Chapter 2 - The Fourth Bride
The brass handle of the heavy oak bedroom door turned with a soft, metallic click, but the door only drifted open an inch.
Clara stood frozen beside her open suitcase, the polaroid photograph heavy in her hand. Her pulse hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. The words YOU ARE FOUR seemed to burn against the glossy paper.
"Clara?"
Elena’s voice came from the hallway.
The door pushed fully open. Elena stood there, holding a stack of freshly laundered towels, her brow furrowed in concern.
Clara exhaled a shaky breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Elena. Hey."
"Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost." Elena stepped into the room, dropping the towels onto an armchair, and finally noticed Clara's white knuckles and the open photograph. "What is that?"
Clara wordlessly extended her hand.
Elena walked over, took the photograph, and turned it over. The moment she read the back, all color vanished from her face. Her hand shook so violently that the edges of the picture bent.
"Where did you find this?" Elena demanded, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
"It was inside my suitcase. Right on top of my yellow cardigan."
"Your suitcase was downstairs with the guards when we arrived," Elena said, her eyes wide with mounting panic. "Someone brought it up, or... or someone was down there."
"The guard room?" Clara asked incredulously. "Are you telling me someone walked right past Adrian’s armed guards, opened my locked suitcase, and left a threat?"
"Or someone in this house is helping them," Elena said grimly, looking toward the hallway.
Before Clara could process the terrifying implication of a mole inside the mountain estate, heavy, rapid footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Adrian burst into the room.
His black jacket was gone, his rolled-up shirtsleeves revealing forearms corded with muscle, and his expression was a dark, gathering storm. He took one look at Elena's pale face and Clara's rigid posture, and his gaze snapped to the photograph in Elena's hand.
"Give me that."
Adrian’s voice didn't ask; it commanded.
Elena handed it over.
Adrian stared at the front of the polaroid, then flipped it. His eyes traced the handwriting: BRIDE THREE. YOU ARE FOUR.
The silence in the bedroom became absolute.
"Marco and the guards searched the perimeter," Adrian said, his voice dangerously low. "Grayson's car is empty. No blood. No signs of struggle. Just a rented sedan left running by the guardrail."
"He was taken," Clara said, her voice uncharacteristically steady. "Or he ran. But if someone left this in my suitcase while we were downstairs in the library... they were inside the house, Adrian. Right under your nose."
Adrian looked at her, really looked at her. For a second, she saw a flicker of something raw in his eyes—not anger at her, but a terrifying, protective fury directed outward.
"You should be packing your bags," Adrian said quietly. "You should be demanding that I put you on the next flight back to Denver."
"Is that what the other three did?" Clara asked.
"The first two, yes."
"And the third?"
"She didn't get the choice," Adrian said.
Clara swallowed hard. Her knees felt weak, but she forced herself to stand tall. "Well, lucky for you, I'm remarkably stubborn. My bakery is facing foreclosure, my father's legacy is on the line, and I am not walking away from a contract over a creepy photograph."
Adrian stared at her for a long, heavy moment.
"You're out of your mind," he muttered, though there was a strange, subtle shift in the tight line of his jaw.
"Probably," Clara agreed. "Now, are we getting married tomorrow or not? Because if I'm going to be hunted by an anonymous pen-pal, I'd at least like to get my bakery paid for first."
Elena let out a sudden, startled sound that was half-gasp, half-laugh.
Adrian's lips twitched again. This time, it definitely crossed the line into a real, albeit brief, smile.
"Tomorrow," Adrian said, handing the photograph back to Elena. "At ten in the morning. Private ceremony in the estate chapel. Be ready."
"Will do," Clara said.
Adrian turned and strode out of the room, his broad shoulders filling the doorway before he disappeared down the hall.
May you like
Elena watched him go, then turned to Clara with a look of utter bewilderment. "Did you seriously just sass the most dangerous man in the Rocky Mountains?"
"He needed it," Clara muttered, looking back down at her open suitcase. "Besides... I've survived Mrs. Holloway's laundromat fire and my father's accounting books. How bad can a mafia wedding really be?"
