All Chapters of Payback at the Altar: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

Everything was playing out exactly as I remembered it—ten minutes before the wedding ceremony.Liam Reynold's female bestie, Chloe Brooks, stumbled out of the dressing room and threw herself into the arms of Liam, who was already dressed in his groom's tuxedo.Her once-elegant bridesmaid dress had been violently torn, exposing large patches of pale skin and a clear, dark hickey on her collarbone.Clutching her neckline, she pointed a trembling finger at me, standing not far away."Emma... I always thought you were so nice to me because you saw me as your little sister. But why did you push me against the door in the second-floor lounge and rip my dress? I'm not a lesbian!"Her words dropped like a stone into still water.The banquet hall, which had been buzzing with wedding cheer just moments before, fell into dead silence. Everyone stared at me with looks of shock and disgust.Lesbian? Sexual assault? Harassing a bridesmaid? Any one of those accusations would be enough to destr

Evelyn turned her head and fixed me with a sharp stare."Look, since Liam is willing to be generous and forgive you, I'll treat this as a misunderstanding. But Chloe is an innocent young woman. She can't just suffer this kind of humiliation for nothing."Emma, right here in front of all the guests, get on your knees, and beg Chloe for her forgiveness. Also, transfer the vacant villa you own in the south part of town to her. Then this matter is settled."Evelyn lifted her chin, her tone leaving no room for argument."And don't even think about setting foot inside the Reynold family's estate for the rest of your life."What a noble, righteous mother-in-law. What a self-sacrificing Reynolds family.I looked at the people in front of me.Liam, with his fake expression of "I'm doing this for your own good," Chloe with her coy, fragile act, and my future mother-in-law's shameless greed, using morality as a cover to rob me of a house.In my past life, this suffocating combination of m

I turned around, ignoring Liam, whose expression had shifted slightly. Instead, I raised my hand and snapped my fingers toward the control booth at the back of the banquet hall."Put the feed up on the big screen."The screen flickered.Our giant wedding portrait vanished.In its place was a crystal-clear phone livestream interface, the comments scrolling wildly.The title of the stream was clearly visible: [Emma's Wedding Countdown!]In the top right corner, the live viewer count was climbing at a terrifying speed. It had already surpassed one hundred and fifty thousand people.Not only that, because the microphone had been on this whole time, the chat had completely exploded. Thick waves of bullet comments flooded the entire screen.[HOLY SHIT. My jaw is on the floor.][The groom and bridesmaids are idiots, right? They're putting on this whole soap opera and don't realize 150k of us have been watching the bride this whole time?][I'M SCREEN RECORDING. That Chloe girl is dis

I looked at Liam and felt nothing but a churning nausea in my stomach."A momentary mistake? Just humoring her? Just be honest! You were trying to have me committed to a mental hospital by spreading lies that I'm a lesbian, so you could steal my family fortune. Liam, you really thought you had it all figured out, didn't you?"Seeing that the soft approach wasn't working, the last traces of fake decency drained from Liam's eyes. He gritted his teeth."Emma, don't push it! So what if I slept with her? You really think your family is still what it used to be? Your entire company's funding is being kept alive by my venture capital fund."Liam's voice dripped with vicious threats."If you call off this wedding and ruin my reputation today, I'll pull the funding tomorrow. I'll drive your family business into bankruptcy. And then you'll be on your knees begging me to take you back."Just as he was ranting at his most unhinged, the tightly closed doors of the banquet hall suddenly swung

Liam also dropped to his knees with a thud, yanking at his hair as he sobbed."Emma, I was forced into it! I embezzled the money because I wanted to get ahead, to give us a good life! For the sake of all those years I took care of you, please let me off just this once! I don't want to go to prison!"The flashbulbs around them were going off like crazy. Business elites and reporters attending the summit had stopped to watch this absurd spectacle.I looked at Liam kneeling on the ground and at his mother, who was trying to buy off three hundred million dollars in crimes with a cheap thermos of soup. All I felt was a hollow, heartbreaking absurdity.This was the true ugliness of human nature.They weren't sorry for their greed and cruelty. They were crying over the freedom and money they were about to lose.They actually thought that bowing their heads, saying sorry, and cooking a pot of soup meant the victim should forgive all the monstrous things they had done.I lowered my gaze