My Daughter Traded Her Wedding for a Fantasy

The bridal suite had been locked from the inside for 20 minutes.I stood in the hallway clutching the bridal bouquet, knocking on the door every few seconds. "Sophie, the guests are seated. Your dad is getting anxious at the table."There was no answer. I pressed my ear against the door. No sound of the hair dryer or the makeup brushes tapping against the counter. Nothing. A chill ran through me. I turned and shouted to a hotel employee at the end of the hall, asking for the spare key.The moment the door opened, I froze.My adoptive daughter Sophie Bennett's reception dress lay scattered across the floor, and a crooked message was scrawled across the mirror in lipstick. "I'm going to find my real family." My phone slipped from my hand, and the bouquet fell apart at my feet. Her fiance, Ethan Carter, came running from the main hall, all the color draining from his face. He held up his phone with trembling hands. It took him several tries to speak. "Margaret… the 300

In the days that followed, I sold the gold bracelet and earrings from my wedding to cover the cost of Leon's surgery. The Carter family came to the hospital every day to cause a scene. Ethan's uncle, Robert Carter, would pound on the bed rail, calling me a liar and accusing me of being part of a conspiracy. He demanded that I return the 300 thousand dollars, insisting that I come up with the money no matter what. Ethan stopped him several times, but he looked just as broken. After all, seven years of love had ended like this, on his wedding day no less. I stopped trying to explain. Instead, I hired a lawyer to draft a declaration terminating the adoption and our parent-child relationship. Then I spent three days tracing the bank transactions. The result crushed me. Within two hours of the 300 thousand transfer, the money had been split into dozens of transactions, routed through four intermediary accounts, and ultimately deposited into three overseas cryptocurrency wall

I held Liana and cried in that office for nearly half an hour.She didn't pull away or try to comfort me. She simply patted my back over and over. When I finally caught my breath, she handed me a tissue and blinked hard, fighting back her own tears. My voice was hoarse. "How did you live all these years?"She pulled a chair across from me and sat down, her legs planted wide apart, looking almost like a soldier. "After I was found, the officers put me in an orphanage temporarily. Three days later, a recently discharged detective came there to investigate a case and ended up taking me home." Her voice was calm, almost as if she were giving a work report. "He was single. As a man raising a baby, he had no idea what he was doing. I grew up on baby formula. He raised me until I was 18, and then I joined the military. After I was discharged, I entered the police academy."I opened my mouth to ask more, but she waved me off. "Mom, we'll have plenty of time to talk about that la

Four days later, our quiet life fell apart.On the fifth morning, I had just stepped outside to go to the market when I found a crowd gathered downstairs. Three news vans were parked along the street, with cameras pointed at my balcony. Two people stood in the middle of the crowd. One was Sophie. She had changed into clean clothes, covered her bruises with makeup, and made herself look as helpless and pitiful as possible. The other was a thin man in his 50s, wearing a gold chain and reeking of cigarettes. I recognized him immediately. He looked much older than he had in the police records from 25 years ago, but that greasy, sinister look in his eyes hadn't changed. He was Sophie's biological father, Daniel Mercer, a convicted drug dealer and fraudster who had also been involved in illegal fundraising. He had been released from prison just last year. The moment he saw me, he forced tears into his eyes and shouted toward the cameras."Look at this woman! 25 years ago, s

On the third day, one of Liana's colleagues called me, sounding uneasy."Mrs. Bennett, Sophie has been causing trouble in the interrogation room for three days. She won't confess to anything, but she keeps demanding to see you and Captain Reed."When I arrived at police headquarters, I watched through the one-way glass. Sophie sat in a metal chair, her messy hair falling around her face, her handcuffs secured to a metal ring on the table.A stack of printed transaction and call records sat in front of her. She hadn't even looked at them. Liana sat across from her, reviewing the case file and taking notes. Suddenly, Sophie spoke, her voice sharp enough to carry through the glass. "So you're Liana? Who the hell do you think you are? You were found in a trash heap. What makes you think you have any right to interrogate me?"Liana didn't look up. She kept writing. When Sophie got no reaction, she started pounding the table. "You're interrogating me? What right do you have?