---- Chapter 11 Carter Wolfe POV: Francine saw the invitation over my shoulder and let out a triumphant little gasp. "Oh, Carter. But... what if Amira sees this? Won' t she be upset?" she asked, her voice dripping with fake concern. "She had her chance," | said, my voice cold and hard. | hit 'post.' "She's the one who walked away." This would bring her back. It had to. The thought of me marrying someone else, especially Francine, would be more than she could bear. She would come running back, begging me to call it off. She wouldn' t be able to stand seeing me with another woman. | knew her. The post exploded. My phone started buzzing incessantly with notifications, messages from friends and family demanding to know what was going on. Weren' t Amira and | the perfect couple? The golden couple? What had happened? | ignored them all. The silence from Amira was deafening. The rumors started to swirl. It must have been Amira' s fault. She must have cheated. She was the one who ran away, after all. She was an ungrateful, unstable woman who had thrown away a perfect man. ---- | didn' t correct them. In fact, | paid a few online trolls to amplify the narrative. If she wouldn' t come back for love, maybe she would come back to defend her reputation. Still, nothing. The day before the sham wedding, | got a call from an unknown number. It was one of Amira' s friends from college, a woman named Maya. "You' re a real piece of work, Wolfe," she said, her voice filled with contempt. "Amira knows. She knows everything. About you and Francine. She' s known for a while." The floor seemed to drop out from under me. "What are you talking about?" | stammered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Oh, don' t play dumb," Maya sneered. "Just be ready. Amira is sending you a little something. A 'new-wedding' gift. It should arrive during your reception tomorrow." She emphasized the words 'new-wedding gift' with a sarcastic venom that made my blood run cold. "What is it? What is she sending?" | demanded, but she had already hung up. The next day, | stood at the altar beside Francine, my stomach in knots. The ceremony was a rushed, joyless affair. | couldn 't look at her. Every time | did, her triumphant smile made me want to be sick. My eyes were glued to the chapel doors, ---- praying, begging for Amira to burst in and stop this nightmare. She didn't come. At the reception, Francine was in her element, lapping up the attention, getting sloppy-drunk and revealing a coarse, shallow side |' d never seen before. | watched her with a growing sense of disgust, my thoughts consumed by Maya' s threat. Finally, Maya herself appeared. She walked straight up to me, a small, elegantly wrapped box in her hands. "From Amira," she said, her expression unreadable. She thrust the box at me and turned to leave. "Wait!" Francine slurred, grabbing the box. "Let's see what the little bitch sent! Put it on the big screen! Let' s all see!" A terrible premonition washed over me, but | was too paralyzed by a mixture of fear and a sliver of desperate hope to stop her. Maybe it was a letter, begging me to come back to her. Atechnician connected the box' s contents-a simple USB drive -to the projector. An image flashed onto the giant screen behind the head table. It was a letter. In Amira' s handwriting. The room fell silent as people began to read. It detailed everything. The hotel. The lies. My mother' s death. The funeral. The wedding dress. It was a cold, factual account of my cruelty, laid bare for the world to see. ---- But that wasn' t the worst of it. Below the letter, there was a photo. It was a copy of a bank statement. A wire transfer for fifty thousand dollars. From Francine Powers' s account to mine. Dated the day before our original wedding. And in the memo line, two chilling words: "For the dress." The room erupted in gasps. Francine' s face went white. | stared at the screen, at the undeniable proof of my monstrous betrayal. It wasn' t a prank. It was a paid-for, calculated act of humiliation. An act | had committed against the only woman | had ever truly loved. My legs buckled, and | fell to my knees, the sound of my own choked sob lost in the roar of the crowd.