I BURIED MY FIANCÉ IN A CLOSED CASKET, BUT 3 MONTHS LATER HE WALKED DOWN THE AISLE WITH A BILLIONAIRE HEIRESS—UNTIL I TOOK THE MIC!

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Clara, coughing heavily on the other end. ""Mere? How's it going over there? The Sterling family is notoriously difficult to please. Did the cascading centerpieces arrive without wilting?""

""Everything is pristine, Clara,"" I said, keeping my vocal cords flat, smooth, and rhythmic. ""Tell me something. Who handled the contract on this wedding? Did the bride sign, or the groom?""

""The groom handled the floral and decor down payments directly from a private account in Delaware,"" Clara replied between wheezes. ""A guy named Anthony Vance. Total snob, but his check cleared instantly. Why do you ask?""

""Just double-checking the invoice balance,"" I said softly. ""Rest up, Clara. I’m handling every single detail personally.""

I hung up and stood in the dim corridor, staring at the clipboard. A private account in Delaware. When Adrian had died—or rather, when a stolen sedan with unidentifiable dental remains burned to the chassis on the shoulder of the interstate—the state police had handed me a charred metal watch that I had personally engraved for his twenty-seventh birthday. Colleen had wept hysterically, throwing herself across the kitchen table, insisting that his face was too disfigured for an open viewing. She had urged me to sign over the joint insurance paperwork so we could ""handle his final expenses quietly.""

I had handed over every dime of his sixty-thousand-dollar employer life insurance to Colleen to cover what she claimed were astronomical hospital transport fees and emergency debts. Meanwhile, I had spent the last three months eating canned soup, working twelve-hour shifts on swollen feet, and wondering if I had somehow failed to save him from his depression.

A soft click resonated behind me. I turned to see Julian, Adrian’s older brother, stepping out of an office down the service hallway. He was dressed in a dark tuxedo, his bow tie dangling loosely around his unbuttoned collar. Julian had always been the quiet brother, an accountant who worked late nights and rarely spoke at family gatherings. When Adrian supposedly died, Julian had stood behind Colleen at the cemetery with his jaw clenched, staring straight ahead without shedding a single tear.

I had thought he was stoic. Now, I knew he was an accomplice.

""Julian,"" I said quietly.

He jumped as if struck by lightning, spinning around so fast his shoulder hit the doorframe. The color drained from his face until his skin looked like parchment. ""M-Meredith? What... what are you doing here?""

""I’m the florist,"" I said, pointing to my apron. ""It’s a funny thing, Julian. I was just standing here thinking about how you carried the front left handle of your brother's casket three months ago. You looked like you were carrying a heavy burden. But tell me... was the casket actually heavy, or did you fill it with bags of cement?""

Julian swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing erratically. He looked frantically left and right down the corridor, terrified that a guest or a club official might hear us. ""Meredith, please. Keep your voice down. You don’t know what you’re talking about.""

""Don't I?"" I stepped forward, closing the distance between us until he had to press his back against the wall. ""I heard him, Julian. I saw him. He’s wearing the suit I paid twelve hundred dollars to alter. He’s alive, and you helped him stage it.""

""He was going to prison, Meredith!"" Julian hissed under his breath, his eyes wide with a mixture of guilt and sheer panic. ""He took money from a private investment pool run by some dangerous people in South Boston. He lost everything in high-stakes crypto derivatives. If he didn't disappear, they were going to kill him—and come after Mom next! He found a dead John Doe through a corrupt mortuary contact, torched an abandoned car, and faked the crash to wipe the slate clean!""

""And what about me?"" My voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through the air like a razor. ""What was I, Julian? Collateral damage? You let me cry myself to sleep on a floor for ninety nights! You watched me sell my engagement ring to cover his outstanding retail debts!""

""Adrian said you'd move on faster if you thought he was dead!"" Julian pleaded, reaching out a hand, but recoiling when he saw the absolute disgust in my eyes. ""He met Evelyn at an art auction in Newport two months before the crash. She fell head over heels for him. He realized her father could pay off all his shadow debts and set him up for life with a single handshake. He told Mom and me that once he was married into the Sterlings, he’d send an anonymous cash trust to your shop to make you whole.""

""An anonymous cash trust,"" I repeated. The absurdity of it was almost poetic. ""He steals my youth, ruins my credit, traumatizes my soul, and thinks he can mail me a hush check like a discarded mistress.""

""Meredith, if you blow this up now, those loan sharks will find out he’s alive, and they’ll come for all of us,"" Julian begged, sweat beading across his forehead. ""Just walk away. Please. Take Clara’s van and leave. I’ll wire you fifty thousand dollars from my personal savings tonight.""