Chapter 6 Fire Wedding

Chapter 6: Fire Wedding

The Cantrell family cemetery sprawled across five manicured acres at the far edge of the estate, separated from the main house by a small lake and a copse of ancient oak trees. Generations of Cantrells rested beneath marble monuments and granite headstones, their names and accomplishments etched in stone for eternity.

Today, the cemetery had been transformed. White chairs were arranged in neat rows before a flower-adorned altar. An aisle runner of white silk stretched from the cemetery gates to the freshly dug grave where Theodore Cantrell's remains had been interred just one week earlier.

I surveyed my handiwork with cold satisfaction. The scene was perfect—beautiful, elegant, and utterly macabre. Just as I had planned.

"Ms. Morton," my assistant approached cautiously, "the guests are beginning to arrive."

I nodded, smoothing the front of my wedding gown—white silk and lace, with a bodice adorned with pearls and a train that stretched for ten feet behind me. The same dress I had worn when I married Ernest five years ago, now altered to fit my post-pregnancy body.

"And our special guests?"

"Mr. Cantrell has been... prepared... as you requested," she replied, her voice carefully neutral. "The child is with his handler, waiting for your signal."

"Excellent. And Miranda?"

"Recovering from surgery. The doctors say the procedure was successful."

I smiled. Miranda had capitulated after all, agreeing to the surgery to remove my uterus from her body rather than face public humiliation. The organ was now preserved in a medical facility, awaiting a potential transplant to a deserving recipient—a young woman who had lost her own reproductive organs to cancer. A fitting end to that chapter of my revenge.

"It's time," I said, picking up my bouquet—white roses interspersed with black lilies, a custom arrangement that had cost a small fortune. "Let's not keep the groom waiting."

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The "guests" were an assortment of carefully selected witnesses: the three Cantrell bastard sons, seated in the front row; key executives from Cantrell Industries who needed to see the transfer of power firsthand; a judge who would finalize all legal documents; and a handful of reporters from select publications, invited to document the event for posterity.

Ernest was not present—not in the conventional sense. In his place at the altar stood an ornate silver urn containing his ashes, placed on a pedestal and adorned with the same flowers as my bouquet.

The murmurs of confusion died as I began my walk down the aisle, accompanied not by traditional wedding music but by a hauntingly beautiful cello sonata. All eyes turned to me—some wide with shock, others narrowed in calculation, a few gleaming with barely suppressed amusement.

At the altar, a small figure waited—Thomas, dressed in a miniature priest's robes, his face solemn beyond his years. This had been my most controversial decision, using the child in this final act of my revenge drama. Even my most loyal assistants had questioned the wisdom of involving Thomas so directly.

But I had insisted. The boy needed to understand his heritage, to witness the consequences of his family's actions. He needed to see, firsthand, the price of being a Cantrell.

I reached the altar and handed my bouquet to my assistant. Thomas looked up at me, his blue eyes—so like his grandfather's—unnervingly steady.

"Are you ready?" I asked him softly.

He nodded once, then turned to face the assembled guests.

"We are gathered here today," he began, his childish voice carrying clearly across the cemetery, "to witness the union of Ava Morton and Ernest Cantrell in holy matrimony."

A ripple of uncomfortable laughter moved through the crowd, quickly silenced by my cold stare.

"But Ernest is dead," Thomas continued, following the script I had carefully taught him. "He died of a heart attack after learning the truth about his family. The truth about me."

The cemetery fell silent except for the rustle of wind through the oak trees.

"I am not Ernest's son," Thomas declared. "I am his brother. My real father was Theodore Cantrell, who used my mother as a surrogate without her permission."

I watched the reporters scribbling frantically, capturing every word of the child's damning speech.

"My grandmother stole my mother's womb," Thomas continued, his voice never wavering. "She took it while my mother was unconscious after giving birth to me. She wanted to use it to create another heir—a brother for me, who would also be my uncle."

Several guests shifted uncomfortably in their seats. One executive loosened his tie, his face pale.

"The Cantrell family built their fortune by using people," Thomas said, reciting the words I had taught him without fully understanding their meaning. "They used my mother. They used other women. They used their own sons and daughters as pawns in their games."

I stepped forward then, taking over the ceremony. "Today, I reclaim what was taken from me," I announced. "Not just my child, not just my body, but my dignity and my power."

I gestured to my assistant, who brought forward a large manila envelope. From it, I withdrew a stack of documents—the transfer paperwork for Cantrell Industries, already signed by Ernest before his unexpected death, by the three brothers, and by Miranda from her hospital bed.

"With these signatures," I said, holding the papers aloft, "the Cantrell empire passes to me, as Theodore's will dictated. As Thomas's biological mother and legal guardian, I will hold it in trust until he comes of age."

I turned to the judge, who stepped forward to witness my own signature on the final page. With a flourish, I signed my name—not Ava Morton, but Ava Cantrell, reclaiming the name that had once been forced upon me and now served as my instrument of victory.

"It is done," the judge declared, stamping the document with his official seal.

I turned back to the assembly. "But our ceremony is not yet complete. Every wedding needs a ring, a symbol of eternal commitment."

My assistant handed me a small velvet box. I opened it to reveal a man's platinum wedding band—Ernest's ring, removed from his finger before cremation.

"With this ring," I said, slipping it onto my own thumb, "I thee dead."

The shocked silence was broken only by the sound of a camera shutter.

"And now," I continued, "the vows."

I faced the silver urn containing Ernest's remains. "I, Ava, take you, Ernest, to be my unlawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death... oh wait, death has already parted us."

A few nervous titters from the crowd.

