Chapter 2 - The Razor and the Record
When the suite door swung open ninety seconds later, Bennett didn't look at the shattered champagne flute. He didn't look at the white silk robe.
His eyes locked onto my face, then tracked upward to the sheared stubble and the dried blood crusting my collarbone. His chest hitched once, violently, as if someone had driven an iron spike between his ribs. Behind him stood Dorian, wearing his charcoal wedding suit, his weathered face hardening into an expression of lethal, calculated focus, and Maya, whose kit bag slipped from her shoulder, hitting the carpet with a dull thud.
"Jesus Christ," Maya whispered, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh, sweet Jesus, Tessa..."
Bennett was across the room before she finished the sentence. He didn't try to pull me into a clumsy hug that might jostle my shoulder; he placed two warm, broad hands gently against the sides of my neck, his thumbs wiping away a drop of fresh blood that had welled near my earlobe.
"Look at me," Bennett commanded softly. His jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles knotted beneath his beard. "Look right at me, Tessa."
I met his hazel eyes. There was no pity in them. There was no revulsion. There was only a towering, protective fury that made me feel, for the first time in my life, completely and utterly safe.
"I'm here," I whispered.
"Dorian," Bennett said, without breaking eye contact with me. "Lock the deadbolt. Call Detective Kowalski at the central precinct. Tell him we have an active aggravated battery and felony assault on an uncooperative victim's premises. Tell him to bring a forensic evidence kit and an incident report pad."
"On it," Dorian replied, pulling an encrypted satellite phone from his breast pocket. He walked straight to the bookshelf, glanced at the blue LED on the lens, and gave a single, curt nod. "The feed captured the whole entry, Tessa. Audio is pristine. The microphone picked up the scissors cutting the hair, her verbal threat about your dress, and your father’s statement at the threshold."
"Don't call the police to stop the wedding, Bennett," I said, catching his wrist. My grip was fierce. "If the police arrest her in the lobby right now, Dad will claim it was a domestic misunderstanding. He’ll post her bond before the appetizers are served, she’ll spin the narrative to Horizon Transport, and I’ll be the crazy, bitter sister who threw a tantrum and called the cops on her own wedding day to ruin her sister's business deal."
Bennett paused. He studied my face, reading the cold, administrative architecture of my mind. We had spent three years together; he knew that I didn't break down when a crisis hit. I organized it. I scheduled it. I routed it.
"What do you want to do, Tessa?" Bennett asked.
I turned toward the vanity mirror, looking at the lopsided wreckage of my dark hair.
"Callie thinks she just guaranteed that every camera in that ballroom will be pointed at her," I said, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. "She thinks I’m going to spend the next three hours sobbing in a bathroom while she sits at the head table with Miles Keene, pitching her corporate retreat package to the regional director of Horizon Transport. She thinks she broke me."
I looked at Maya, who was kneeling by her open kit bag, her fingers hovering over her stainless steel scissors.
"Maya," I said.
The stylist looked up, tears shimmering in her eyeliner. "Yes, honey?"
"Take the left side off."
Maya blinked, stunned. "Tessa... you have twenty inches of hair on that side. It took three years to—"
"Take it all off," I commanded, stepping toward the high styling chair. "Buzz the sides down to a number two. Leave it textured on top, sharp around the ears, like an undercut pixie. Clean the blood off my neck, put on the pearl drop earrings Bennett gave me for my birthday, and use whatever makeup you have to highlight my cheekbones."
Maya stared at me for three seconds. Then, slowly, the professional artist replaced the horrified friend. She stood up, reached into her kit, and pulled out an electric clipper with a heavy, professional-grade cord.
"You have the jawline for it," Maya said, her voice shaking slightly with adrenaline. "You have your mother’s cheekbones, Tessa. We'll make you look like a warrior queen."
"Dorian," I said, sitting in the leather chair as the clippers began to hum with a low, electric growl.
"Yes, Tessa?"
"The reception hall," I said, watching the first long dark curl fall from the left side of my head, landing on the white cape Maya had draped over my shoulders. "The main audiovisual system. It’s set up for the three-minute montage of Bennett and me growing up, right?"
"Connected to the ceiling-mounted laser projectors," Dorian nodded, crossing his arms. "Full four-K resolution across three ten-foot screens on the perimeter walls. Automated to run right after the father-daughter dance."
"I want the montage cut," I said. "Replace the video file with the direct feed from that shelf. And pull the archived banking transfer from my Chase safe-deposit box. Account ending in seven-one-four."
May you like
Dorian’s silver eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. A slow, grim smile cracked his weathered face. "The forty-five-thousand-dollar promissory payoff? The one from five years ago?"
"The one Arthur Holloway told the entire extended family Callie paid with Miles Keene's money," I said, as the clippers buzzed close against my left ear, the hair falling away in heavy, clean sweeps. "Let's show two hundred guests exactly who paid to keep the roof over my father's head."
