Chapter 5 I Tear Up The Marriage Contract, And You Beg Me For Forgiven

• Odette's POV
• Morning found me in a room that didn’t belong to me, with a calm that did. The city lay pale and quiet beyond the glass, all steel and soft light. I showered until the night rinsed from my skin, dressed, and pinned my hair with a steadiness that would have looked like peace to anyone who didn’t know me. Callum didn’t try to fill the silence. He poured coffee, set the cup on the counter, and slid a folded note beside it with that precise hand of his, nothing sentimental, only what mattered. Don’t let them corner you. I slipped the note into my clutch and left his jacket on the back of a chair. I wasn’t walking into a cathedral wearing anyone’s armor but my own.
• The street outside the church was already a stage. Cameras, hushed commentary, glossy invitations held like tickets to a fight. Marble steps, heavy doors, a spray of lilies that smelled like money and nerves. Inside, the air was cool and ambitious. Pews filled with people who had practiced their surprised faces in the mirror. Victor and Margaux were pure posture near the front, the holy glow of stained glass flattering the unholy. Sebastian stood in a perfect suit with his jaw set like he’d carved it himself. Brielle, all blush silk and pearl, turned when she felt me arrive. No one could mistake the light in her eyes for kindness.
• Ellis waited at the altar in black and white, the picture of a man who believed in second chances because he had never paid for the first failure. He saw me and the smile he thought would save him came up like a reflex. “You look beautiful,” he said when I reached the steps. “We’ll sign the papers in the sacristy and go right in. Private, quick. No fuss.”
• Private was their favorite room. “Not today,” I said.
• He blinked. “What?”
• “Bring the contract here,” I told the coordinator who hovered like a frightened bird at the aisle’s edge. “And a microphone.”
• There was shuffling. The organ stumbled. A low ripple moved through the crowd like wind across a field. Someone tried to smile it away and failed.
• The coordinator brought the cream folder on a silver tray, as if it were Eucharist instead of the trap it was. Ellis stepped closer, voice softened to plea. “Odette, we can do this later—”
• “We’ll do it now.” I opened the folder so the first two rows could see the neat black type. “I’ve been told I shouldn’t make a scene.” I lifted my eyes. “I intend to make a point.”
• A hush spread fast and thick. Even the photographers at the back held their breath.
• “This contract,” I said, “isn’t a prenup. It’s a ransom note.” I tapped the clause like it had offended me personally. “Section 7(c). In the event of marriage, Odette Carrington’s voting rights in Carrington Holdings will be held in trust and executed by her spouse, for her own good and the good of the company.” I looked at Ellis. “That’s such a tender phrase, for her own good. Whose good, really?”
• Color rose along his collar. “It’s standard. It’s protection. You’ve been through a lot—”
• “Protection?” I repeated, a laugh without humor. “Last night your fiancée-to-be’s best friend—oh, forgive me, not your fiancée, just your co-conspirator—arranged a surprise for me. Champagne, a quiet room, three strangers, and a lens. You wanted a bride and a scandal. A wife and a leash. A woman whose name was legal cover while you and Brielle counted my shares.”
• The murmur swelled, jagged this time. Victor sat up straighter; Margaux’s smile cracked at one corner. Sebastian’s mouth tightened like a knot pulled too hard. Brielle’s cheeks went white and then pink and then something in between.
• Ellis lifted both hands as if he could catch the words and stuff them back in my mouth. “That isn’t what happened.”
• “It is exactly what happened,” I said, voice steady and clear enough to carry to the last pew. “And if it hadn’t, you’d be calling me dramatic instead of terrified. You all wanted a show.” I looked down at the contract, then back up at them. “Allow me.”
• I tore the first page cleanly in half. The sound cracked through the nave like a whip. The second page folded, ripped, fell to marble like pale confetti. The third went the same way. I took my time. I wanted them to feel every inch of power shift they had assumed would always tilt their way. When I finished, I let the shredded pieces drift from my fingers onto the aisle runner, the cream scraps bright and ugly against the white.
• Gasps. A hand to a chest here, a snapped “oh my God” there. A camera flash at the back. The organist put both hands in his lap and stared. Somewhere, a child asked too loudly if the wedding was broken. Yes, darling. Thoroughly.
• Brielle was on her feet now, voice pitched to sweetness that broke at the edges. “This is slander.”
