Chapter 2 - HIS MOTHER CAME TO FINISH THE JOB
Celeste entered the bedroom with two attorneys behind her.
She wore a silver evening suit and the same diamond earrings she had worn at the reception. Her face carried the smug satisfaction of a woman arriving to inspect work she had ordered.
Then she saw her son pinned beneath my wedding gown.
The satisfaction vanished.
“Get off him!”
The two lawyers remained in the doorway. One was older, with a red face and a silk pocket square. The other, Daniel Price, looked barely forty and suddenly seemed interested in every object except the whip on the floor.
I kept Adrian’s wrist secured.
“He attacked me.”
Celeste stared at the open rulebook. “That is a private marital agreement.”
“A handwritten list ordering me to surrender my income is not a marital agreement.”
“Release my son, or we will have you arrested.”
“Please call the police.”
That stopped her.
Adrian lifted his head. “Mom, get the phone.”
“You mean the one recording everything?” I asked.
Daniel Price looked toward the sofa.
Celeste’s eyes narrowed. “What recording?”
“The recording Adrian made because he planned to portray me as violent after provoking me.”
“That’s absurd.”
I touched the diamond pendant at my throat.
“And my own camera has been streaming to someone outside this building since we entered the suite.”
For the first time, Celeste looked afraid.
My college roommate, Maya Torres, was an assistant United States attorney in Chicago. She was not using her office to settle my marriage, despite what Adrian probably imagined. She was simply a trusted friend who knew I had grown suspicious after finding financial documents hidden in Adrian’s home office.
Maya had told me to leave before the wedding.
I had almost listened.
But I needed to know why Adrian wanted access to my father’s estate so badly, and whether the woman he had nearly married before me had been telling the truth.
The elevator chimed again.
This time, two uniformed Cincinnati police officers entered with hotel security.
I released Adrian and stood slowly, keeping my hands visible.
He rolled over, clutching his wrist.
“She attacked me!” he shouted.
One officer looked at the whip, the notebook, and the phone aimed toward the room.
The second officer turned to me. “Ma’am, are you injured?”
“No.”
“Did he strike you?”
“He attempted to. I disarmed and restrained him.”
Adrian struggled to his feet. “She set this up.”
“I documented it,” I said. “There’s a difference.”
Celeste pointed toward the officers. “Do you understand who my son is?”
The older officer looked at her without blinking.
“Tonight, ma’am, he’s a person involved in a domestic disturbance.”
Daniel Price quietly stepped away from Celeste.
The red-faced lawyer did not.
He moved close to Adrian and whispered, “Say nothing else.”
An officer collected the whip as evidence and asked us to separate.
As I followed the female security supervisor toward the living room, Celeste leaned close enough for only me to hear.
“You have no idea what you just destroyed.”
I met her stare.
“I think I destroyed exactly what you built.”
Her expression shifted.
It was not anger.
It was recognition.
May you like
Celeste had expected fear because another woman had stood in that room before me.
And that woman had not escaped cleanly.
