Chapter 7
The rain fell harder.
Water ran down the cathedral steps, around the fallen wedding ring, and into the street where headlights fractured across the pavement.
Guests shifted under umbrellas.
Someone whispered that the press had arrived.
Wesley heard it and signaled two guards toward the sidewalk.
Garrett kept his focus on Mave.
“Who told you I stopped looking?”
Mave’s throat tightened.
“No.”
“Who?”
She shook her head, panic rising.
“Not here.”
Coraline seized the opening.
“Listen to her for once. Not here. Not in front of guests, bodyguards, and a child.”
Garrett looked at her.
“You lost the right to mention the child.”
Coraline’s mouth tightened.
“I am trying to prevent a public disaster.”
“The disaster is already public.”
He glanced toward the cathedral entrance.
“The truth finally has witnesses.”
That sentence changed the crowd.
People who had been watching as guests suddenly realized they were witnesses.
Some lowered their phones.
Others stepped back as if distance could erase memory.
Mave’s knees almost weakened.
Garrett moved instantly, one arm coming around her without forcing, supporting her and Posie together.
The child’s cheek pressed against his soaked shirt.
For half a second, all three of them formed the family the Hail estate had spent years preventing.
Mave whispered, “Don’t hold us like that unless you mean it.”
Garrett’s eyes moved to hers.
“I mean it.”
The answer came too fast to be strategy.
That frightened her almost as much as it healed her.
A horn sounded softly from the street.
One short note.
Not traffic.
Signal.
Mave jerked.
Wesley’s expression hardened.
“Boss.”
Garrett turned.
The lead SUV’s window lowered a few inches.
Only darkness inside.
No face.
No reveal.
But the message was clear.
Someone was watching from close enough to hear.
Coraline’s faint smile returned.
Mave saw it.
So did Garrett.
He leaned toward Wesley without taking his eyes off the vehicle.
“Whatever happens, they go behind me.”
Wesley nodded.
“Always.”
Coraline whispered, “You have no idea what you’re starting.”
Garrett looked at her.
May you like
“No. I know exactly what should have started three years ago.”
Read Chapter 8 👉 Because Garrett finally stopped reacting to the wedding and began treating the street like a battlefield built by his own family.
