Chapter 4 - THE LIVE STREAM
At 11:45 AM on Monday, the studio lights inside Delaney’s Westchester mansion were burning bright.
I sat in Bellamy’s car across the street, watching the live stream countdown on my tablet.
RECONCILIATION & HEALING: MY TRUTH AFTER THE WEDDING DISASTER. Live in 15:00 minutes. Current waiting viewers: 142,000.
Beside me, Sarah Klein was on the phone with the Westchester County District Attorney's office, while Bellamy monitored our own digital feed.
"You ready for this, Sloan?" Bellamy asked, adjusting her microphone.
I looked in the vanity mirror. I had removed the bulky hospital bandage, replacing it with a clean, discreet strip of medical tape over the seven stitches near my hairline. I wore a simple black blazer, no makeup, and a professional, unyielding demeanor.
"I spent ten years listening to my family tell me I was crazy," I said softly. "Today, everyone else gets to see the receipts."
At 12:00 PM, Delaney’s stream went live.
The screen filled with her flawless face. She was wearing a soft cashmere sweater in beige, sitting in front of a white marble fireplace. Tears glistened in her eyes on cue.
"Hi, everyone," Delaney began, her voice quivering with practice vulnerability. "I know you've seen the clips circulating online from my wedding. I'm taking a moment away from my honeymoon with Hayes because... because my heart is breaking. Family is everything to me, as you all know..."
She paused, taking a dramatic, shuddering breath.
"My older sister, Sloan, has struggled with deep jealousy for years. When she saw how happy Hayes and I were, she... she lost control. She grabbed me. She ruined the reception. And now she's demanding money from my parents to keep quiet..."
"That's our cue," Sarah said, hanging up with the DA. "The subpoena has been served to her talent agency."
I tapped the screen on my tablet.
Through a technical service Sarah had arranged, we executed an emergency legal counter-broadcast, dropping our evidence directly onto a newly launched public domain site linked directly in the comments section of Delaney’s live chat: www.TheWardFamilyReceipts.com.
Simultaneously, Bellamy uploaded the unedited twenty-second video of Marin crimping barbed wire into the tiara directly to TikTok, X, and Instagram, tagged with Delaney’s official wedding hashtag: #DelaneyAndHayesEverAfter.
Within three minutes, the comment section under Delaney’s live stream went from messages of sympathy to complete, chaotic whiplash.
@User8832: "WAIT LOOK AT TIKTOK RIGHT NOW #DelaneyAndHayesEverAfter"
@Sarah_Rae: "IS THAT BARBED WIRE?!"
@StyleGuru_99: "DUDE SHE PREMEDITATED IT?! THERE'S A VIDEO OF HER MAID OF HONOR CRIMPING WIRE INTO THE TIARA!"
@TruthFinder: "CHECK THE LINK IN THE CHAT! THEY STOLE HER DEAD SISTER'S DAUGHTER'S TRUST FUND?!"
Delaney was in the middle of a sentence about 'forgiveness' when her eyes flicked off-camera to her teleprompter and laptop monitor.
Her face drained of all color.
The soft piano music in her background kept playing, but Delaney stopped speaking entirely. Her mouth hung slightly open. Her hands began to shake visible against her cashmere sweater.
Off-camera, her producer’s voice burst through the audio feed, forgetting he was on a live mic: "Cut the feed! Turn it off! Cut the live!"
"Don't turn it off yet, Delaney," I whispered to the tablet screen. "We're just getting to the audit."
The stream went black, replaced by a gray screen reading: THIS STREAM HAS BEEN TERMINATED BY THE HOST.
It was too late.
May you like
In fifteen minutes, over two hundred thousand people had seen the video. The website had crashed from fifty thousand simultaneous hits.
And outside Delaney's Westchester driveway, two marked police cruisers pulled up behind Bellamy's car.
