Chapter 3

That master bedroom was the one I had personally overseen during the renovation, making sure everything was done according to her tastes. Our photographs hung on the walls, and the wedding gift I had bought for her sat on the bedside table.

Now, everything I had painstakingly arranged had become nothing more than a backdrop for the two of them to indulge themselves.

It felt as though something had lodged itself in my throat. As I teared up, a singular tear fell onto the screen, landing over the two blurred figures tangled together.

The screen went dark, leaving me staring at my own reflection in the black glass.

I was 28—the same age my mother had been when she'd discovered my father's affair. The difference was that my mother had swallowed her humiliation for the sake of appearances.

I didn't intend to.

With the evidence on my phone and the surveillance footage stored in the cloud, I stepped on the gas and drove home.

The moment I saw my mother, I hesitated, unable to find the words. In the end, I forced them out. "Mom, I'm calling off tomorrow's wedding."

At eleven at night, my mother finished watching the surveillance footage. Her fingers trembled uncontrollably. "Flynn, the footage doesn't show them going into the bedroom."

"But yesterday, the thread above their heads was connected."

My mother abruptly looked up. "You're sure of it?"

"Yes."

When I was ten, I had asked my mother why the man on the first floor and the woman who lived across from us on the third floor had a thread connecting their heads.

"Did they sleep together?" I asked.

My mother slapped me, thinking I'd learned something inappropriate.

Six months later, the two families ended up in court over an affair, and only then did she understand what I could see.

From that day onward, my mother told me never to tell anyone about my unusual ability and to stay out of trouble as much as possible.

Naturally, she also knew why I had refused to get married for so many years.

My mother closed her eyes. "Of all times, it had to happen the day before the wedding."

"No, it hadn't started just today. They've been emotionally cheating for one or two years. Last night was when the thread finally connected."

My mother fell silent for a moment before taking out the guest list. "I'll contact our relatives one by one. As for the Woods family's relatives and friends, make Madeline tell them herself."

I called Madeline.

She let it ring until the seventh time before hanging up.

Five minutes later, she texted me. "Did you get to the hotel, Flynn? Go to bed early. You have to get up early tomorrow. Love you."

I stared at those few lines of carefully disguised concern and replied, 'Where are you?'

The words "Typing…" appeared and disappeared repeatedly at the top of the chat until, two minutes later, she sent me a photo of the guest bedroom in our new home. "The hotels are all full, so I arranged for some relatives to stay in the guest room at our new place. I'll head home once I'm done here."

She lied so seamlessly that if I hadn't seen the thread and the surveillance footage, I probably would have spent the entire day worrying about how exhausted she must have been from running around handling all the wedding preparations.

I immediately sent her a screenshot of Oliver's suit jacket tossed carelessly onto the sofa from the surveillance footage of our wedding home, along with one final message.

"Starting today, you two don't need to hide anymore. Tomorrow's wedding is canceled. Each of us will notify our friends and relatives. Let's at least leave each other a little dignity."

A minute later, the woman from the master bedroom rushed out and stared up at the camera. Oliver followed behind her, wrapped in my bathrobe. "What do we do? Did he see us?"

Madeline raised her hand and pulled the camera from the wall. Just before the screen went black, I heard her calmly say, "Don't worry. I'll handle it."

…

The next morning, it became clear that her idea of "handling it" was to force me to go through with the wedding.

In the wedding pickup group chat, Madeline told the guests that I had suddenly come down with a high fever and that the wedding pickup procession had been canceled.

Madeline's mother, Bianca Shelton, brought more than a dozen relatives and blocked the hotel entrance. "Flynn Clarke, you're coming downstairs one way or another today! A groom backing out at the last minute is called fraud! If you don't come out, I'll make sure the entire city knows you've gone crazy before your wedding. Let's see you try and find another wife after that!"

Madeline never stopped her. She simply spoke to me through the door. "Flynn, put on your suit. We're going to the wedding venue. Once today is over, you can punish me however you want."

The guys had woken up that morning and gone looking for me, only to run straight into the spectacle of Bianca throwing a fit and blocking the door on the guest-room floor.

After they watched the video they'd secretly recorded and sent me, my hands and feet went cold.

I'd thought that if I gave her enough room to spare our dignity, we could part on good terms. Instead, she'd chosen to tear everything apart, using the influence of her whole family to force me to swallow this humiliation.

I called Madeline. "Don't make things difficult for my friends. I'll go to the wedding venue at eleven."

With that, I took the black suit I'd worn the last time I'd attended a funeral from my wardrobe, changed into it, put on a pair of black sunglasses, and pinned the white funeral flower to my chest.

Then, I took my mother with me to the wedding venue.

When Bianca saw me dressed head to toe in black, a white funeral flower pinned to my chest, she faltered.