Chapter 2 - The Crimson Registry
The sickening crunch of Preston’s ribs collapsing under my kick echoed through the cavernous arches of St. Jude’s Cathedral like a crack of thunder.
Preston flew sideways, his body airborne for a horrifying second before he slammed violently into the marble steps of the altar. He tumbled down the podium, skidding across the polished floor, his breath coming out in ragged, wet wheezes as he clutched his side, curled into a pathetic, writhing ball.
The five hundred elite guests sitting in the hand-carved mahogany pews—foreign diplomats, billionaire tech moguls, political dynasties, and high-society socialites—froze in absolute, suffocating shock. The bishop dropped his gold-bound prayer book, his face drained of every drop of color.
I didn't blink. I didn't reach up to cover my exposed shoulders or the bloodied skin where the ripped silk had sliced into my back.
I stepped over the torn, shredded remnants of my $200,000 gown, walking with a calm, predatory grace toward the fallen microphone stand. I picked up the heavy chrome mic with my bare, blood-stained fingers, my grip firm and unshakeable.
I turned toward the sound booth at the back of the cathedral and tapped the microphone.
Thump. Thump.
"Play file 04," I said. My voice was low, smooth, and laced with absolute, terrifying authority. "Now."
In the grand sound booth, my personal tech operative—a man I had paid three million dollars to override the venue's secure network three hours before the ceremony—pressed a single key.
The massive 8K LED walls that wrapped around the perimeter of the cathedral—originally installed to display romantic pre-wedding slide shows of our three-year courtship—instantly flickered, turned dark, and then flashed a vivid, blood-red graphic:
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: FEDERAL INDICTMENT & ILLEGAL ORGAN HARVESTING REGISTRY
A collective, high-pitched gasp rippled through the audience.
"What is the meaning of this?!" a booming, authoritative voice shouted from the front row.
It was Harrison Vance, Preston’s father—the ruthless patriarch of the Vance Financial Syndicate, a man whose net worth exceeded eight billion dollars. Harrison stood up, his face flushed with rage, pointing a diamond-ringed finger at me. "Security! Drag this unhinged bitch off the stage! She has lost her mind!"
Four broad-shouldered security guards in tailored suits moved toward the altar.
"Step one foot closer," I said into the microphone, my eyes locking onto the head of security, "and the automated system will broadcast the secondary encrypted file directly to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI, and the Interpol executive council."
The guards froze dead in their tracks.
On the LED screens, video footage began to play. It was high-definition, infrared surveillance camera footage timestamped from six months ago, taken inside a private, unregistered surgical bay in Zurich, Switzerland.
The video showed Preston Vance standing beside a hospital bed. Lying in the bed was Sienna Miller—the soft-spoken, supposedly fragile orphan girl the Vance family had 'adopted' seven years ago, the woman Preston had just declared his 'true love.'
Sienna wasn't dying of leukemia. On the video, she was sitting up in bed, sipping expensive champagne, laughing hysterically as she looked at medical charts.
“Are you sure the match is perfect, Preston?” Sienna’s voice echoed loudly through the cathedral’s surround-sound speakers, crystal clear, unedited, and damning. “If we drain her bone marrow and harvest her liver lobe under the guise of an 'emergency compatibility procedure,' won't her father's trust fund investigate?”
Preston’s recorded voice replied through the speakers, dripping with sociopathic nonchalance: “Victoria is an orphan now, Sienna. Her father died in that plane crash I arranged three years ago. She thinks I’m her savior. She signed the prenuptial agreement without reading Clause 14—the medical power of attorney clause. The day after the wedding, I legally own her body. We harvest what we need for your synthetic antibody therapy, sell the rest of her rare O-negative marrow on the private black market for twelve million dollars, and let her die of 'post-operative complications.' Her family’s sixty-billion-dollar shipping empire automatically transfers to me.”
The silence in the cathedral wasn't just quiet—it was catastrophic.
Socialites covered their mouths in horror. Political donors dropped their champagne glasses onto the stone floor, shattering the glass into a thousand pieces.
"No..." Preston wheezed from the floor, coughing up a streak of red blood onto his pristine white collar, his eyes wide with sheer, unadulterated terror as he stared up at the screens. "No... that's... that's a fake... It's AI generated! Dad, help me!"
Harrison Vance’s face turned from red to an ashen, ghost-like grey. He looked at his son, then at the screens, his chest heaving. "Turn it off! Turn it off right now!"
"We're not finished, Harrison," I said, my voice echoing over the speakers. "Because File 04 doesn't just feature your sociopathic son. It features the entire Vance bloodline."
The video cut to a document—a ten-year financial ledger detailing systematic murder, corporate sabotage, and illegal biological trafficking.
The documents showed that the Vance family hadn't built their financial empire on smart investments. For a decade, they had been luring wealthy heiresses, independent investors, and high-profile targets into fake marriages and fraudulent business partnerships, systematically poisoning them, harvesting their rare blood types for offshore elite medical clinics, and absorbing their corporate assets.
My father’s name was listed on line 42.
Target: Arthur Morgan. Asset Value: $60 Billion. Status: Eliminated via sabotage of Gulfstream G550 flight controls. Operative: Harrison Vance.
"You thought I was a naive, grieving heiress who fell for your son's charming smiles and fake sympathy," I said, stepping down from the altar, my bare feet echoing rhythmically on the marble as I walked toward the kneeling, bleeding Preston. "You thought I spent the last three years crying over my father's death."
I stood over Preston, looking down at him like he was a cockroach under my heel.
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"I spent the last three years buying your shell companies, bribing your private surgeons, and tracking every single cent you stole from my family," I whispered into the mic, ensuring every single guest heard every syllable. "I didn't wear this dress to marry you, Preston. I wore it to attend your execution."
Suddenly, the massive oak doors at the main entrance of the cathedral were blown open with a violent, deafening BANG!
