Chapter 1 BLOOD WEDDING ESCAPE

# CHAPTER 1: "BLOOD WEDDING ESCAPE"

Rain lashed against the church's stained glass windows as I locked myself in the bathroom stall, my hands trembling around the pregnancy test. The little pink plus sign stared back at me, confirming what I had suspected for weeks. Positive. I was carrying Louie Wagner's child.

My wedding dress—no, Haven's wedding dress that I was forced to wear—pooled around my feet, the hem already stained with mud from my desperate run through the church gardens. I needed a moment alone, away from the eyes that had been watching my every move for months.

"Mrs. Wagner?" A deep voice called from outside. "Mr. Wagner is waiting for the ceremony to continue."

I stared at my reflection in the small compact mirror I'd smuggled into my bodice. The face looking back at me was mine, but it wasn't supposed to be mine. It was supposed to be Haven Matthews—the woman whose identity I'd been forced to assume. My fingers traced the diamond choker around my neck, the one Louie had personally locked there this morning. Engraved with "H.M."—Haven Matthews. A dog collar to remind me who I was supposed to be.

"Tell Louie," I called back, a cold smile forming on my lips, "his bride has a special gift for him tonight."

I snapped the compact shut and reached for the heavy ceramic soap dispenser beside the sink. There was only one way out of this nightmare, and it wasn't through the door.

With a swift movement, I smashed the dispenser against the narrow bathroom window. Glass shattered, raining down on the marble floor. Cold air and rain rushed in, freedom just inches away. I hitched up my dress and climbed onto the sink, ignoring the shards slicing into my bare legs. Blood spattered onto the white satin as I squeezed through the opening.

Behind me, the bathroom door burst open. "She's escaping!" a voice shouted. Through the broken window, I heard Haven's shrill voice over someone's radio: "Don't let her get away! She stole what's mine!"

I landed hard on the muddy ground outside, my ankle twisting beneath me. Pain shot up my leg, but adrenaline pushed it aside. I ripped the suffocating veil from my hair and ran, each step sending agony through my injured ankle. The rain soaked through the wedding dress, weighing me down like chains.

Headlights cut through the darkness ahead—Louie's security team had anticipated my escape route. I veered left, toward the cliffs that overlooked the churning ocean. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating my path for brief, terrifying seconds.

I could hear engines behind me, closing in. The wet grass made the slope treacherous, but I pushed forward, one hand clutching my stomach protectively. The wind whipped my hair around my face as I reached the edge of the cliff. Thirty feet below, black waves crashed against jagged rocks.

Car doors slammed behind me. I turned to see Louie stepping out of his Maybach, flanked by security guards with flashlights. His expression was eerily calm as he approached me, gun in hand.

"Scarlett," he said my name like it was a disease. "Where do you think you're going with my property?"

I backed up until my heels teetered on the cliff edge. "I'm not your property, Louie."

"Not you." His gun lowered to point directly at my stomach. "What you're carrying. Who does it belong to, Scarlett? Who put their bastard in you?"

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Rain streamed down my face, mixing with tears I refused to acknowledge. "You did, Louie. This is your child."

A flicker of something—shock, rage, disbelief—crossed his face before settling back into that terrifying calm. "Impossible. I never touched you."

"Didn't you?" I laughed bitterly. "Two months ago. The night of the charity gala. You were drunk, the lights were low, and you called me Haven all night. You got what you wanted—her in your bed. Except it was me."

His finger tightened on the trigger. "You're lying."

"Am I? Then why kill me? If I'm lying, there's no harm in letting me go." I ripped the diamond choker from my neck, the clasp breaking under my desperate strength. "I'm not Haven. I never was. And this—" I held up the pregnancy test that was still clutched in my hand "—this is your punishment for everything you've done."

"Give it to me," he snarled, stepping closer. "Give me that test."

"You want it?" I held it out over the cliff. "Come and get it."

