shoulders tense, caught between the woman who raised him and the woman he wanted to marry.

She hated that he had to choose.

But she hated even more that Moms had made it feel like a choice at all.

Her phone vibrated again.

Betty stopped beside the car and glanced at the screen.

Unknown Number

Return the ring before you embarrass yourself.

For a moment, the words blurred.

She read them again, hoping she had misunderstood. The message was short, cold, and certain as if whoever had sent it knew Betty would eventually surrender.

Her fingers tightened around the phone.

She could block the number. She could pretend it meant nothing. She could show Freddie and let him deal with it.

Instead, she typed:

I’m not returning anything. Freddie gave me this ring because he loves me.

She hesitated, then pressed send.

The message showed as delivered.

No reply came.

Betty slid the phone into her bag and got into the car. She told herself she would not let a stranger’s words ruin her day.

But as she drove away, she kept glancing at the ring on her finger.

It suddenly felt heavier than it had that morning.

Freddie found her waiting outside her apartment nearly an hour later.

He had called twice. Betty hadn’t answered because she’d been trying to decide whether to tell him about the message. Now, seeing the worry on his face, she regretted not picking up.

“Why didn’t you answer?” he asked.

“I needed a little time.”

He studied her, then looked toward the building. “Can I come up?”

Betty nodded.

Inside, Freddie paced the small living room while she set two glasses of water on the table. He looked out of place in her apartment not because he was too polished or too wealthy, but because he carried the mansion’s tension with him.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last.

Betty sat down. “You’ve said that.”

“I know. But I don’t think I said it properly.” He stopped pacing. “I should have stood up for you. I should have told her that what she said was unacceptable.”

“You did tell her I’m the woman you love.”

“After she’d already hurt you.”

Betty looked at the ring. “Freddie, I don’t expect you to stop loving your mother.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t. But I need you to understand something.” She lifted her eyes to his. “I can’t spend the rest of my life proving I deserve to be with you.”

His expression changed. The words had reached him.

“You won’t have to,” he said.

“Then we need to make decisions together. About our wedding. Our home. Our life. Not just accept whatever your mother decides.”

Freddie sat beside her. “You’re right.”

Betty wanted to believe him. She wanted to lean into his promise and let the fear drain away.

Then his phone rang.

He glanced at the screen. His mother’s name appeared.

He silenced it.

A few seconds later, it rang again.

“Answer it,” Betty said.

“I don’t want to.”

“Freddie. Answer it.”

He took a breath and accepted the call. “Mom.”

Her voice carried through the room, sharp and clear.

“Where are you?”

“With Betty.”

A pause.

“Of course you are. I need you to come home. The wedding planner is waiting, and your aunt has called me three times.”

Freddie rubbed his forehead. “There is no wedding planner. Betty and I haven’t chosen one.”

“I already did.”

“You don’t get to choose our wedding.”

Silence.

Betty watched him carefully. She had never heard him speak to his mother that way.

Then Moms replied, quieter now. “I have spent months preparing for the day my only son gets married.”

“You’ve been preparing for a wedding we never agreed to.”

“I thought you would be grateful.”

“I’m not.”

The silence that followed felt dangerous.

Finally, Moms said, “You’re upset. Come home when you’ve calmed down.”

“I’m not coming home tonight.”

Freddie ended the call.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Betty reached for his hand. “That was brave.”

He gave a small, strained smile. “It didn’t feel brave.”

“It doesn’t have to feel that way.”

His phone buzzed again. This time it was a message.

He glanced at it and frowned.

“What is it?” Betty asked.

“Mom says she’s canceling everything.”

“Everything?”

“The venue. The planner. The invitations.” He looked up at her. “She says if we want a wedding, we can arrange it ourselves.”

Betty let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “That sounds fair.”

Freddie’s face remained troubled. “It would be, if she meant it.”

Across town, Moms stood in her bedroom, staring at the wedding invitations spread across her dressing table.

She had chosen the paper herself—cream with gold lettering. Freddie’s name beside Betty’s looked wrong to her. Too permanent. Too final.

Her phone lay beside the invitations.

The unknown number had received Betty’s reply.

Moms read it once, then again.

Freddie gave me this ring because he loves me.

A bitter laugh escaped her.

“Love,” she whispered. “You think love is enough?”

She opened her contacts and called her wedding planner.

“Cancel the venue,” she said. “And the invitations.”

The planner sounded confused. “Are you sure? The date hasn’t been finalized, but your family has already—”

“Cancel them.”

When the call ended, Moms picked up one invitation and folded it in half. The paper creased beneath her fingers.

She could cancel a venue. She could stop invitations from going out.

But she could not cancel Betty’s place in Freddie’s heart.

That was the problem.

Moms moved to the window. Outside, the garden lights glowed over the path Freddie used to run along as a boy. She remembered his small hand wrapped around hers, his voice calling for her whenever he woke from a nightmare.

He had always needed her.

She had built her whole life around that certainty.

Now Betty was teaching him to live without her.

Moms’s phone vibrated.

A new message appeared from the unknown number.

She won’t give up the ring.

Moms stared at the screen.

Then she typed:

Neither will he.

She deleted the message before sending it.

For several seconds, she stood perfectly still.

Then she opened a different contact.

“Hello?” a woman answered.

Moms lowered her voice. “I need you to do something for me.”

“What is it?”

“Find out everything you can about Betty.”

A pause. “Everything?”

“Her family. Her past. Anyone she’s been involved with. I want to know what she’s hiding.”

The woman hesitated. “Moms, is this really necessary?”

Moms looked down at the folded invitation in her hand.

“Yes,” she said. “Because if she thinks she can take my son from me, she needs to understand who she’s dealing with.”

She ended the call.

Then, from the bottom drawer of her dressing table, she pulled out an old photograph.

Freddie was a little boy in it, smiling beside a man whose face Moms had spent years trying to forget.

She turned the photograph facedown.

But the past had already begun to stir.

And this time, it might be the one thing she couldn’t control.