Chapter 2 - The Collapse
Now, thirty minutes later, cold sweat beaded across his forehead as he tugged aggressively at his expensive silk tie. His wife, Katherine, leaned close to him and whispered, “Flynn, are you feeling alright, are you perhaps too drunk?”
“I am perfectly fine,” he snapped back, but his voice cracked under the pressure. My father, William Montgomery, finally noticed the commotion and crossed the room with the rigid, professional stride he used whenever he wanted to pretend that nothing was going wrong in our family. “Flynn, you need to pull yourself together immediately,” he said under his breath.
Flynn tried to force a laugh, but he only managed to gag loudly. The entire room started to go quiet as the guests sensed the impending disaster. My mother, Regina, watched me from the opposite side of the dance floor, her expression sharp with a warning, as if I had somehow caused his physical collapse by simply existing. That was the way it had always worked in our house; Flynn destroyed things and I apologized for the noise.
Then Flynn stumbled heavily against the fountain. A waiter rushed forward to catch him, but Flynn shoved the man away and knocked over a silver tray, causing champagne to splash across the expensive marble floor. The violinist stopped playing in the middle of a note, and the ballroom became unnervingly silent.
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Bellamy’s hand tightened on mine as he whispered, “Audrey, what exactly is happening right now?” I looked at my brother, then at the empty glass sitting beside his place card. “I think,” I said softly to my husband, “that Flynn’s surprise has arrived early.”
Flynn heard my words clearly. His eyes widened as he looked at me, and for the first time in my life, I saw him looking truly afraid of me. Then his knees gave way, and he fell hard to the floor in front of two hundred witnesses.
