Then, the sirens wailed.
Six police cruisers screeched to a halt at the entrance. A SWAT team burst through the doors.
The Captain walked onto the dance floor, followed by Sarah and me. I was still in my dress, but I didn’t look like a victim anymore.
David saw me. For a second, he looked relieved, thinking his men had caught me. Then he saw the police.
He tried to play the role one last time. He rushed toward me, arms open. “Maya! Oh, thank God! Darling, are you okay? You had an episode…”
I stepped forward. The room went silent.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry.
I walked right up to him. He smelled of sweat and fear.
I raised my hand and slapped him. A hard, cracking sound that echoed through the hall.
“The performance is over, David,” I said, my voice steady and cold. “Your debt is paid. But you’re paying it with twenty years in a federal prison.”
Officers swarmed him. They tackled him to the ground, cuffing his hands behind his back. His mercenaries were rounded up at the exits.
As they dragged him away, he looked at me, his mask gone, revealing the hollow, pathetic man beneath. “I loved you,” he lied, desperate.
“No,” I said. “You loved the price tag.”
The sun was rising over the ocean as we sat on the beach, a few miles from the police station. We had built a small bonfire from driftwood.
I stood by the fire, shivering in the morning chill. I took off the ruined wedding dress. It was heavy with the weight of the lie I had lived.
I threw it into the flames.
The silk caught fire instantly, curling and blackening, the lace turning to ash. I watched my “fairytale” burn.
Sarah walked over and draped a thick wool blanket over my shoulders. She pulled me into a hug.
I rested my head on her shoulder, watching the smoke rise.
“You know,” I whispered, “I thought you were jealous. I thought you hated my happiness.”
Sarah smiled, a tired, sad smile. She squeezed my shoulder.
“I never wanted you to be unhappy, Maya,” she said. “I just wanted you to be alive. I don’t need a prince for you. I just need my sister.”
We sat there, watching the sun burn off the mist. The fairytale was a lie, a trap set by a monster in a tuxedo. But as I held my sister’s hand, I realized I had something better than a fairytale.
I had the truth. And I had the only person who would burn the world down to save me.
