Chapter 2: The Upload
“I’m going to the bridal suite,” I said, keeping my voice eerily calm.
Derek’s eyes narrowed. “I’m coming with you.”
“No,” I replied loudly. Several guests at the head table turned their heads. “I need to fix my dress. My bridesmaids will help me. You stay and entertain.”
His jaw clenched, a muscle ticking violently in his cheek. But the eyes of his influential business partners were on him. He released me, shooting me a look that promised absolute hell.
I turned and walked calmly toward the double doors, Harper falling into step beside me the moment I hit the hallway. As soon as we rounded the corner, we broke into a sprint.
“You’re bleeding heavily,” Harper gasped as we practically fell into the bridal suite, slamming the heavy mahogany door behind us and throwing the deadbolt.
“I don’t care about the blood. Get the laptop!” I demanded, rushing to the sink.
Harper threw her purse onto the vanity and ripped open her MacBook. For six weeks, she had been helping me organize the digital evidence. But the most horrifying discovery had only come to light two days ago.
It wasn’t just Derek.
As I scrubbed the cold water over my stinging face, washing away the sugar and blood, I looked at the digital dossier on Harper’s screen. There were emails. Hundreds of them, dating back two entire years.
Before I ever met Derek at that charity gala, his mother, Patricia, had run a background check on me. She had mapped out my assets, my vulnerabilities, the recent loss of my father. She was the architect. “She’s grieving and rich,” one email from Patricia to Derek read. “Play the protective anchor. Once you have the ring, she’ll hand over the reins. We need that software equity before the syndicate calls in your debt.”
My entire relationship, my fairytale romance, had been a calculated corporate acquisition.
“Plug in the recorder,” I ordered, ripping the tiny pearl button from my dress.
Harper connected it. “Uploading to Olivia’s secure server now,” she said, her fingers flying across the keys. Olivia was my attorney, currently sitting in an unmarked black car two blocks away.
Progress: 12%… 25%…
Suddenly, the doorknob rattled.
Harper froze. We both stared at the heavy wooden door.
“Claire.” Derek’s voice was muffled but laced with a terrifying edge. “Open the door.”
“I’m changing!” I called out, my voice trembling despite my best efforts.
“Open the damn door, Claire. Now.”
Progress: 45%… 60%…
“Give me five minutes!”
I heard a muffled voice outside. Not Derek’s. It was the venue manager.
“Sir, I can’t give you the master key…”
“My wife is in there, and she’s having a panic attack! She threatened to hurt herself!” Derek shouted, his voice a perfect pitch of feigned, desperate panic. “Give me the key before she does something stupid!”
My blood ran completely cold. He was building the narrative. If he hurt me in here, he would claim I did it to myself in a hysterical fit.
A metal key slid into the lock.
“Harper, block it!” I screamed.
Harper abandoned the laptop, grabbing the heavy, wrought-iron floor lamp near the sofa. Just as the deadbolt clicked open, she jammed the base of the lamp beneath the door handle, throwing her entire body weight against the wood.
Derek slammed his shoulder into the door from the outside. The wood groaned. Harper cried out as the impact jolted her bones.
Progress: 82%… 89%…
“Claire! I know what you’re doing!” Derek roared, dropping the concerned-husband act entirely. He slammed into the door again. The hinges screamed. The lamp base started to slip on the polished hardwood floor.
“Hold it, Harper! Just ten more seconds!” I yelled, watching the green bar crawl across the screen.
93%… 96%… 98%…
With a final, deafening crash, the door frame splintered. The heavy mahogany door flew inward, sending Harper sprawling to the carpet.
Derek stood in the doorway, his tuxedo jacket discarded, his eyes wide and wild like a cornered animal. He saw the laptop. He saw the progress bar.
He lunged across the room. I tried to grab the computer, but he backhanded me across the jaw. I hit the floor, tasting fresh copper.
Derek grabbed Harper’s laptop and smashed it brutally against the marble vanity countertop. The screen shattered into a spiderweb of dead pixels, the machine sparking before dying completely.
He stood over the wreckage, breathing heavily, adjusting his cuffs. He looked down at me, a cold, triumphant smirk twisting his lips.
“You really thought you were smart, didn’t you?” he sneered, pulling his phone from his pocket. “It’s 9:45 PM. You don’t have a computer. You don’t have a file. And in two hours, I own everything your daddy ever built.”
He reached down, grabbing my arm and hauling me roughly to my feet.
“Now. We are going back out there. You are going to smile. And you are going to open your banking app.”
I looked at the shattered laptop. Then I looked at Derek.
I let my shoulders slump, forcing tears to well in my eyes, playing the role of the broken, defeated woman he thought I was.
“Okay,” I whispered, letting my voice crack. “You win.”
Derek chuckled, a dry, evil sound. “Good girl. Let’s go rejoin our guests.”
He turned to lead me out, missing the look that passed between Harper and me. He missed the way Harper quickly checked her Apple Watch.
Because Derek didn’t know how cloud syncing worked.
The file had hit 100% exactly one second before he smashed the screen.
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