Chapter 1

Twenty minutes before my wedding, my groom ran away with my stepsister.

I learned about it from a video sent to my phone.

Julian stood near the departure gate at Bellmont International Airport. His tie was gone, and the top two buttons of his white shirt were open. Claire had both arms around his neck.

She was still wearing the pale pink bridesmaid dress I had chosen for her.

Julian kissed her while the boarding announcement played behind them.

Then Claire looked into the camera.

"I'm sorry, Evelyn," she said. "Julian couldn't spend the rest of his life taking care of a sick woman."

The video ended.

I stood in front of the dressing-room mirror with my veil pinned to my hair. Downstairs, more than three hundred guests were waiting for the ceremony to begin.

My phone vibrated again.

This time, it was an alert from the bank.

The account containing the money for my heart surgery had been emptied that morning.

I opened the banking app and checked twice. The balance did not change.

Julian had access to the account because he was supposed to become my husband. He had promised to handle the hospital deposit while I prepared for the wedding.

He had taken every dollar.

Pain tightened beneath my ribs.

I reached into my purse for the white bottle I carried everywhere.

The bottle was missing.

I emptied the purse onto the dressing table. Lipstick, tissues, my wallet and two hairpins rolled across the polished wood.

There was no medicine.

I went to the door and turned the handle.

It did not move.

Someone had locked it from the outside.

"Hello?"

I hit the door with my palm. "Can someone open this?"

Footsteps stopped in the hallway.

"Richard?"

My stepfather answered through the door.

"The ceremony begins in fifteen minutes."

"Julian is gone. He left with Claire."

"Keep your voice down."

"They took the surgery money. I can't find my medication."

"You become confused when you're frightened," Richard said. "Sit down until I come back."

"I'm not confused. I saw them together."

"We are not humiliating this family in front of three hundred people because you received an upsetting video."

I pressed both hands against the door.

"There is no groom."

"Let me solve that."

His footsteps moved away.

The room seemed to shrink after he left. I tried the handle again. Then I searched the drawers, the bathroom cabinet and the pockets of Claire's abandoned coat.

Nothing.

My breathing became too fast. My fingers began to tingle.

Four seconds in. Six seconds out.

That was what the therapist had taught me.

It did not work.

I picked up a silver makeup mirror and struck it against the edge of the sink. The glass cracked on the second blow.

I wrapped my fingers around one broken corner.

The sharp edge opened my palm.

Pain pulled me back into the room.

Blood ran over the finger where Julian's wedding ring should have gone.

I looked at my reflection in the broken glass. Everyone had always told me I was fragile. Richard said I could not manage money. Julian said stress made me irrational. My doctors asked Richard to answer questions I had already answered myself.

I had believed them for years.

The lock moved behind me.

I turned around.

The man standing in the doorway was not my groom.

Adrian Blackwood was fifty-five years old. Silver marked his dark hair, and deep lines framed his mouth. He had already built a business empire by the time I was born.

He was also Julian's adoptive father.

His gaze moved from the broken mirror to the blood running down my hand.

"Did Richard lock you in here?" he asked.

I almost gave him the answer I always gave everyone.

No. I'm fine.

Instead, I told him the truth.

"Yes."