Chapter 2 - The Video on the Wall
My thumb hit the glass, and the speakers overhead roared to life with deafening clarity.
The video wasn't grainy. It was crisp, high-definition palace surveillance, and the audio echoed across the vaulted ceilings like thunder.
"You took five million dollars twenty-four years ago to take that girl across the Atlantic and never bring her back," Victoria’s sharp, haughty voice resonated through the cathedral-like hall. "Why is she in this country, Margaret?"
On the screen, my mother sat rigidly on an antique velvet settee. Her knuckles were white, clutching her battered handbag. "Clara got a catering visa on her own, Victoria. She doesn't know anything. She thinks she's just working a summer event in London. Let me take her home before Alexander sees her."
"If Alexander sees her face, everything I built turns to ashes!" Victoria hissed on the recording, leaning into my mother’s face. "Eleanor is dead and buried. I spent two years convincing him to put this ring on my finger. If that girl steps foot near the altar, neither of you will make it back to Maryland alive."
The entire ballroom fell into a suffocating, horrified silence.
Three hundred members of European aristocracy, foreign dignitaries, and royal guards stood frozen. The ambient hum of the red emergency lights made the scene look like an open wound.
Beside me, Prince Alexander let go of my wrist as if he had been burned. His face drained of every ounce of color. He slowly turned toward the woman wearing a two-million-dollar custom lace bridal gown.
"You knew?" Alexander’s voice was dangerously low, vibrating with a lethal, suppressed fury. "You told me Margaret Bennett was an American nurse who died in childbirth. You told me Eleanor had no surviving relatives."
"Alexander, darling, listen to me—it’s deepfake technology!" Victoria cried out, backing away, her bridal veil catching on the floral arch. "Someone is trying to sabotage the crown! Look at her! She’s an imposter paid by foreign operatives!"
"An imposter?" Alexander took a step toward her, his tall frame casting a long shadow under the crimson glare. "She wears the crest of House Whitmore around her neck. And Oliver—Oliver hasn't allowed anyone to touch him since Eleanor took her last breath."
Little Oliver buried his tiny face into the crook of my neck, his small fingers tangled tight in my hair. He was whimpering softly, but he wasn't screaming anymore. He was clinging to me as if his survival depended on it.
"Security!" Victoria screamed, her poise completely shattering into raw hysteria. "Arrest this catering girl! She is armed! She’s threatening the heir!"
Two royal guards stepped forward, their hands resting on their holstered sidearms. But before they could take another step, Alexander raised one gloved hand.
"Stand down," the Prince commanded. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the room like a broadsword. "Anyone who lays a finger on this woman or my son will be charged with high treason."
Suddenly, the heavy oak doors at the back of the cathedral creaked open.
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A figure stepped through the curtain of rain from outside. She wore a soaking wet trench coat, her hair plastered to her cheeks, gasping for breath.
It was my mother.
