Chapter 2
1369 Words
People say you never forget the worst day of your life.
They’re right.
Because the moment I stepped out of the bridal room, still wearing the dress Damian chose, still hoping the phone would ring, still praying this was all a nightmare. I realized there was no waking up.
I didn’t remember much about how I left the chapel.
Only flashes.
Lorenzo’s tall frame walked ahead of me like a shield and Sienna was gripping my bouquet so tightly her knuckles were white. Then there were the muffled murmurs of guests pretending not to stare.
The click of cameras outside, each flash slicing into me like a blade.
The world felt blurry, as if someone had smeared Vaseline over my vision. I heard everything and nothing at the same time.
“Elena, this way”
“No comments, please step back”
“Is it true he ran?”
The word followed me like a ghost.
Inside the sleek black SUV Lorenzo pulled around for us to escape, the door shut with a soft thud that sounded like finality. Silence filled the small space, suffocating and thick. I could still hear the crowd outside, the vultures shouting questions, grabbing angles of a broken bride who didn’t deserve to be broken.
My hands were trembling in my lap. I didn’t even realize it until Lorenzo placed a bottle of water beside me without saying a word. It was the smallest thing, but it unlocked something sharp inside of me.
“What if he’s hurt?” I whispered. “What if he needs me?” I had a lot of what-ifs going through my mind.
He looked at me then his jaw flexed, tension rippling through him. “Elena,” he said carefully. “Damian didn’t show up to marry you. That’s not an accident.”
“But I think you know,” I said, because the way he avoided my eyes earlier was nothing.
He exhaled through his nose. “There are… complications.”
Complications? The same word Damian used whenever work tried to swallow him. The same word he whispered last month when he’d been unusually distant for a few days.
“Please don’t treat me like I’m fragile,” I said softly. “Just tell me the truth.”
Lorenzo didn’t answer.
That silence told me everything I wasn’t ready to hear.
The car pulled away from the chapel, Sienna leaning her head on my shoulder. “We’re going to my apartment,” she said gently. “You are not going home alone.”
The penthouse Damian and I had chosen together. The place we were supposed to return to tonight as husband and wife.
My stomach twisted.
“No,” I murmured. “Take me anywhere else.”
Lorenzo glanced at me in the mirror. “My place is closest.”
Sienna whipped her head toward him. “No. Absolutely”
“It’s safer,” he said simply, “The press is already swarming Elena’s building. She shouldn’t walk into that.”
At this moment I could picture it. Cameras blocking the lobby, reporters asking questions about Damian, headlines labeling me abandoned and unwanted.
Sienna groaned softly. “God, they’re monsters.”
Lorenzo didn’t disagree.
I leaned my head backwards, my eyes closed for a moment as I was exhausted from the day. My dress felt heavy, suffocating, like a reminder of everything I lost in a single morning.
When the SUV finally stopped, I opened my eyes and realized we were outside a glass high-rise overlooking the East River. Very sleek and private.
Of course.
Lorenzo’s world was built like armor.
Security guards recognized him instantly and nodded us through. The elevator ride was silent except for the faint hum of machinery.
When we reached his penthouse, I stepped inside and froze.
Everything was dark marble, clean lines, and impossible views of the city, it looked stunning and expensive.
“You can change in the guest room,” Lorenzo said, already walking toward the kitchen. “Sienna can help.”
My fingers brushed the fabric of my ruined wedding dress, smeared with dust from the church floor, wrinkled from tears and panic.
I swallowed hard. “Okay.”
Sienna led me into the guest room, and the moment the door shut behind us, I finally broke into tears.
The sob came out of me so violently that I had to grab the edge of the dresser to stay upright. Sienna wrapped her arms around me immediately, holding me tight.
“Elena… sweetheart, everything is going to be fine, just breathe.”
“I can’t,” My voice cracked painfully. “He left me, Sienna. He left me without a word. I don’t understand. I really don’t”
“I know,” she whispered, rubbing my back. “I know, baby.”
We stayed like that until I was done crying. After I changed into the robe she found in the closet, I walked back into the living room, my limbs heavy like they were filled with cement.
Lorenzo was standing near the windows with his phone in his hand, very tense. He looked up the moment he heard me.
His gaze swept over me, not in a way that made me feel exposed, but in a way that made me feel seen.
“You should eat something,” he said quietly.
“I can’t.”
“You need to,” he insisted.
I shook my head, collapsing onto the sofa. “Did you find anything? Did anyone hear from him?”
The muscle in his jaw tightened. “We’re still searching.”
Something cold slid into my chest. “So something happened to him?”
Sienna stepped forward. “Lorenzo. Don’t you dare lie to her.”
He looked between the two of us, weighing something internally. Then he spoke.
“His car wasn’t at the penthouse. And he left his phone behind.”
“What?” I sat up sharply. “Damian never leaves his phone.”
“Exactly.”
“What are you saying?” My voice trembled. “That he was taken? Hurt? Threatened?
“Elena.” Lorenzo’s voice softened. “We don’t know yet. But this isn’t normal. For anyone. Especially not for Damian.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
My blood turned to ice.
Before I could speak, a buzz sounded at the door.
Lorenzo stiffened. He walked over, checked the screen, then glanced back at me with a strange expression.
“It’s a delivery,” he said.
Sienna frowned. “A delivery? Here?”
But something in Lorenzo’s eyes made my heartbeat spike.
He opened the door, and a small white envelope lay on the ground with no delivery man.
He picked it up, turned it over, and froze when he saw the writing.
“Elena,” he murmured, “it’s addressed to you.”
My breath caught.
My name, written exactly the way Damian always wrote it. Slightly slanted, with a tiny loop at the end.
My heart clawed against my ribs.
“What does it say?” I whispered.
Lorenzo hesitated.
“Give it to me,” I said, standing.
“Give it,” I repeated.
He handed it over reluctantly.
My fingers shook as I opened the envelope and unfolded the single sheet inside.
It was just four words, four tiny, lethal words that felt like a scalpel across my chest.
But they shattered me all over again.
It says, Don’t look for me.
The room spun.
Sienna gasped. “Oh my God…”
Lorenzo’s expression was something else.
I sank onto the sofa, the words blurring in my vision.
Here I was expecting an I’m sorry, I’ll explain or even I love you.
It’s Just… Don’t look for me.
My voice broke into a whisper.
“He really did leave me.”
But deep down, beneath the heartbreak, beneath the humiliation, something else stirred.
A tiny spark of suspicion.
Because Damian Blackwood may have abandoned me…
But he would never write those words.
Not unless someone forced him to.
And for the first time since the morning began, a new thought took root in the wreckage of my chest:
I realized my nightmare was only beginning.
- Writer
