Chapter 3 - The Groom's Suite
The heavy oak door of the groom's suite stood slightly ajar, a sliver of warm golden light spilling out onto the polished hardwood floor.
I paused outside, listening.
Inside, men’s voices rumbled with nervous laughter.
"...seriously, man, I still can’t believe how smoothly you pulled this off," the best man—a guy named Marcus, whom I had known since college—was saying. "Three months of hiding out in your uncle's place in Vermont? I would have gone stir-crazy."
"It wasn't about hiding, Marcus; it was about restructuring," Adrian’s voice replied, smooth, confident, and utterly devoid of remorse. "My father’s debts were about to swallow the entire estate. If I stayed, everything we owned—including the trust fund and the company—would have been seized by federal investigators tied up in that corporate tax scandal. By 'dying,' my assets transferred to the secondary trust under Julian’s name. The slate was wiped clean."
Marcus chuckled, pouring two fingers of scotch from a crystal decanter. "And Meredith? What about her? Didn't it feel a bit harsh letting her think you were burnt to a crisp?"
My breath hitched. I pressed my ear closer to the crack in the door.
Adrian’s voice dropped, carrying a note of cold, pragmatic indifference that turned my blood to ice. "Meredith is a sweet girl, but she was an anchor tied around my neck. Her little flower shop, her domestic dreams, her obsession with a traditional suburban life—it didn't fit into the new paradigm. Besides, the insurance payout on my life policy went straight to pay off the primary lienholders, and Colleen managed the rest. Meredith got closure. A closed casket means no lingering doubts. She’ll move on. Florists always do."
A sweet girl.
An anchor tied around my neck.
She’ll move on.
The words echoed in my mind like gunshots. All the tears I had shed, all the nights I had spent clutching his pillows, all the guilt I had felt for eating a slice of pizza or laughing at a TV show because I felt I owed him eternal mourning—it had all been calculated collateral damage in his financial chess game.
I didn't knock. I didn't wait to be invited.
I kicked the heavy oak door wide open. It slammed against the interior wall with a deafening bang that rattled the picture frames on the wall.
Inside, the room went dead silent.
Marcus dropped his crystal glass; it hit the plush rug with a muffled thud, the amber liquid staining the white wool like blood.
Adrian whirled around from the antique mirror where he was adjusting his cuffs. His mouth parted in shock, the color instantly draining from his face until he looked paler than he had in the coffin we never opened.
"M-Meredith?" he stammered, stumbling backward against the dressing table.
May you like
I stepped across the threshold, my floral shears gleaming sharply in my right hand, held loosely but with unmistakable purpose. My face was a mask of terrifying serenity.
"Hello, Adrian," I said, my voice cutting through the heavy silence like a razor. "You know, for a dead man, you look remarkably well-groomed."
