PAGE 5
— The Wedding
Thirty days passed.
My family believed everything was going according to plan.
They used the money they thought they had secured to arrange a lavish wedding for Nadine.
A $50,000 ballroom deposit.
Imported orchids.
A custom gown from Paris.
Luxury everything.
Nadine’s fiancé was a wealthy local doctor who believed he was marrying into an old, established family.
My parents loved that image.
Mom dressed in silk.
Dad greeting important guests.
Nadine behaving like she had been born into wealth.
They didn’t know the truth.
The struggling event company managing the wedding had recently been purchased by a new investment firm.
My investment firm.
And the hotel venue?
I owned that too.
On the morning of the wedding, I arrived carrying four things.
The probate affidavit.
Grandma’s will.
Evidence of their fraud.
And a presentation already connected to the ballroom’s enormous LED screen.
Three hundred guests filled the room.
The string quartet played softly.
Nadine stood near the altar in her expensive Parisian gown.
Mom sat proudly in the front row.
Dad moved through the room like a powerful patriarch.
Nobody noticed me enter.
I walked toward the soundboard.
The technician looked at me.
Then nodded.
He handed me the wireless microphone.
I took a deep breath.
And pressed the button.
“Excuse me, everyone.”
The music stopped.
Three hundred people turned toward me.
Mom’s face suddenly went white.
“Eileen?”
Dad stood up.
“Security!”
I smiled.
“I wouldn’t call security if I were you.”
Then I stepped into the spotlight.
Because the next image appearing on that giant screen was going to destroy everything they had built.
