“Six months of courtship,” he murmured, his voice so quiet that the guests had to lean in to hear it. “Six months of ‘perfect’ mornings, ‘perfect’ dinners, and ‘perfect’ lies. I thought I had found my soulmate. Instead, I found a snake in a silk dress.”
The bride’s composure finally splintered. She dropped to her knees, not in genuine remorse, but in a pathetic, frantic scramble to save her own skin. “It—it’s a misunderstanding! You don’t understand, the pressure, the debt—my family was in trouble! I didn’t want to kill you, I just wanted the insurance—”
The groom cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. He signaled toward the back of the hall. The heavy doors swung open, not to admit late guests, but to admit two uniformed officers and the man who had been his lead investigator for the last month.
“She’s been under surveillance since the day she started ‘accidently’ bringing up your life insurance policy,” the investigator stated, walking past the bride without a glance.
The groom turned his back on his bride, a gesture of finality that was more painful than any physical blow. He walked over to the maid, who was still clutching her bruised cheek, and knelt before her. He took her trembling hand, his own expression softening into genuine, raw gratitude.
“You didn’t just save my life,” he whispered, loud enough for the microphone to catch. “You saved me from a cage I didn’t know I was walking into.”
He stood and faced the room, his eyes hardening into flint. “This wedding is over. Arrest her.”
