Chapter 10 - The Public Execution
The silence in the Grand Ballroom was deafening. You could hear the ice melting in the silver buckets.
Every pair of eyes in the room turned from the screen to Sutton.
Her face was drained of every drop of color. Her lips parted, trembling, her eyes wide with unadulterated panic.
"Turn it off!" she shrieked, her voice cracking into an ugly, shrill scream. "Turn it off right now! Who did this?! Briany, turn it off!"
Briany was cowering behind a pillar, her face buried in her hands, shaking uncontrollably.
Harrison stepped backward, completely removing his arm from Sutton's grip. He looked down at her with cold, clinical disgust.
"Harrison... baby, listen to me," Sutton pleaded, reaching for his tuxedo lapel, her voice turning desperate. "It’s fake! It’s an AI deepfake! Fallon made it to ruin me! You know how sick and jealous she is—"
"I was the one who gave the file to the AV team, Sutton," Harrison said clearly into the microphone pinned to his lapel. His voice resonated through every speaker in the room.
Sutton froze, her eyes bugging out. "What?"
"We aren't married," Harrison continued calmly, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out the official marriage certificate they had signed an hour earlier. With deliberate, measured movements, he tore the heavy parchment in half, then into quarters, and let the white scraps flutter down onto her designer train. "The officiant was an actor I hired this morning. You married a blank piece of paper."
My mother shot out of her chair like a rocket. "Harrison! How dare you! How dare you humiliate my daughter like this—"
"Sit down, Eleanor," Harrison’s father barked from the head table. The elder billionaire rose, his face thunderous with fury. "Your family is completely cut off from every board, every charity, and every commercial contract in this city. You are frauds and predators."
Before Sutton could take another breath, the heavy double doors at the entrance of the Grand Ballroom swung open with a resounding bang.
Four uniformed police officers, led by two plainclothes detectives, marched down the center aisle, their boots clicking firmly against the polished marble floor.
"Sutton Vance?" the lead detective called out, unholstering a pair of steel handcuffs.
Sutton stumbled backward, her heels catching on her massive dress, falling ungracefully onto her rear on the polished floor—an exact, pathetic mirror of the fall she had forced me to take twenty-four hours earlier.
"Sutton Vance, you are under arrest for aggravated battery resulting in severe bodily harm, criminal conspiracy, and attempted financial fraud," the detective announced, snapping the cold steel around her manicured wrists in front of every camera, influencer, and high-society guest she had invited to witness her triumph.
As she was hauled to her feet, sobbing hysterically, mascara running black streaks down her cheeks, Briany was also intercepted by two officers near the exit.
May you like
The room erupted into absolute chaos as guests pulled out their phones, instantly uploading the unedited downfall of the internet's most despised bride.
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