Chapter 3
The second figure stepping into the chapel was a tall man leaning heavily on a wooden cane, walking with a pronounced, painful limp. As he moved past the woman in the trench coat into the warm amber light of the chapel, the ambient chatter among the guests died down completely. His face bore a jagged, faded scar running from his left temple down to his jawline—a physical map of a devastating trauma.
Mark recognized the physical toll of that injury immediately, feeling a cold knot twist tightly in his stomach. He looked back at Eleanor, noticing for the first time the subtle, frantic tremor in her delicate fingers and the way she avoided looking at the man’s face.
"Hello, sweetheart," the scarred man said, his voice deep, gravelly, and laced with a haunting familiarity that sent a shiver down Mark’s spine. "Did you really think you could change your hair, buy a new wardrobe with my stolen money, and play house with a respectable man?"
Lily whimpered, burying her face in the folds of Mark’s black tuxedo trousers. Mark placed a protective hand on his daughter’s head, his eyes never leaving the scarred man. "Who are you? Stay away from us!"
"I'm the fool who loved her enough to forgive her financial betrayal the first time," the man replied, stopping a few feet away from the altar steps. He looked directly at Mark with tired, sorrowful eyes. "I'm her husband, legally and undeniably. And if she told you her name is Eleanor, she lied to you just like she lied to me."
Eleanor finally found her voice, though it sounded thin, brittle, and desperate. "Don't listen to them, Mark! They are lying! They want to ruin us out of spite!"
"Spite?" The woman in the trench coat scoffed, stepping closer. "You stole fifty thousand dollars from my brother while he was recovering from a medically induced coma after the car crash you miraculously walked away from without a single scratch."
The accusation hung in the air like poison. Mark felt his chest tighten. The timeline suddenly clicked into place in his mind with horrifying precision. He had met Eleanor six months ago, right after she claimed to have moved to the city from out of state following a tragic family loss. She had woven a tapestry of half-truths with such effortless grace that he had never once doubted her sincerity.
"Is this true?" Mark asked, his voice barely above a whisper, his gaze fixed on the woman he had intended to marry in less than an hour.
May you like
Eleanor’s facade finally cracked. A single tear slipped down her cheek, but her expression hardened into defiance. "I had to leave. They were suffocating me."
Before anyone else could speak, a heavy, metallic click echoed through the quiet chapel from the back entrance, followed by the cold, authoritative voice of a uniformed police officer.
