Chapter 8 - The Dress Behind the Locked Door
Dominic moved in front of Elena.
Victor laughed.
“You always did that.”
“Did what?”
“Protect people before they asked.”
Dominic’s face remained cold.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know more than Anthony ever did.”
Mason raised his weapon.
Victor lifted both hands.
“I came to talk.”
“You threatened Margaret.”
“I warned her.”
“You threatened Elena.”
Victor’s smile faded.
“No.”
Dominic glanced at him.
Victor continued.
“Someone has been using my name.”
Elena almost laughed.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to look at the evidence.”
Victor tossed a phone onto the table.
Messages.
Payments.
Photographs.
All connected to Marla Bennett.
Elena stared.
“Marla?”
Victor nodded.
“She has spent thirty years convincing everyone I’m the monster.”
“Did you kill Thomas Cole?”
Victor did not answer immediately.
Vanessa’s father.
That pause was enough.
“Yes,” he said.
Elena recoiled.
“Then you are a monster.”
Victor accepted the words without protest.
“But not the monster currently hunting you.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Why are you here?”
“For the ledgers.”
“No.”
“They implicate people who will kill Elena to get them.”
“You mean you.”
“I’m old, Dominic.”
Victor looked tired suddenly.
“I spent my life believing fear was power. It isn’t. Fear is debt. Eventually someone collects.”
He looked at Elena.
“Your mother learned that before I did.”
“Stay away from her.”
“I intend to.”
Victor turned toward the exit.
Dominic stopped him.
“My mother.”
Victor looked back.
“Sophia?”
“Was she my mother?”
“Yes.”
“The birth certificate?”
“Forged.”
“Why?”
“To separate you from Elena.”
Elena understood.
Someone wanted them to believe their relationship was impossible.
“Marla?”
Victor said nothing.
Then he left.
Mason verified the document.
Forged.
Elena sat against the storage wall, shaking.
Dominic crouched before her.
“We’re not related.”
“I know.”
“I would like that sentence officially removed from our wedding story.”
She laughed despite herself.
Then she cried.
He held her.
They returned to Bellamy before sunrise.
Marla was gone.
So was Claire.
Security footage showed Marla entering the upstairs archive at 2:14 a.m.
Claire followed.
Only Marla came out.
Mason searched.
Blood was found near Arthur’s office.
No Claire.
Elena called Vanessa.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Vanessa’s phone sent a location.
Bellamy basement.
They ran downstairs.
Vanessa was tied to a chair.
Alive.
Beside her was Claire, unconscious but breathing.
On the wall, written in red lipstick:
THE WEDDING ENDS WHERE IT BEGAN.
Elena knew immediately.
“My parents’ church.”
Her mother and Daniel Brooks had married at St. Matthew’s.
Their own wedding was scheduled there in six days.
Dominic looked at her.
“We cancel.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No more running.”
“This is not about pride.”
“Neither is this.”
She looked around Bellamy.
“My mother ran for seventeen years. Vanessa’s father died. Claire spent decades hiding. You grew up without knowing who your father was. Every person in this story has lived according to someone else’s fear.”
Dominic studied her.
“What are you proposing?”
“We get married.”
He almost smiled.
“That was already the general plan.”
“At St. Matthew’s.”
“Elena.”
“And we make whoever is doing this believe the ledgers will be there.”
Mason shook his head.
“Absolutely not.”
Dominic looked at Elena.
Then at Mason.
“Prepare the church.”
Mason stared.
“You cannot be serious.”
“She’ll do it without us otherwise.”
Elena smiled.
“He knows me.”
Six days remained.
Elena worked.
Bellamy changed.
Women who had avoided luxury boutiques because of their bodies came through the doors.
Elena fitted one bride personally.
The woman cried when a sample actually zipped.
“I’ve never tried on a wedding dress that fit.”
Elena swallowed.
“Then we have been doing this wrong.”
That night Margaret came to Bellamy.
She saw Elena’s dress.
The one she had made years earlier.
“You found it.”
Elena hugged her.
“Will you finish it?”
Margaret cried.
“Yes.”
Mother and daughter spent hours together.
Not repairing seventeen lost years.
Nothing could do that.
But beginning.
Near midnight, Margaret worked on the hem.
Her needle stopped.
“What is this?”
She pulled out a narrow strip of fabric hidden deeper inside.
Words were embroidered across it.
Not by Margaret.
Elena read them.
M.B. KNOWS WHERE SOPHIA IS BURIED.
Dominic went pale.
“My mother?”
Margaret stared at the initials.
“M.B.”
Elena whispered.
“Marla Bennett.”
May you like
Then someone locked the fitting-room door from the outside.
Smoke began slipping beneath it...