The waves roared below, calling to me. A strange calm settled over me as I made my decision. I would not let my child be born into this nightmare, to be used as a pawn in Louie and Haven's sick games. But I wouldn't let them die, either. If there was any chance, any chance at all...

"This is your reckoning, Louie Wagner," I whispered.

And then I let myself fall backward into the abyss.

Time slowed. I saw Louie lunge forward, his face contorted in rage. I heard the crack of his gun firing, felt the bullet whistle past my ear. The wedding dress billowed around me like ghostly wings as I plummeted toward the churning sea. The pregnancy test slipped from my fingers, tumbling alongside me, the word "POSITIVE" blurring in the rain.

The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. Ice-cold water enveloped me, dragging me down into its depths. My lungs burned, screaming for air, but I forced myself deeper, away from the surface where Louie's men would be searching. The heavy wedding dress pulled me down, down, down.

As my consciousness began to fade, memories flashed before my eyes.

Forty-eight hours earlier, I'd been handcuffed to a chair in Haven's dressing room, my face bruised from her latest outburst. She'd grabbed my chin, her manicured nails digging into my skin.

"Listen carefully, Scarlett," she'd hissed. "Play your part in this wedding, be me one last time, and I'll tell you what really happened to your mother."

My mother. The reason I'd agreed to this sick arrangement in the first place. The reason I'd spent the last year pretending to be Haven Matthews, the socialite who'd mysteriously dropped out of public life after a "tragic accident" left her "emotionally scarred."

I remembered the tailor secretly slipping me the pregnancy test while adjusting Haven's wedding dress to fit my body. The look in her eyes told me she knew something wasn't right.

I remembered standing at the altar beside Louie, his fingers painfully gripping my chin as he turned my face to his. "Remember," he'd whispered, "your value is only in how much you look like her."

And I remembered the wedding ring the priest handed to Louie, catching a glimpse of the engraving inside: "To H.M." Not for me. Never for me. I was just a stand-in, a body double for the woman too damaged—or too calculating—to marry the man she'd manipulated for years.

Darkness closed in around me as my lungs finally gave out. My last thought before unconsciousness claimed me was a prayer—not for myself, but for the tiny life inside me. A life I would fight heaven and hell to protect.

If I survived this night, Louie Wagner and Haven Matthews would learn what it truly meant to face someone with nothing left to lose.

---

Five years later, I stood in the shadows of the New York Charity Gala, watching the man who thought he'd killed me take the stage. Louie Wagner, still as handsome and commanding as ever, adjusted the microphone with the practiced ease of a man born to power.

"Thank you all for coming tonight," he began, his voice carrying through the grand ballroom. "The Wagner Foundation is proud to announce a new initiative—"

He stopped abruptly, a hand going to his chest. A cough escaped his lips, then another. The third brought blood, splattering crimson across the white linen of his shirt.

Panic erupted in the room as Louie collapsed, his body convulsing on the stage. Emergency personnel rushed forward, but I remained motionless, watching the scene unfold with detached interest.

Above the stage, the presentation screen flickered, the foundation's logo replaced by a medical report:

PATIENT: LOUIS WAGNER

DIAGNOSIS: RARE BLOOD TOXIN

INCUBATION PERIOD: 5 YEARS

KNOWN SURVIVORS: SCARLETT LIPSEY (DECEASED)

A small smile curved my lips as I struck a match, lighting the small candle on my table. In its glow, I laid out five passports, each bearing my face but with different names. Five identities I'd cultivated over the years, waiting for this moment.

"Mommy," came a small voice beside me. I turned to my four-year-old son, his dark eyes—Louie's eyes—gleaming with an intelligence far beyond his years. "Daddy's poison is working now, isn't it?"

I stroked his hair, so like his father's. "Yes, sweetheart. Just like we planned."

On stage, the paramedics loaded Louie onto a stretcher. Our eyes met across the room for a split second—his widening in shock as recognition dawned.

I raised my glass in a silent toast.

The game had begun.