Chapter 2 - The Burning of the Bride
The black SUV came to a halt on the gravel of the abandoned pier.
The salt spray from the harbor misted against the tinted glass, catching the yellow halogen beams of the streetlamps in the distance. The driver, a low-level soldier named Tommy who had worked for the Moretti family for less than a year, kept his hands rigidly on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead into the blackness of the water.
Damian did not turn to look at Vivien. He reached into his tuxedo breast pocket, pulled out a thick Manila envelope, and laid it on the leather console between them.
"Open it," Damian said. His voice was hollow, stripped of all the quiet warmth she had spent four years learning to trust. It was the voice he used when signing off on execution orders in the backrooms of South Carver.
Vivien’s hands trembled, but her fingers were steady enough to undo the string latch on the envelope. She pulled out a sheaf of glossy photographs, bank ledger printouts, and encrypted text transcripts.
The top photograph showed Vivien standing in an alley behind a coffee shop downtown, handing an ivory-colored envelope to a man whose face was partially shadowed by a low baseball cap. The man was recognizable to anyone in Port Mason—it was Marcus Kane, the chief federal prosecutor building a RICO indictment against the Moretti family.
The bank printouts showed a Swiss account opened six months ago under Vivien’s maiden name, holding a balance of two point four million dollars. The source transfers were tagged with routing codes belonging to Kane's task force witness protection fund.
And the text messages—printed cleanly on federal letterhead—detailed conversations from her phone number, negotiating immunity in exchange for Damian’s private ledger keys.
"This is impossible," Vivien whispered, her eyes skimming the pages as the air was sucked from her lungs. "Damian... I don't even know where the ledger keys are kept. You know I've never touched your business!"
"The photographs were taken three days ago outside the bakery where you buy your mother’s favorite pastries," Damian said flatly. His knuckles were white against the leather seat. "Victor’s tech team verified the digital signatures on the text files forty minutes ago. The bank account was verified through our contacts in Zurich before Carlo finished his toast."
"It's a lie," Vivien gasped, turning in her seat to face him, her ivory dress gathering around her knees like tangled rope. "Someone made these! Look at me, Damian! Look at my face! Do you really believe I spent four years sleeping in your bed, listening to your heart beat, just to hand you to a federal prosecutor?"
Damian finally turned his head.
His dark eyes were dead. There was no rage in them—only a vast, barren desert of utter betrayal.
"I trusted you with my life, Vivien," he said softly. "I let you see the man behind the armor. I allowed myself to believe that a woman like you—pure, untainted by the blood on my hands—could actually love me."
He unlocked the passenger side door.
"Get out."
Vivien froze. "What?"
"Victor wanted me to put a bullet in your head behind the reception hall," Damian whispered, his voice cracking by a fraction of a note—the only crack in his marble facade. "Carlo told me to sink you in the bay. But I loved you too much to watch you bleed. So I am erasing you. You leave Port Mason tonight. If I ever see your face again, or if you ever step foot within the city limits, I will kill you myself."
Vivien reached out, grasping his forearm, her tears finally overflowing and ruining her mascara. "Damian, please! Listen to me! I'm carrying your baby! I am pregnant!"
Damian stared at her hand on his sleeve.
For two terrifying seconds, something violent and wild flared behind his eyes. Then a cold, bitter sneer curled his lips—a look of pure disgust.
"Victor told me you would say that," Damian said, his voice dropping into a deadly register. "He said you’d use a fake child as your final shield when the trap closed. Do not insult my intelligence, Vivien. Get out of the car before I let Victor have his way."
He reached across her chest, pushed her violently through the open door, and slammed it shut.
Vivien fell onto the wet gravel of the pier, the ivory fabric of her wedding dress tearing at the knee, dark mud staining the pristine hem.
The SUV’s engine roared to life. Tommy hit the gas, the tires spraying gravel into the darkness as the red taillights shrank into the foggy night.
Vivien lay on the cold ground, her breath coming in ragged, agonized gasps. She clutched her lower stomach with both hands, feeling the faint, invisible pulse of life beneath her ribs.
Behind her, the high-pitched hum of another engine approached.
A sleek grey sedan pulled onto the pier, stopping ten feet from where she lay. The driver’s side door opened, and a tall man wearing a dark trench coat stepped out into the rain that had begun to fall.
It was Victor Hail.
He walked over to her, his polished leather shoes clicking against the wet stones. He looked down at the ruined bride with a look of mild, intellectual satisfaction.
"You really should have left when he told you to, Vivien," Victor murmured, pulling a silver-plated revolver from his coat. "Damian is a romantic at heart. That has always been his flaw. He actually thought letting you live was a mercy."
Vivien looked up through the rain, her eyes narrowing as the final pieces of the puzzle slammed into place.
"You," she spat, her voice laced with venom. "You forged the documents. You opened the bank account."
"Of course I did," Victor admitted casually, adjusting his cuff. "Damian was getting soft. He was talking about transferring assets into legitimate real estate funds. He was talking about pulling back from the harbor expansion. All because he wanted to build a clean house for a pretty wife. A man in love cannot rule an empire, Vivien. I built the Moretti family over twenty years. I will not let a waitress’s daughter dismantle it."
He raised the barrel of the revolver, pointing it directly between her eyes.
"Goodbye, Mrs. Moretti."
Before his finger could tighten on the trigger, a blinding set of high-beam headlights flared from the shadow of an empty shipping container fifty yards away.
A heavy, rusted pickup truck roared across the gravel at forty miles an hour.
Victor swung the gun toward the incoming vehicle, but the truck didn't slow down. It slammed hard into the side of Victor’s grey sedan, throwing Victor off balance and sending him sprawling across the slick stones.
The driver’s door of the truck flew open.
"Get in!" a harsh, gravelly voice barked through the dark.
Vivien didn't hesitate. She dragged herself up, grabbed the hem of her ruined dress, and threw herself into the passenger seat. The driver—an old, scarred man with a graying beard and a missing left ear—floored the accelerator, spinning the truck around and tearing out of the harbor gates just as Victor fired three shots into the tailgate.
Vivien sank into the torn vinyl seat, her chest heaving, holding her belly.
She looked at the driver. "Who are you?"
The old man didn't look at her. He kept his hands locked on the wheel as they sped onto the dark highway leading out of Port Mason.
"My name is Leo Vance," the man grunted. "I used to be your father's chief of security before Damian Moretti took over the city. Your mother called me six months before she died. She told me that if Damian ever turned on you, I was the one who had to get you out."
Leo glanced sideways at her torn dress, her muddy hands, and the white gold ring shimmering on her finger.
"Where to, kid?" Leo asked grimly.
Vivien looked out the back window at the distant, glittering skyline of Port Mason—the city that had built her, married her, and tried to bury her in a single night.
May you like
She reached behind her neck, unpinned the gold combs her mother had given her, and pulled the wedding ring from her finger, dropping it into the dashboard tray with a cold clink.
"As far away from here as this truck can run," Vivien said, her voice turning to solid diamond. "And don't ever call me Mrs. Moretti again."
