Chapter 4
The room went dead silent for half a second.
Then screams ripped through the air.
The sharp crack of high heels smashing crystal shards, the thunderous crash as the champagne tower collapsed, the muffled whimpers of a baby whose mother clamped its mouth shut, all the sounds buzzed and muffled, like everything was happening behind frosted glass.
I stood still, the hem of my wedding dress sweeping over the priest's convulsing calf.
His ankle stuck out from his black sock, the skin a dull gray. Three uneven purple-brown patches marked the top of his foot, edges sharp, and they didn't fade when pressed. Those were the kind of livor mortis signs that only show up two hours after death.
But he'd just collapsed.
I lifted my gaze.
Vivian stood in the middle of the third row of guests.
She wasn't wearing her bridesmaid dress anymore. Instead, she had on a dark green silk slip dress with a plunging neckline, showing off a tiny silver butterfly earring just below her collarbone.
She was slowly scraping her thumbnail across the wings of the earring, over and over.
Her lips quirked up.
It wasn't a smile.
It was just her facial muscles pulling, like a marionette's mouth yanked by invisible strings.
The curve was too precise, too symmetrical, cold as ice.
Vivian's gaze pierced through the chaos, pinning me in place.
There was no hint of triumph or panic in her eyes, just a calm that felt almost compassionate, almost pitying.
It was like a doctor watching a terminal patient finally spit up blood for the first time.
My stomach twisted violently, acid surging up my throat, but I bit down hard and swallowed it back.
That night, Lucian's private phone buzzed seventeen times in a row.
I curled up on the sofa in our hotel suite, watching him open each email notification one by one.
The cold glow of the screen cast a sharp shadow along his jawline.
The server logs for Nimbus showed that the attack's source IP had been spoofed as an internal maintenance terminal, and every packet's timestamp had been altered, down to the millisecond, with a margin of error less than 0.3 seconds compared to the church clock.
The core database had been wiped clean.
The only thing left was an encrypted folder named "Zoe_Wedding_Backup_20241017_11:59."
I locked onto that timestamp.
11:59.
Not 12:00, the official start time.
It was ten minutes before the ceremony began.
I reached out, my fingertips hovering just a centimeter above the screen, I didn't dare to touch it.
The leftover lily scent from earlier still drifted in the air, but now it reeked like someone had dunked the flowers in formaldehyde.
Suddenly, Lucian raised his hand and snapped the laptop shut.
As the screen went dark, I saw my own ghostly face mirrored in his eyes.
Lucian's voice was rough, like sandpaper scraping over rust. "Zoe."
I murmured back.
He didn't look at me, just pressed his forehead against the cold shell of the laptop, his breath heavy. "The loop... it's not a curse."
He paused, his Adam's apple shifting like he'd just swallowed a burning coal.
"It's a failsafe."
"When the fuse blows, the main circuit is protected."
This time, I handed Lucian the fruit plate myself.
The tiny scratch on the bottom of the celadon plate lined up exactly with the center of his left pupil as he looked at me.
As he took the plate, his fingertips brushed against the back of my hand.
Warm.
Dry.
His fingers were warm and dry, not a trace of sweat.
I lowered my gaze, letting my lashes hide whatever was in my eyes, my voice soft, almost syrupy. "Lucian, can you peel an apple for me?"
He smiled. It wasn't the warm, dimpled kind.
His lips pulled straight across, revealing his even teeth, his jaw clenched so hard it looked like it might snap.
Lucian drew the silver knife with practiced ease.
The blade's tip found the light brown spot on the top apple, lining up perfectly, just as it had countless times before.
I quietly slipped my phone into the inner pocket of my wedding dress, aiming the camera at his right hand holding the knife.
With a light swipe of my nail, I tapped the record button.
A faint, barely audible buzz.
An almost imperceptible electric crackle.
His blade pierced the apple's skin with a faint hiss, like a snake flicking its tongue.
Apple juice seeped out, gathering into a tiny amber bead along the blade.
I stared at that bead of juice, my voice barely more than a sigh. "Lucian... if we don't get married today, would you blame me?"
His hand stopped in the middle of peeling the apple.
The knife's tip hovered just two millimeters above the apple's flesh, trembling ever so slightly.
It wasn't just a simple hand tremor.
His entire forearm was shaking, muscles twitching at a crazy speed, like a motor pushed way past its limit.
He raised his head, slow and deliberate.
His eyes locked with mine, heavy as if two lead weights were dragging me under.
"Zoe." Lucian said my name, drawing out the last syllable, his voice rough, almost breaking with pain. "Listen to me."
Lucian suddenly set the fruit knife aside, spreading his fingers as he gently covered my hand resting on my lap.
His palm was burning hot, damp with sweat.
"No matter what happens," Lucian said, his thumb rubbing firmly over the faint mark at the base of my ring finger, "I just want you to make it through."
Just then.
The recording screen jumped to "1 minute 23 seconds."
Outside, the church bell chimed the hour, its deep, muffled sound rolling through the air.
Dong...
The first toll.
I lowered my head and saw his left pinky, unconsciously and painfully slow, tapping against my wrist bone, one tap at a time.
The rhythm echoed the bell's toll exactly.
One.
Dong.
Two.
Dong.
He was counting.