"GET UP, SLOANE! YOU'RE RUINING MY WEDDING!" My sister laughed from the marble staircase as I lay below, my surgical brace twisted and blood soaking my dress. My mother stepped over broken glass, grabbed my arm, and hissed that the guests were watching. Then I spotted my cousin's phone still recording. Darcy had no idea what else the cameras caught....

Callum descended the stairs slowly, deliberately, stopping ten feet from Darcy. He didn't look at the crowd of arriving guests who were stepping out of shuttles in their evening gowns and tuxedos, whispering among themselves as they took in the fire marshal tape and the box trucks.

"There isn't going to be a ceremony, Darcy," Callum said. The sound system projected his words across the entire cliffside property, clear, cold, and resonant.

"Callum, stop joking!" Darcy forced a breathless, high-pitched laugh that sounded like tearing paper. "Guests are arriving! Senator Vance's donors are here! If this is about the money, we can fix it! My parents—"

"Your parents have a negative net worth of four hundred thousand dollars," Callum said into the microphone.

Gideon lunged forward. "Callum, shut your damn mouth!"

"I ran their credit profiles through my firm’s compliance department this morning, Gideon," Callum continued without missing a beat. "You took out a second mortgage on your house to pay for Darcy’s influencer PR agency. You co-signed three vanity loans that are currently in default. And Darcy forged my name on three promissory notes totaling eighty thousand dollars to pay for her custom dress and a videography crew from Los Angeles."

The courtyard erupted into gasps. Several high-profile guests pulled out their phones.

"That's a lie!" Darcy screamed, tears finally breaking through her heavy makeup, streaking black mascara across her cheeks. "Callum, I love you! I did everything for our future!"

"You didn't do it for our future. You did it for an audience that doesn't care about you." Callum turned and looked toward the large LED display screen that had been erected beside the terrace to broadcast Darcy’s curated photo memories during the cocktail hour. "And speaking of your audience, Darcy... let's show them what happened on the staircase last night."

Callum nodded toward the sound booth.

The massive high-definition screen flickered to life.

It wasn't a blurry, low-resolution surveillance feed. It was Brea’s uncompressed, crystal-clear 4K footage.

The audio roared through the high-end speakers. The guests watched in stunned, paralyzed horror as Darcy stood on the marble staircase, turned her head toward the camera, whispered *Start the livestream*, and then deliberately, violently drove her heel into the side of my brace. They heard the sickening crack. They watched me tumble down the stairs. They saw Darcy laugh, toss her hair, and step down while Imogen grabbed my broken, bleeding leg and hissed at me to stop embarrassing the family.

The silence that fell over the Meridian Cliff House was total.

Eleanor Vance, Callum’s mother, walked forward. She stood before Darcy, looked at her for three seconds with an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust, and took the antique family heirloom sapphire necklace off Darcy’s dresser table where it had been displayed in an open velvet box.

"You are a vile, hollow creature," Eleanor said softly, not needing a microphone. "If you ever approach my son again, I will ensure every political and legal resource in this state is brought down upon your head."

Callum took off his engagement ring and tossed it into the damp gravel at Darcy’s feet.