Chapter 2 - the wife who came back from the dead
By the time I staggered into the ballroom, five hundred guests were already murmuring.
The Vale Family Legacy Gala glittered on as if nothing had happened—crystal chandeliers, black-tie donors, champagne towers, a string quartet pretending not to hear the distant security alarms. On the giant screens behind the stage, the foundation logo still rotated in polished gold.
Then I stepped through the side doors.
My gown was torn at the shoulder. Blood marked my arm. One heel was gone. Conversations died mid-sentence as heads turned. A woman near the stage gasped and dropped her flute. Across the room, Celeste Vale froze with her smile only half-formed.
Adrian entered behind me a second later, but now he did not look like a prince of Manhattan real estate. He looked like a man who had just seen a ghost walk out of gravity.
“Sofia,” he snapped, forcing a laugh too loud for comfort. “You’re hurt. Let’s not make a scene.”
That word almost made me smile.
I walked past him, climbed the stage steps, and took the microphone from the stunned emcee’s hand.
The speakers carried my breathing through the room.
Adrian came toward me quickly. “Give me that.”
I turned, met his eyes, and raised the microphone between us.
“You’re right, Adrian,” I said softly. “Someone is going to lose everything tonight.”
A ripple of unease moved through the guests. Julian Vale, standing near the donor tables, went still. Celeste’s champagne glass lowered an inch. Three men from Adrian’s security team started moving toward the stage—then all stopped at once when every ballroom screen flashed black.
The file name at the top was blurred by the projector system.
But Adrian recognized it instantly.
May you like
Because it was the balcony footage he thought he had erased.
And the first frame showed his hands on my throat.
Related Stories