"I promise to honor your memory by dismantling everything you built, by rewriting the Cantrell legacy, by raising your son—your brother—to be everything you were not: honest, compassionate, and worthy of the power he will inherit."

I turned to Thomas and nodded. On cue, the child stepped forward with a small silver lighter in his hand. I removed my wedding veil and held it over the open grave where Theodore was buried.

"The traditional gift for a fifth wedding anniversary is wood," I said conversationally to the stunned audience. "But I think fire is more appropriate, don't you?"

Thomas flicked the lighter, and the flame caught the delicate lace of my veil. It ignited quickly, burning bright and hot in the afternoon sun. When it was fully ablaze, I dropped it into Theodore's grave.

"Accept your dowry," I said to the flames. "I'll see you in hell."

The assembled guests began to rise, some backing away in horror, others simply eager to escape the spectacle. But I wasn't finished.

"Before you leave," I called out, my voice carrying across the cemetery, "there's one final announcement."

I beckoned to Thomas, who came to stand beside me. I placed my hand on his shoulder—the first time I had touched my son since his birth.

"Thomas is no ordinary child," I said. "Theodore made sure of that."

The boy looked up at me with those unsettling blue eyes, and I saw it again—that flicker of something ancient and cold, something that didn't belong in a child's gaze.

"Show them," I whispered to him.

Thomas turned to face the audience and slowly opened his eyes wider. The blue irises seemed to shift, to deepen, until they were the exact shade of Miranda's eyes—not just similar, but identical in every detail.

Gasps echoed through the cemetery as people recognized the impossible similarity.

"Thomas carries Miranda's eyes," I explained to the confused onlookers. "Not metaphorically, but genetically. He was created using advanced genetic modification techniques—illegal ones. Theodore wanted an heir who combined the best traits of the Cantrell bloodline."

I gestured to the mausoleum where generations of Cantrells were entombed. "DNA from Theodore, visual features from Miranda, intelligence markers from Ernest's great-grandfather—the Nobel laureate. Thomas is not just a child; he's a carefully engineered vessel for the Cantrell legacy."

The reporters were practically climbing over each other now, desperate to capture every word of this unprecedented revelation.

"But there's one more twist to this sordid tale," I said, reaching into my bouquet to withdraw a sealed envelope. "Theodore's final secret."

I handed the envelope to the judge, who opened it with shaking hands. His eyes widened as he scanned the contents.

"This is... this is a new will," he stammered. "Dated three days before Theodore Cantrell's death."

"Read it," I commanded.

The judge cleared his throat. "I, Theodore Cantrell, being of sound mind, hereby revoke all previous wills and testaments. I bequeath all my worldly possessions, including all shares and interests in Cantrell Industries, to my grandson, Thomas Cantrell, to be administered by his biological mother, Ava Morton, until his twenty-first birthday."

The three brothers leapt to their feet in protest, but I silenced them with a raised hand.

"There's more," I said, nodding for the judge to continue.

"Furthermore," he read, "I acknowledge that Thomas Cantrell is not a natural birth but a created being—a genetic composite using DNA from multiple family members, including myself. As such, he represents the culmination of the Cantrell bloodline and the true heir to all it encompasses."

The cemetery erupted in chaos—the brothers shouting, the executives conferring in panicked whispers, the reporters calling frantically to their editors.

Through it all, Thomas stood silently beside me, his face impassive, his unnatural eyes taking in the scene with eerie calm.

When the noise reached its peak, the child raised his small hand. To my astonishment, the crowd fell silent immediately, as if compelled by some unseen force.

"The Cantrell family belongs to me now," Thomas said, his childish voice somehow resonating with authority. "My mother will guide me until I'm ready to lead. Those who are loyal will be rewarded. Those who oppose us..."

He let the threat hang unfinished in the air.

A cold shiver ran down my spine as I looked down at my son—this child I had birthed but never raised, this being engineered from the Cantrell bloodline, carrying my genes but shaped by forces I hadn't fully comprehended until now.

In my quest for revenge, had I unleashed something even more dangerous than the Cantrells themselves?

As if reading my thoughts, Thomas turned those unnatural eyes to me and smiled—a child's smile on the surface, but with something ancient lurking beneath.

"Don't worry, Mother," he said, taking my hand in his small one. "We're going to reshape the world together."

The gravestone behind us suddenly cracked with a sound like a gunshot. The assembled guests gasped as Theodore Cantrell's massive marble monument split down the middle, revealing a hidden compartment within.

Inside lay a document—the original will, with Thomas's name clearly designated as sole heir, the only true Cantrell worthy of the name.

As I stood in my wedding dress beside my son—this child who was both victim and victor of the Cantrell legacy—I realized that my revenge had taken a form I never anticipated. I had not just destroyed the Cantrells; I had created their ultimate evolution.

The cemetery began to empty, people fleeing the macabre scene, leaving me alone with Thomas and the ashes of the family that had tried to use me.

"Are you ready to go home, Mother?" Thomas asked, his voice once again that of a normal three-year-old.

I looked at the burning veil in Theodore's grave, at Ernest's urn on its pedestal, at the cracked headstone revealing the family's final secret.

"Yes," I said, taking his small hand in mine. "Let's go home."

As we walked away from the graves of the men who had thought they could own me, Thomas looked up with those impossible eyes—Miranda's eyes in a child's face.

"Mother," he asked innocently, "can we blow up the old house now?"

I looked down at him, this perfect weapon I had forged without realizing it, and smiled.

"Not today, Thomas," I replied. "Some fires burn best when they're lit slowly."

Behind us, the white roses on my discarded bouquet began to wither and blacken, as if touched by an invisible flame.

The game was over.

My turn had just begun.