Chapter 3 - the wedding that stopped before the vows)
By seven that evening, more than two hundred wedding guests had already arrived at nearby hotels.
Private jets continued landing.
Champagne had been chilled.
Flowers worth almost eighty thousand dollars filled the ballroom.
Nobody outside the estate knew the wedding was collapsing.
Damian returned to the mansion through the service entrance.
He ordered security to keep Vanessa and Malcolm on the property.
He also instructed the wedding coordinator not to announce anything yet.
Then he entered his father's old study.
Elena followed.
Mia was asleep upstairs under Rosa's supervision.
Marcus Lane joined them by video call.
"I found Gabriel's personnel file," Marcus said.
Damian leaned against the desk.
"And?"
"It has been altered."
Elena's stomach tightened.
"Altered how?"
"His termination paperwork says he was dismissed for theft of confidential engineering materials."
Elena shook her head.
"Gabriel told me he resigned."
"There's more," Marcus continued. "The digital signature approving the termination belongs to Daniel Cross."
Damian stared at the screen.
"My father?"
"Yes."
"But?"
"The metadata shows the file was created six months after Gabriel died."
Silence filled the study.
Elena whispered, "Someone framed a dead man."
Marcus nodded.
"That's what it looks like."
Damian's hand closed around the edge of the desk.
"Who had permission to use my father's signature?"
"Several senior executives."
"Names."
Marcus hesitated.
"Your uncle Richard. CFO Howard Vale. And at that time Malcolm Crosswell had external project authority through Crosswell Development."
Elena looked at Damian.
"Vanessa's father."
Damian nodded.
A knock sounded.
Security entered.
"Mr. Crosswell is asking to leave."
"Tell him no."
"He says we have no legal authority to hold him."
"We don't," Marcus warned through the screen.
Damian thought for a moment.
"Then don't physically stop him. But copy every camera angle of him entering Elena's apartment."
The security chief frowned.
"The cameras were offline."
"Not all of them."
Damian knew his father had installed an independent exterior system years earlier after a burglary.
It was not connected to the mansion's main network.
Ten minutes later, they had footage.
Malcolm Crosswell appeared entering the staff wing at 3:47 p.m.
He wore a baseball cap.
He carried nothing inside.
When he emerged nine minutes later, something small bulged beneath his jacket.
Elena felt sick.
"The key."
Damian nodded.
Then another detail appeared.
Someone waited for Malcolm beside a black SUV.
Vanessa.
She had lied about remaining inside the mansion.
Damian watched his fiancée take the object.
Then she gave her father an envelope.
Elena whispered, "Why would she care about Gabriel?"
Damian didn't know.
But he intended to ask.
Vanessa was in the bridal suite when Damian entered.
She stood beside a mirror while two assistants packed dresses into garment bags.
"Leave us," Damian said.
The assistants disappeared.
Vanessa turned.
Her eyes were red, but Damian could not tell whether she had been crying or preparing to look as though she had.
"How is Mia?"
"Alive."
Vanessa flinched.
"I didn't mean for her to fall."
"You shoved her."
"She grabbed me."
"She's three."
"I panicked."
"About what?"
Vanessa looked away.
Damian placed a tablet on the table and played the footage of Malcolm entering Elena's apartment.
Vanessa's face changed.
"What is this?"
"You tell me."
"My father was probably looking for evidence."
"Evidence of what?"
"Gabriel Reyes stole from your company."
"That's a lie."
"You don't know that."
"I know the termination record was created after his death."
Vanessa froze.
A tiny reaction.
But Damian caught it.
"You knew."
"No."
"You knew the record was fake."
"I didn't."
Damian stepped closer.
"Then why did you ask Mia where she got the dollar?"
Vanessa went pale.
He continued.
"Why were you afraid of six numbers written on a one dollar bill?"
She said nothing.
"Where is the key?"
"I don't have it."
"Vanessa."
Her expression hardened.
"You're destroying our wedding because of a housekeeper."
"No."
Damian's voice was quiet.
"I'm destroying our wedding because I finally saw who I was about to marry."
Vanessa stared at him.
Outside, distant musicians rehearsed in the ballroom.
Damian removed his engagement ring from his pocket.
Vanessa's breathing quickened.
"You cannot do this tonight."
"I already did."
"Our families have contracts."
"Then lawyers can deal with contracts."
"Damian, listen to me."
"No."
"You're making a mistake."
"The mistake was not listening sooner."
He placed the ring on the table.
Vanessa's composure finally broke.
"If you embarrass me tomorrow, you will regret it."
Damian almost turned away.
Then she added, "And Elena will regret it more."
He stopped.
Vanessa realized she had said too much.
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing."
Damian stepped toward her.
"If anything happens to Elena or Mia, every security resource I have will be pointed at you."
Vanessa smiled without warmth.
"You still don't understand."
"What?"
"Gabriel didn't hide that key from my father."
Damian waited.
Vanessa looked him directly in the eye.
"He hid it from yours."
Before Damian could respond, an alarm sounded downstairs.
Security voices erupted over the radio.
Someone had entered Daniel Cross's locked private archive.
Damian ran.
The archive door stood open.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Until Elena pointed toward a shelf.
There was an empty space in the dust.
Something had been removed.
Damian knew exactly what had once stood there.
His father's final private journal.
And on the floor beneath the shelf lay the missing brass key.
Someone had returned it.
As Damian picked it up, his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man's voice spoke.
"Cancel the wedding if you want."
Damian's skin went cold.
"Who is this?"
"But if you open what that key belongs to, people will die."
The call ended.
Elena stared at Damian.
"What did he say?"
Damian looked at the key.
Then at the empty shelf.
"Someone is afraid we're getting close."
That night, the billionaire wedding was officially canceled.
May you like
But by morning, one wedding guest would be missing.
And his disappearance would turn a family scandal into a criminal investigation.
