Chapter 2 - The Envelope’s CurseBefore Brooke’s fingers could touch the paper, Luke’s boot came down firmly on the edge of the document.
“Don’t touch it,” he commanded. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the murmurs echoing through St. Matthew’s Chapel like a steel blade.
Brooke looked up from the floor, her veil crooked, her eyes wide and red-rimmed. “Luke, please! Look at what she’s doing to our day! She timed this! She planned to embarrass my family in front of everyone!”
“Your family?” Luke spat the words out like poison. He leaned down, snatched the protective order from beneath his shoe, and held it alongside the rest of the file. “Your family paid fifty thousand dollars to a private security firm the day Grace went missing. It’s right here on the wire transfer receipt, Brooke.”
A collective gasp rippled through the front pews, where Brooke’s father, Richard Whitmore, sat in his sharp morning suit. Richard stood up abruptly, his face flushed red. “Luke! That is enough! You will not insult my daughter in the house of God!”
“Shut up, Richard!” Luke roared, turning on the older man with a fury that made the wealthy real estate tycoon freeze mid-step. “You stay right there!”
At the back of the chapel, the heavy double doors swung open again, and two paramedics carrying a stretcher rushed down the center aisle, accompanied by two uniformed police officers.
Luke immediately dropped back to his knees beside Grace. “Over here! She’s bleeding!”
The paramedics took over with practiced speed. One began checking Grace’s vitals while the other gently placed an oxygen mask over her pale face.
Grace’s fingers blindly reached out, catching Luke’s sleeve again. Her eyes were fixed on Ava. “Don’t... don't let them take her...” she rasped behind the plastic mask. “Luke... they said... they’d take my baby...”
“No one is taking anyone,” Luke promised, his voice cracking as he gripped her cold hand tightly. He looked at the little girl, who was shrinking away from the paramedics in terror. “Ava, come here.”
The child hesitated for a fraction of a second before hurling herself into Luke’s arms, burying her face against the neck of his tuxedo jacket, sobbing so hard her tiny frame shook. Luke wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against his chest.
One of the police officers, a dark-haired sergeant named Miller, looked at the blood on the floor, the tear in Grace’s dress, and the distinct finger-shaped bruises on her wrists. He then turned his eyes to the yellow envelope clutched in Luke’s hand.
“Sir, what happened here?” Sergeant Miller asked.
“She was abducted,” Luke said, standing up while keeping Ava securely in his arm. He pointed a shaking finger directly at Brooke, who was still kneeling on the marble, looking up at him with tears streaming down her face. “She was held against her will. And that woman and her family financed it.”
“Luke, that is a lie!” Brooke shrieked, scrambling to her feet, her expensive gown dragging over the spilled flowers and mud. “He’s out of his mind! She’s an obsessed ex-girlfriend who manufactured those documents to stop this wedding!”
Richard Whitmore stepped out of the pew, smoothing his tie as he approached the officer with a practiced, politician’s smile. “Officer, I’m Richard Whitmore. This is a private family matter—a tragic mental health crisis involving a former acquaintance of my son-in-law. We have medical personnel on standby for the young woman, but I assure you—”
“She isn't your daughter-in-law,” Luke interrupted coldly.
The church fell so quiet you could hear the flicker of the altar candles.
Brooke froze. “What?”
Luke pulled off his diamond-encrusted wedding band—the ring Brooke had bought him weeks ago—and tossed it onto the marble floor at her feet. It bounced with a sharp, hollow metallic ring before settling near the hem of her mud-splattered dress.
“The wedding is over,” Luke said.
Brooke stared at the ring on the floor, and for a second, her expression vacillated between heartbreak and pure, unadulterated rage. When she looked back up at Luke, the tears in her eyes had hardened into ice.
“You think you can just walk away from us, Luke?” she whispered, her voice dropping into a dark, venomous register that only he could hear. “You think you can take her side and keep your firm? Your reputation? Your life? You have no idea what my father built for you.”
“Then tear it down,” Luke replied quietly. “Because I’d rather starve on the street than spend another second looking at your face.”
The paramedics began lifting the stretcher. Grace was losing consciousness again, her hand slipping limply off the side of the gurney.
“We’re transportin' her to St. Jude’s Emergency,” the lead paramedic called out to Sergeant Miller. “She’s in severe trauma, and the fetus is in distress.”
“I’m going with her,” Luke declared, holding Ava tighter.
Sergeant Miller nodded slowly, looking at the yellow envelope Luke was tucking into his jacket pocket. “Sir, I’m going to need those documents as evidence. And you’ll need to give a formal statement at the precinct.”
“You can have copies of every single page,” Luke said, his eyes burning as he glared at Richard Whitmore. “And I’m going to make sure every news station in this city gets them too.”
As Luke walked down the aisle carrying Ava, turning his back on the altar, the Whitmore family, and the ruined wedding, Brooke’s voice echoed behind him one last time, high and hysterical beneath the vaulted ceiling:
May you like
“You’ll regret this, Luke Bennett! I swear to God, you’ll crawl back to me!”
Luke didn't look back. He pushed through the heavy oak doors and stepped out into the blinding sunlight, heading straight toward the waiting ambulance.
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