Share

LILY

Author: Gemma D. Nash
last update publish date: 2026-05-03 00:10:08

The applause came back in waves, uneven and hesitant, like the room itself didn’t know what to do with what had just happened.

I stayed seated.

My hands were clenched so tightly in my lap that my fingers ached, nails biting into skin. I could hear people murmuring around me—soft gasps, whispers, the scrape of folding chairs as parents shifted uncomfortably. Someone laughed nervously. Someone else shushed a child.

I couldn’t look at Ace.

I couldn’t look at anyone.

All I could see was Alice’s fac
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • The Twisted Wedding Night   ELLA

    I heard the shouting before I understood the words.It carried upward through the house in sharp, jagged pieces—Ace’s voice low and furious, something slamming hard enough to make the walls shudder. The sound crawled up the staircase and bled into Willow’s room like smoke, impossible to ignore.I froze mid-step.Willow, reclined against her pillows with her ankle elevated, didn’t look surprised at all.Her lips curved slowly.“Well,” she said calmly, as if commenting on the weather. “It seems the house is finally telling the truth.”Another raised voice cut through the air—Lily’s this time. Shaken, but defiant.My pulse spiked.“It’s happening,” I murmured.Willow’s eyes gleamed. “Yes. And we would be foolish not to attend.”I hesitated for only a second. “Shouldn’t we wait? Let it play out?”She turned her head toward me, sharp and unimpressed. “Conflict unattended is opportunity wasted.”Then, with deliberate effort, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Pain flashed across h

  • The Twisted Wedding Night   LILY

    The kitchen lights were the only ones on.Everything else in the house had settled into shadow, the kind that felt heavier at night—thick with secrets, sharp with echoes. Alice was asleep upstairs, finally worn out after the long day, her stuffed rabbit tucked beneath her chin, her breathing slow and even when I’d checked on her one last time.That was the only thing keeping me grounded.I stood at the island with a glass of water I hadn’t touched, my fingers wrapped around it like it was an anchor. My thoughts kept circling the same place no matter how hard I tried to redirect them.Zane’s face.His breath too close.The way his hand had closed around my wrist like it was nothing.I told myself I was safe here.I told myself I’d handled it.The sound of the front door opening shattered the quiet.I stiffened.Ace didn’t come in quietly when he was angry. I’d learned that much. There was no attempt at softness, no effort to mask the force of his presence. The door closed harder than n

  • The Twisted Wedding Night   LILY

    By the fourth time I spotted him that week, the fear stopped pretending to be subtle.At first, I told myself it was a coincidence. Los Angeles was big, but not so big that paths couldn’t cross accidentally. Once at the grocery store. Once near the bus stop. Once when I stepped out of the café with Alice’s hot chocolate cooling in my hands.Coincidences happened.But by the time I saw Zane leaning against the lamppost across from the house—hands in his pockets, posture casual like he had every right to be there—I stopped lying to myself.He wasn’t running into me.He was following me.The realization settled into my bones slowly, cold and heavy. Not panic exactly. Not yet. Something harder. Something older. A memory of being watched without consent. Of having my space invaded and my no treated like a suggestion.I didn’t tell Ace.Not because I didn’t trust him, but because I knew what would happen if I did. Ace didn’t do restraint when it came to threats near Alice—or me, whether he

  • The Twisted Wedding Night   ELLA

    Nothing had gone the way it was supposed to.I sat at the edge of Willow’s bed, holding a glass of water she’d barely touched, my jaw clenched so tightly it ached. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and expensive perfume, the kind Willow favored—sharp, floral, impossible to ignore. It clung to everything. To the sheets. To my clothes. To my nerves.Her ankle was elevated on a mountain of pillows, wrapped tightly, immobile. She hated it.She hated needing help even more.“Don’t hover,” Willow snapped without looking at me.“I’m not hovering,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m making sure you don’t need anything.”She scoffed. “I need competence. That seems to be in short supply.”The words stung, even though I deserved them.This—this—was not how things were meant to turn out.I’d planned it carefully. Thought it through. A minor accident. An inconvenience. Lily sidelined just long enough to miss the play. No drama. No suspicion.Instead, Willow had been the one on the floor, her

  • The Twisted Wedding Night   ACE

    The moment Lily stood up, I knew something was wrong.Not wrong in the way I usually measured danger—not a threat, not a calculation gone sideways—but something deeper. Something internal. She didn’t look startled or embarrassed or even angry. She looked… hollow. Like the sound had been knocked out of her.She didn’t look at me.She didn’t look at anyone.She just walked.For half a second, instinct screamed at me to follow her. To get up, reach out, call her name. My body even leaned forward in my seat, already preparing to move.Then I felt a small hand slip into mine.“Papa?” Alice whispered.I froze.The auditorium was still buzzing—whispers, applause restarting in uneven claps, parents standing, teachers herding children back into lines—but in that moment, the world narrowed to the weight of my daughter’s hand in mine.I couldn’t leave her.Not now. Not after what she’d just done. Not after what she’d just said.I squeezed her hand gently. “I’m here,” I murmured, forcing my voice

  • The Twisted Wedding Night   LILY

    For a moment, I wondered if I was hallucinating.Grief had a way of bending reality, of pulling old ghosts out of dark corners and dressing them up like flesh and bone. Zane standing there—hands in his coat pockets, posture relaxed, expression almost fond—felt impossible. Like my mind had finally broken under the weight of everything it had been carrying.But he took another step toward me.And the sound of his shoes against the pavement was real.“Lily,” he said again, softer this time, like he was afraid I might bolt. “You look… different.”That was when I knew this wasn’t a dream.I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “You don’t.”His smile twitched. “You always were dramatic.”The words hit like a slap.Three years vanished in an instant.I could smell the private club again. Feel the confusion. The fear. The way my world had collapsed in stages, each worse than the last. My hands shook at my sides, but I didn’t step back.“I asked you a question,” I said. “What the fuck are you doi

  • The Twisted Wedding Night   LILY

    By the time Emma pulled the car into our small driveway, the adrenaline had long drained out of my body. What remained was a dull, dragging exhaustion that sat heavy in my bones, like someone had filled my limbs with wet sand.My legs still trembled when I stepped out, and my head swam. I blamed th

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-20
  • The Twisted Wedding Night   LILY

    The night air felt colder than I expected.Not the kind of cold that bit at your skin, but the kind that sank deeper, into your ribs, into your spine, into the places exhaustion already carved hollow.My backpack weighed almost nothing, yet my shoulders ached as if I’d carried my entire life inside

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-20
  • The Twisted Wedding Night   ACE

    I walked through the front door, letting the click of it closing behind me echo in the empty foyer. It was quiet and the silence felt wrong. The house had a rhythm, one I knew intimately, and this stillness was off-beat. My eyes immediately found Margaret, standing stiffly near the desk, her postur

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-28
  • The Twisted Wedding Night   ACE

    The footage played without sound.I preferred it that way.The camera angle was wide, fixed high above the park, designed to observe rather than participate. Children moved like scattered pieces on a board—erratic, unpredictable. Parents hovered at the edges, distracted, careless. And at the center

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-24
More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status