Chapter Eleven: Mother of the Groom, Mistress of Disdain

The ceremony was over just minutes after it started.

The champagne hadn’t even been poured yet, and already I wanted to shatter the flute against the marble floor.

I stood beside my new husband, Dominic’s like a ghost in a crown—his wife on paper, his pawn in practice. The cathedral’s high ceilings swallowed our silence, while distant applause still echoed off stone walls. Guests lingered, posing for photos, whispering in polished accents.

I felt eyes crawling across my back like ants. I knew the headlines were already being drafted: Blackwood Weds Reynolds’ Battered Bride! Pregnant Mistress or Power Play?

Dominic stood tall beside me, hands folded behind his back. His face was unreadable, carved from stone. He hadn’t looked at me since the final “I do.”

I hadn’t dared breathe. is this even real?

“Sign here,” the officiant said, placing a thick white folder in front of us.

I reached for the pen with fingers that didn’t quite feel like mine. My name—Scarlett Blackwood—flowed out in practiced, elegant script. It didn’t look like me. It looked like someone powerful. Someone terrifying.

The kind of woman I wanted to become.

But before I could revel in that silent victory—

I heard it. The sound of heels.

Click. Click. Click.

Heels, hard and deliberate, shattered the hush like bullets.

I turned. Everyone did.

And there she was.

Dominic’s mother. And I only know her from last night when Jules took it upon herself to educate me on the Blackwood family.

I still remember her words. “Evil stepmother type shit, red bloody lips because she sucks blood at 1am every midnight, sharp eyes to see your weakness, sharp claws to dig and dig into your fears so she can eat them for lunch.”

I remember laughing so hard at that.

Now? I don’t think Jules warned me enough for this woman.

Tall. Composed. Dressed in a dark sapphire gown so severe it looked military. Her hair was swept up in a coiled bun that looked like it could hold a blade. Her cheekbones were weapons. And her eyes? They landed on me like I was something she’d scrape off her heel.

She didn’t smile.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t even stop walking until she was right in front of us.

“Well,” she said, voice like frozen velvet. “I see the rumors were true.”

Dominic’s jaw ticked, he nodded his head. “Hello, Mother. You came.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I came, even though you didn’t think to invite your own mother to your wedding. I taught you better than that, son.”

Before he could reply, she turned her stare on me. “So this is her. The new bride.”

I held my ground. “Scarlett Blackwood, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She tilted her head slightly, as if inspecting a smudge on glass. “Hmm, so you say. You were literally a Reynold a few minutes ago…”

I smile softly. “Names change. Character doesn’t. I am me at the end of the day.”

“Mm.” Her lips twitched, but not into a smile. “And yet your character seems to come with quite a list of allegations. Scandal. Attempted suicide. Mental instability. And now, conveniently, a billionaire husband.”

I flinched before I could stop myself.

She saw it. Drank it in like wine.

“You must be very good in bed.”

The entire room seemed to go still.

I felt something burn behind my eyes, but I didn’t blink.

Dominic’s expression didn’t change.

Not one muscle.

“Mother,” he said finally, a warning threaded into the word.

“Oh, don’t start,” she snapped, eyes still locked on mine. “You drag this... girl... into a marriage that wasn’t planned right and expect me to play along? Spare me.”

She turned her attention back to him, voice sharp. “Do you have any idea what this stunt is doing to your name? To your company? To our family?”

“Our family died when you turned it into a kingdom of silence and secrets,” Dominic replied coldly.

Her jaw twitched.

The guests were dead silent now.

I could hear someone’s phone camera clicking—slow, eager, feeding the drama.

His mother took a breath, then smiled thinly. “Darling, I built this family. With class. With intention. I didn’t claw my way up from dust just to see you dragged down by—” she glanced at me—“a scandal in heels.”

“I’m standing right here,” I said quietly.

“Yes. And don’t think for a second I don’t know why.”

I held her stare. “Why, then?”

“Because women like you don’t survive on merit. You survive on sympathy. You spin tragedy into strategy and cry your way into power. Your pregnancy? A calculated move. Your fall from the window? Probably staged.”

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until my ribs ached.

She leaned in, voice like poison in silk. “You think being Dominic’s wife makes you untouchable? It makes you a target. And believe me—I never miss.”

“Enough,” Dominic said sharply, stepping forward.

But I wasn’t done.

I tilted my head. “I may be a scandal in heels, Mrs. Blackwood. But I’m not scared of you.”

Her smile deepened. “Then you’re stupid.”

Dominic stepped in between us. For a second, I thought he might actually say something that sounded like defense.

But instead—

“She’s my wife,” he said. “That’s all anyone needs to know.”

His mother let out a cold laugh. “Oh darling. That word used to mean something.”

She glanced around the room, then back at me.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” she said. “Men like Dominic don’t stay loyal to broken things.”

I blinked. “You mean like your marriage?”

Her smile shattered.

The silence that followed was glacial.

Even Dominic looked at me with a flicker of something like surprise.

His mother leaned in one last time. Her breath smelled like mint and menace.

“Run while you still can, little girl, you've entered a den of wolves.”

And with that, she turned and walked away, hips sharp, head high.

Like she’d already decided I was a chapter she didn’t need to read to know how it ends.

I stood there, stomach tight, heart punching against my ribs.

Dominic didn’t look at me. Didn’t touch me.

He just walked ahead, hands in his pockets, as if nothing had happened.

As if I hadn’t just been dissected in front of a hundred people.

But as the flashbulbs returned and we were pulled into another wave of forced smiles and false applause—

Something in me changed.

Something settled.

And it was sharp.

I smiled for the camera, lips painted and deadly.

Because now I knew something too.

This family may have money.

But I had nothing left to lose.

And that made me dangerous.