• “Truth rarely flatters the people it exposes,” I said. “You lied under oath, Brielle. You engineered a trap last night that didn’t spring because I don’t break on command. You and Ellis cooked up this”—I nudged the shredded contract with the point of my heel—“as a way to hold the door while you robbed the house.”
• Sebastian’s jaw worked. “Careful,” he said softly, like the blade he kept hidden had an edge I should respect.
• “We both know I’m past careful,” I said without looking at him. “And past letting you script me.”
• Ellis stepped forward, a tremor in his mouth he probably thought read as devotion. “I made mistakes.” The words tumbled out, the beginning of the speech he had rehearsed in front of his bathroom mirror. “I did. I’m sorry. I am. I was scared, I was stupid, I was—”
• “You were convenient,” I said. “Useful when I was young and trusting. Useful when silence served you.” I paused, let him meet my eyes. “And when it was time to choose between me and the people who could make you richer, you chose them.”
• He flinched. “I never stopped loving you.”
• “You never started protecting me.” I turned so I could see all of them, so my voice carried to the doors. “Five years ago, you watched me go to prison and the only thing you protected was your place at the table.” I lifted my chin. “Today, I’m reminding you I built the table.”
• A reporter at the back—bless the ones who smell blood through stained glass—called out, “Do you have proof of this conspiracy?”
• “I have the truth,” I said, and let the word fill the space. “Evidence lives in email servers and bank statements and files that men like these are certain no one can reach. I have people who were paid to forget and are ready to remember. I have more than you think and less than I want.” I let that honesty land; it tasted better than spin. “But I have one thing that has always outrun money in this city: eyes. All of yours. And now you’ve seen me say it. Watch what happens next.”
• Brielle tried to laugh and couldn’t find the note. “This tantrum won’t change a thing. You still don’t have the company. You still don’t have—”
• “I have my name,” I said. “You wanted it stained. You’ll find it has teeth.”
• Ellis reached for my hand, desperate enough to forget cameras. “Please. Odette, please. Don’t do this. We can fix it. I’ll change the contract. I’ll fire anyone you want. I’ll—” The crack in his voice went honest for a second. “Please.”
• I stepped back, out of reach, and the motion looked like the only dance we had ever known. “You don’t get to beg me at the altar you built to bury me,” I said. “Not after last night. Not after five years.”
• He wilted. The coordinating staff pretended to rearrange flowers. The priest stared at his folded hands and found God somewhere in his lap.
• I lifted the microphone once more. “This wedding is over.” A beat. “You may keep the flowers.”
• The first shout came from outside, picked up and flung back through the open doors: questions piling into each other, a wave of want. Inside, people stood because they didn’t know whether one sits when an empire shifts. Victor started to say something, thought better of it. Margaux finally stopped smiling. Sebastian pressed two fingers to his temple like the headache had started exactly where his lies lived. Brielle’s eyes filmed, rage bright behind them. She had wanted a premiere. She got a cancellation notice.
• I walked down the aisle alone. No music. No train. The hem of my dress whispered over the shredded paper like a promise. The doors opened on a city ready to feed. Microphones thrust forward. I didn’t slow. The air outside tasted cooler, cleaner, better than it had on the way in.
• Halfway down the steps, I saw him. Not at my side; not in my way. Callumstood against the stone balustrade where the shadow met the sun, suit dark, expression unreadable, the kind of presence that says nothing until saying something ends the day. He didn’t move toward me. He didn’t need to. Our eyes caught for a breath. Approval, question, promise—all in the line of his mouth and the stillness of his shoulders. I gave him the smallest nod.
• A reporter shouted my name. Another begged for a statement. I stopped just long enough to set terms. “There will be a statement at Carrington House at noon,” I said. “Bring your cameras. Wear comfortable shoes.”
• I stepped off the final stair and the crowd parted because even hungry people know when to get out of the path of something that won’t stop. As I reached the car door, Ellis’s voice wavered behind me, cracked and raw, echoing where vows were supposed to be. “Odette, I’m sorry. Please. I love you.”
• I didn’t turn. “Then you should have loved me when it cost you something,” I said, and closed the door on the only kind of forgiveness I had left: none.
• The driver pulled away. In the side mirror, the church shrank, the steps scattered, the headline wrote itself in a dozen mouths. My pulse steadied. The calm from the morning returned, sharper now, finished into a blade.
• They wanted a bride.
• They will get a war.