Part 4: The Ruined Wedding and the Hidden Photos
The next day was supposed to be Adrian and Celeste’s wedding.
Instead, it became a funeral for every lie the Bellmont family had ever told.
The cathedral was already full when Lena arrived.
She came not in silk or borrowed diamonds, but in a plain ivory dress Adrian had sent and she had almost refused to wear. Around her neck lay the diamond necklace. The real one. Mariella’s one.
The guests murmured when they saw her walk down the aisle.
Celeste stood at the altar in a wedding gown so white it looked almost cruel. Her veil glittered. Her face was composed. She had chosen to come because pride was stronger than fear, and because people like Celeste believed scandal could be survived if one smiled beautifully enough.
Adrian stood beside her, not as a groom, but as a judge.
At the front of the cathedral, police officers waited quietly.
August Bellmont sat in the first pew with a bruise along his jaw and two lawyers beside him. He looked irritated, not defeated.
Mr. Vale stood near the altar, holding a small velvet box.
Adrian faced the crowd.
“Yesterday,” he said, “a young woman was accused of stealing a necklace from my fiancée.”
A ripple moved through the church.
“That necklace belonged to Mariella Thorne, the woman I loved and believed dead for twenty-three years. It was used to identify a body that was not hers. It was used to bury the truth.”
Celeste laughed softly. “This is madness.”
Adrian looked at her. “It is.”
Then he turned to Lena.
“Will you open it?”
Lena’s fingers shook as she opened the pendant. Inside, behind the tiny engraving, was something she had not known existed until Mr. Vale showed her hours earlier: a hidden compartment so thin it could hold only a folded strip of old photographic film.
Mr. Vale had developed it before dawn.
Now, on a screen behind the altar, the first image appeared.
Mariella Thorne stood in the Bellmont garden, young and radiant, wearing the necklace. Adrian stood beside her, kissing her temple. Behind them, half hidden near the glasshouse, was Celeste.
The next image appeared.
Celeste handing a small vial to August Bellmont.
The cathedral erupted.
Celeste screamed, “That proves nothing!”
The final image appeared.
Mariella, pale and terrified, lying in the back seat of a car. Celeste sat beside her, crying. August stood outside the open door, pointing toward the river.
And in the reflection of the car window, unseen by anyone that night, Adrian’s younger face appeared in the distance, running toward them.
He had almost reached her.
August had not merely hidden Mariella from Adrian.
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He had made Adrian believe he arrived too late.
Lena stared at the image, tears spilling down her cheeks.
