Chapter 2 - The Sound of Truth
Ethan didn't shout. He didn't rush Olivia. He moved with a terrifying, deliberate calm that seemed to freeze the entire room.
He tapped the microphone twice. The sharp hum echoed through the speakers, snapping the stunned crowd out of their trance.
"Olivia," Ethan said, his voice terrifyingly quiet through the church's acoustic system. "Give it back."
Olivia smirked, holding my wig higher. "Ethan, wake up! Look at her! She’s sick. She’s damaged goods! She hid her diagnosis from the press because she knew the Blackwood name couldn't afford a dying heir!"
Margaret stood up slowly, smoothing down her suit. "Listen to your sister, Ethan. The press is sitting in the back pews. Do you want tomorrow’s headline to read that the heir to Blackwood Medical married a terminally ill phantom? We are protecting you."
"Protecting me?" Ethan turned slowly to face his mother. The pain in his voice was replaced by absolute disgust. "Or protecting your monthly allowance from the family board?"
Margaret's smile flickered. "Don't be insolent."
Ethan didn't respond to her directly. Instead, he reached into his inner tuxedo pocket and pulled out a small black remote control. He pressed a button.
Above the main altar, the cathedral’s large projector screen—meant to display a slideshow of our childhood memories after the ceremony—flickered to life.
Audio crashed through the high-end speakers of the church.
“If we let Ethan sign the marriage certificate, her father’s old money merges into his personal account, not the family trust,” Margaret’s voice boomed through the sanctuary, crisp and unedited. “We need to humiliate her publicly. Break her mentally so she flees before the ink dries. If she looks weak, the board will vote Ethan out of the CEO chair, and you, Olivia, will take over.”
Olivia’s smile instantly evaporated. Her face turned the color of chalk.
“What if Ethan refuses to leave her?” Olivia’s recorded voice replied over the speakers.
“He won't have a choice,” Margaret’s voice cold-bloodedly answered. “A Blackwood man cannot tolerate a wife who makes him look like a nurse. Stripping her in public will shatter whatever dignity she has left.”
The chapel exploded.
Gasping turned into outrage. Guests stood up in pews, pointing at Margaret and Olivia. The journalists in the back row instantly raised their heavy DSLR cameras, the rapid-fire clicking of shutters sounding like automatic gunfire. Flashes illuminated Margaret’s frozen, terrified expression.
"Turn that off!" Margaret shrieked, dropping her composure entirely. "Turn it off right now! That is an illegal recording!"
"It was recorded in my private home," Ethan said coldly into his microphone. "Which I paid for. Which you live in for free."
Ethan walked over to Olivia. He didn't touch her softly; he ripped the wig from her fingers with such force that she stumbled backward in her high heels.
May you like
He walked back to me, his eyes softening instantly. Without a word, he took off his silk tuxedo jacket, draped it tenderly over my bare shoulders, and placed his warm palm against the side of my head, shielding my scalp from the glaring lights.
"You are the most beautiful woman in this room," Ethan whispered, so close only I could hear. "And you are my wife, with or without a single strand of hair."
