Chapter 6 - The Uninvited Guest at the Alter
"You can't do this to me!" Sutton’s voice broke into a high-pitched, manic register that scraped against the high ceilings. She lunged forward, grabbing the front of Alden’s shirt with both hands. "I have the dress! The guests are on their way! The media is watching my Instagram! You can't leave me at the altar over a billing dispute! It’s just money! Your family has hundreds of millions!"
Alden didn't push her away, but he looked down at her hands with such profound revulsion that her fingers slowly slipped from his fabric as if burned.
"You think this is about money, Sutton?" Alden asked quietly. He picked up his phone from the table and unlocked the screen. "You think I care about the hotel bill?"
He turned the screen toward her.
It was the video Briany had sent. The raw, unedited footage from the rehearsal dinner.
The audio played loudly in the silent room: the string quartet in the background, the laughter of the guests, and then Sutton’s voice, clear and cold, whispering to Briany: "Get the camera ready. Watch this, bitch."
Then came the sickening crunch of my bone shattering against the marble, followed by the deafening sound of Sutton throwing her head back and laughing while I lay screaming on the floor.
Alden pointed at the screen. "I was standing twenty feet away, Sutton. When you pushed her, I thought it was an accident. I felt sick for you. I wanted to help you comfort her. But when you laughed... when you looked down at your own sister writhing in agony and called it 'content'..."
He shook his head, his throat bobbing as he swallowed back disgust. "I spent the last two years believing you were a compassionate, dedicated woman who spent her weekends building animal rescue networks. You told me you cared about people. You told me Fallon was an abusive, jealous sister who neglected you."
He turned his eyes to me, looking at the titanium external frame bolted through my flesh and bone.
"Alden, she made that up!" Sutton cried desperately, tears cutting wide tracks through her powder. "The video was edited! Briany used an AI filter to make me look bad! Briany is jealous of me!"
"Briany didn't edit anything," Alden cut her off. "I took the file to my uncle’s private security forensic team at four this morning. It’s authentic. Every single pixel."
He looked back at Sutton, his eyes chillingly calm. "I loved a person who never existed. You aren't a bride, Sutton. You’re a sociopath with an internet connection."
"Alden, please, think about our family reputation!" Althia cried out, clutching her pearl necklace with both hands. "We can settle this quietly! Fallon will drop the charges, we will pay the hotel, and we can have an intimate private ceremony in the chapel! You can't humiliate us like this!"
Alden looked at my mother with absolute contempt. "Mrs. Campbell, when your daughter fell down twenty stone steps, you didn't even drop your champagne glass. You stood over her and hissed at her to get up because my parents were watching. My mother told me this morning that she has never witnessed a more vile display of parental cruelty in her entire life. If you ever contact my family again, our corporate attorneys will file a permanent harassment restraining order against all three of you."
He turned on his heel and walked toward the door.
"Alden!" Sutton shrieked, falling to her knees on the Persian rug, clutching the lace hem of his jeans. "Please! I love you! I did it for us! I wanted everything to be perfect! I wanted her ugly cast out of our photos! It was for our wedding!"
Alden stopped, looked down at her clinging to his ankles, and pulled his foot free with effortless precision.
"You didn't do it for us, Sutton," he said softly. "You did it for yourself. And now you have nothing."
He walked through the door. His footsteps echoed down the grand corridor, fading into the ocean breeze, until the heavy exterior fire doors clicked shut.
Sutton stayed on the floor, her hands buried in the carpet, gasping for air like a fish thrown onto dry rocks.
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I engaged the joystick on my motorized transport chair and rolled forward, stopping two feet from where my sister knelt in the dirt and broken glass of her destroyed fairytale.
"Now," I said, my voice cutting through her sobs like a scalpel through silk. "Let’s talk about my eighty-five thousand dollars."
