The True Face: David stood there. He wasn’t worried about his wife. He pulled a tactical radio from his tuxedo pocket.
“Code Red!” he barked into the device. “The asset is running! Lock down the perimeter! I want them alive. Break their legs if you have to, but keep the faces intact!”
The asset.
The “security guards” stationed around the venue—men I thought were hired for crowd control—drew weapons. Not guns, but tasers and extendable batons. They weren’t security. They were mercenaries.
“This way!” Sarah dragged me out the back loading dock. The cool night air hit my face.
We sprinted across the asphalt toward the employee parking lot. Sarah’s old, battered sedan was parked right near the exit, facing out. She had prepared for this.
“Get in!” She shoved me into the passenger seat and vaulted into the driver’s side.
She fumbled with the keys. I looked out the window. One of the mercenaries was sprinting toward us, a baton raised high.
“Sarah!” I screamed.
The man reached the car just as the engine roared to life. He swung the baton, smashing the passenger window. Glass shattered over me. I shrieked, covering my face.
Sarah slammed the accelerator. The car screeched forward, the open door clipping the mercenary and sending him spinning into the darkness. We tore out of the lot, tires smoking, leaving the nightmare behind.
We drove in silence for ten minutes, Sarah weaving through traffic like a stunt driver, checking the rearview mirror constantly. The wind roared through the broken window, chilling me to the bone.
“Why?” I finally whispered, picking glass out of my hair. “Why did he do that? Why did he call me an asset?”
Sarah didn’t speak. She reached under her seat and pulled out a manila folder and a small digital voice recorder. She tossed them into my lap.
“I broke into his study this morning,” Sarah said, her voice flat and hard. “I knew something was wrong with his ‘business trips.’ Listen.”
I pressed play. The audio was grainy, recorded from a hidden bug.
David’s Voice: “Don’t worry, Boss. The debt is settled tonight. She’s perfect. An artist, no family connections that matter, clean medical history. And since she’s my legal wife, no one will file a missing persons report when we leave for the ‘honeymoon’.”
Unknown Voice (distorted): “And the delivery?”
David: “Tonight. The cake is laced with a heavy dose of Ketamine. She’ll drop right at the reception. I’ll carry her upstairs to the bridal suite to ‘recover.’ You bring the van to the back. You can take her across the border by morning. Harvest the organs or sell her to the brothels in Eastern Europe, I don’t care. Just wipe my $5 million debt.”
The recording ended with a click.
I sat there, paralyzed. My mind tried to reject it. The flowers. The Paris trip. The way he looked at my paintings.
It was all an investment. I wasn’t a person to him. I was livestock. I was a check he was cashing to save his own life from loan sharks.
“He… he was going to sell me?” I choked out, nausea rising in my throat.
“He was going to kill you, Maya,” Sarah said, glancing at me with tears in her eyes. “He’s not a prince. He’s a cornered rat.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, wiping my face. “We need to hide.”
“No,” Sarah said, her jaw setting. “We are done hiding. We are going to the police station.”
“He has men! He has money!”
“And we have evidence,” Sarah said. She pointed to a small cooler bag in the backseat. “I didn’t just record him. Before the ceremony, I snuck into the catering tent. I stole a sample of the frosting from the top tier—the one reserved for you. It’s in that cooler.”
We pulled up to the precinct. I walked in, a bride in a ruined, glass-filled dress, holding the evidence of my own murder plot.
The police listened to the tape. They tested the frosting sample immediately. The field kit turned a dark, violent purple. Positive for lethal levels of Ketamine.
Back at the Grand Conservatory, David was in full damage control mode. He stood on a chair, addressing the confused guests with a look of practiced anguish.
“I am so sorry,” he announced, his voice trembling with fake emotion. “My dear Maya… she has suffered a mental break. The pressure of the wedding was too much. She has run away. Please, everyone, go home. I must go find her.”
He was trying to clear the room so his team could hunt us down.
