Chapter One

Eleanor 

I don’t think there’s a word strong enough to describe the taste of betrayal. Bitter doesn’t cover it. Acidic comes close, but even that feels too delicate, too poetic, for what it does to your heart when it detonates in your chest.

It started with the scent.

A woman’s perfume, sweet, cloying jasmine floating through the crack of the master bedroom door. It didn’t belong to me. I wore vanilla and sandalwood, soft and subtle. But this...this was unmistakably Aurora’s. My sister. The sister I once swore I’d die for.

My hand trembled against the polished brass handle. I told myself I was imagining it, that stress was making me paranoid. After all, it was my wedding day, and nerves could twist any innocent moment into something sinister.

But my instincts were louder than any rationalization.

I pressed my ear to the door. What I heard on the other side made my vision tunnel in on itself. A woman’s throaty moan, low and needy. A man’s rough, hungry voice whispering her name like a prayer, his voice. I could recognize it anywhere. 

I staggered back a step, bile scorching my throat. My lace trimmed veil snagged on the doorframe, nearly pulling me off balance. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop the scream fighting its way up. My lungs burned, but I couldn’t let a single sound escape. If I did, they’d know I was here, and I wasn’t ready to face them.

I wasn’t ready to face the death of every dream I’d ever dared to have.

I slipped into the walk in closet. My legs barely cooperated, trembling so violently I thought they’d give out. I crouched behind the row of hanging suits and gowns, my body dwarfed by the shadows. My fingers fumbled for my phone. Even in that moment, some lucid, savage instinct in me demanded proof. Receipts. Evidence no one could spin away or bury.

I cracked the closet door open just wide enough to see them.

My proud fiancé, Adrian Cole, the man I had loved for seven years, was naked on top of my sister. His muscular back flexed with every punishing thrust. The same back I had traced with my fingers a thousand times in the dark. Aurora clung to him, her nails raking red welts down his spine as she threw her head back and moaned like a p**n star.

“God, Adrian...harder,” she gasped, her voice husky. “You know she’ll never fuck you like this.”

A sob ripped free of my throat before I could stop it. I slapped my hand over my mouth, but it was too late. Adrian froze. His head jerked up, dark eyes scanning the room. For a heartbeat, I was sure he saw me. That he felt my horror as if it were a physical thing pressing against his skin.

But Aurora arched beneath him and dragged his mouth back to hers. He forgot everything but her.

I forced my thumb to press “Record.” My breath came in ragged little bursts as I filmed them, my sister’s legs locked around my future husband’s hips, her polished red toes digging into his calf, their bodies moving in a frenzy of lust that shredded what was left of my heart.

The girl I’d been yesterday naive, hopeful, eager to walk down the aisle died right there on the closet floor. She didn’t just die; she was butchered, dissected by the truth.

They didn’t love me. Maybe they never had.

The recording felt like my only anchor. A small, cold piece of justice in the storm. My hands were steady now, eerily so. I watched them finish together, heard them gasp and curse and laugh. My sister cupped his cheek, pressing a kiss to his lips with the kind of familiarity that spoke of countless stolen nights.

“When are you going to tell her?” Aurora murmured, her hand drifting to his chest. “She’s pathetic, Adrian. Clinging to you like you’re her salvation.”

“Let me get through today,” he rasped. “The merger with her father’s company closes at midnight. After that, she’s nothing.”

My lungs seized. The merger. Of course. That’s why he proposed. That’s why he pretended to love me, why he put that ten carat ring on my finger and promised forever. My father, the CEO of Whitestone Enterprises, had made it clear in the press: marriage to Adrian Cole would unite two corporate empires. It was business to him, I didn't know it was to Adrian too until now. 

They had used me like a pawn on a chessboard. And I had handed them the key to everything, convinced it was love.

I swallowed the scream bubbling in my chest. My tears blurred the screen as I ended the recording. Slowly, I eased the closet door shut. My heartbeat was a deafening roar in my ears.

I waited until their footsteps padded into the en suite bathroom. Then I slipped out, careful not to make a sound. My veil trailed behind me like a shroud. I moved on autopilot, driven by something cold and lethal that had replaced my soul.

It didn’t take long to find the videographer. His equipment was set up in the media suite down the hall, ready to edit the ceremony footage. He glanced up when I entered, his smile uncertain.

“Miss Whitestone? Is everything okay?”

I didn’t recognize my own voice when I spoke. It sounded calm. Almost pleasant. “Perfect. I would like to make a small substitution.”

He hesitated. “Substitution?”

I held out my phone. “Play this video in place of the wedding montage. When I give you the signal.”

He looked at the screen. His face blanched. “Miss Whitestone, I...I don’t think… ”

I stepped closer, my veil fluttering around me like a ghost’s lament. “You will. Or I’ll ensure you never work in this city again. Do you understand me?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. He nodded.

“Good.” My smile felt like a crack splitting my face. “I’ll be counting on you.”

I turned and walked away before the first sob could escape me. My heels clicked against the marble floor, each step a countdown to the end of everything I thought I knew.

At the end of the hallway, I stopped before the full length mirror. The reflection staring back didn’t look like me. Her face was pale, her mascara smudged into bruised shadows beneath her eyes. But her gaze was clear. Hard. Unbreakable.

I was done being the sacrificial lamb. Done being the sweet, accommodating daughter and the trusting fiancee.

Today, I’d show them all exactly what happened when you underestimated the woman you thought was too soft to fight back.

I lifted my chin, squared my shoulders, and walked toward the ceremony as the first chords of the wedding march began to play.

Let them smile. Let them think they’d won.

Because in less than an hour, their perfect little lie would explode for the entire world to see.

I was going to destroy the one thing that really mattered to Adrian Cole, his reputation.