The Media Firestorm.

Sandra's Pov

The rain came out of nowhere, or maybe it had been falling the whole time and I was too numb to notice.

My gown dragged through the mud at the bottom of the steps, heavy and soaked, clinging to my legs like it was trying to pull me back inside. I didn't make it three feet before the flashes started.

They came from everywhere at once, blinding white bursts that turned the world into a strobing nightmare. Microphones shoved so close to my face I could smell the plastic.

"Sandra, is it true you called off the wedding?"

"Miss Whitmore, are you alright?"

"Sandra, look this way, just one shot."

I couldn't breathe. My chest heaved, my mascara ran in black rivers down my cheeks and my hands shook so hard I could barely hold the fistful of skirt I was using to keep from tripping. Behind me, the church doors slammed shut with a finality that echoed louder than it should have.

Then my father stepped out.

He looked composed, tragic even, flanked by two security guards and a visibly shaken Dorian. He raised a hand and the crowd of reporters quieted down immediately.

"As you can see," he began, voice heavy with manufactured grief, "my daughter has been under an enormous amount of pressure. The wedding and the expectations that came with it has all become too much for her fragile state."

"Lord Whitmore, can you confirm the pregnancy claims?"

He didn't even flinch. "My daughter is unwell… Severely so. We believe she is suffering from stress induced psychosis and the family is taking immediate steps to have her institutionalized for her own safety and protection."

The words hit me like a bucket of ice water. Psychosis? He was going to lock me away?

Somewhere in the crowd a woman gasped, and a man beside her muttered something about how sad it was, how these rich families always cracked under pressure eventually. They were eating it up. Literally every word my father fed them, they swallowed whole, and I understood in that moment just how thoroughly he had already won.

Dorian stepped forward next, playing his part beautifully, eyes glassy like he was fighting back tears. "I love Sandra," he said, voice cracking on cue. "All I want is for her to get the help she needs. My family will cover every cost of her treatment, whatever it takes."

A reporter near the front pressed closer. "Some sources are saying Miss Whitmore claimed to be pregnant at the altar. Can either of you comment on that?"

“As I said, my daughter is unwell.” My father responded. “I would ask that you be gentle with her during this difficult time, and not repeat baseless things said in the middle of a psychotic episode."

Baseless... He called my baby baseless, in front of a hundred cameras, without so much as blinking.

I wanted to scream that it was all a lie, I wasn't sick, I was scared and pregnant and running from a man who tried to put his hands on me hours before this wedding. But my voice wouldn't even form in my mouth.

Only one thing was playing in my head and eventually, my legs finally listened to the one instinct still working and I turned and ran away without looking back.

My dress ripped along the hem and the sound of my own sobbing breath made me cry even more.

A cab was parked near the corner and I threw myself at the door, yanking it open before the driver could even ask or my brain process.

"Please," I begged, shoving the crumpled bills from my clutch into his hand, all the cash I had left in the world. "Just drive... Please, take me home."

He glanced in the mirror, took one look at my face and didn't ask a single question. He pulled off.

I sank into the seat and let myself shake. The city blurred past the window, streetlights smearing into long yellow streaks against the glass. I kept waiting for the panic to ease once we put distance between me and the wedding venue, but it didn't. If anything it climbed higher, tightening around my throat like a fist.

I thought about calling Maya, but my phone was somewhere at the bottom of my clutch. I thought about calling Zadok too, out of pure instinct, before I remembered what I'd already done to that particular bridge. There was no calling him. Not after the things I'd said.

I pressed my forehead to the cold window and watched my own reflection stare back, smudged and unrecognizable, a stranger wearing my face and my ruined wedding dress.

By the time we reached my building, the storm had slowed into a miserable drizzle. I paid what little I had left and stumbled toward the entrance, arms wrapped around myself, praying for one small mercy.

I didn't get it.

Two men stood outside my door, arms crossed. Security… only that they weren't my security. Apparently they were hired to keep me out of my own home.

"Miss Whitmore, you are not permitted entry."

"This is my apartment." My voice cracked. "I live here."

"Not anymore," the taller one said, sounding uninterested. "The order is from Lord Whitmore."

That's when I saw them. Boxes. Cheap cardboard, already going soft in the rain, stacked haphazardly on the wet pavement outside the lobby. My clothes were spilling out of one and a photo album was peeking from another, corners curling from the damp. Everything I owned, everything that made up a life, dumped on the street like trash.

I remembered packing when I first moved into this apartment. Zadok had helped me carry half of my boxes up the flights of stairs, laughing the whole time, telling me I owned too many books for one person. Now those same books were sitting in the rain, spines swelling with water, pages curling shut on stories I'd never get to reread the same way again.

I sank to my knees beside the boxes, not caring about the mud soaking into what was left of my wedding dress.

I had nowhere to go.

No home. No money. No father, not anymore. No Zadok either, not after what I'd said to him. Just me, soaking wet on a curb, and the tiny life inside me that didn't know yet how badly the world had already turned against it.

My phone buzzed in my clutch and I reached out for it quickly, silently hoping it was Maya, or any kind of help at all. The notification glowed up at me.

A bank alert.

Account access suspended by primary holder. All linked accounts, credit lines and trust disbursements have been frozen effective immediately.

I stared at the screen until the letters blurred and I couldn't tell anymore if it was the rain on my face or something else.

He'd taken everything.

The money, the home, the name, my reputation, and now, apparently, my sanity, at least as far as the rest of the world would ever know.

Somewhere behind me, one of the security guards shifted his weight, bored, glancing at his watch like he had somewhere better to be. Neither of them offered to help me up or even looked at me like I was a person at all, just an inconvenience their employer wanted removed from the property.

I hugged my knees to my chest and sat there in the rain, surrounded by the wreckage of my old life, and for the first time since I'd walked out of that church, I let myself wonder if I had made a terrible mistake.

Then my hand found my stomach, the smallest curve of it still hidden beneath soaked silk, and I remembered why I'd done it.

"We're going to be okay," I whispered to myself and whoever might still be listening. "I don't know how yet but we are."

Did I believe it? Not at the moment. But I said it anyway, because it was the only thing I had left to hold onto.

Somewhere across the world, in a life I no longer had any claim to, a man I loved was probably still hating me, still believing every word I'd forced myself to say on that phone call. He had no way of knowing what it had cost me, or what was coming for both of us next.

For now, all I had was a curb, a stack of ruined boxes and a heartbeat only I could hear.

It would have to be enough.