Chapter 1

Chapter 1

LUCIA POV

They say your wedding day is the happiest day of your life.

They lied.

I'm standing in the vestibule of St. Augustine Cathedral, wearing my grandmother's wedding dress, and I want to throw up. My hands shake so badly I can barely hold my bouquet. White roses. David picked them because he said they matched my pure heart.

What a joke.

The cathedral is packed. Three hundred people waiting to watch Lucia Mendez become Mrs. David Rodriguez. The banking heiress marrying the charming businessman. A fairy tale, the society pages called it.

But David is one hour late.

One hour.

My chest feels tight, like someone wrapped iron bands around my ribs. David has never been late for anything. When he says he'll call at eight, my phone rings at exactly eight. When he promises to pick me up at seven, he's outside my door at six fifty-five.

So where the hell is he?

I press my face to the crack between the heavy wooden doors. The guests are getting restless. Mrs. Valdez keeps checking her diamond watch. Mr. Santos is loosening his tie. The whispers are getting louder, bouncing off the stone walls like poison arrows.

"Something's wrong."

"Where is the groom?"

"Poor Lucia, standing there waiting."

My stomach churns. I taste bile in the back of my throat. Something is very, very wrong, and every cell in my body knows it.

The sound of footsteps makes me spin around so fast my veil catches on the door handle. Please be David. Please be David with some crazy story about traffic or a flat tire or anything that makes sense.

But it's Father Martinez walking toward me, and his face looks like death itself.

My heart stops. Just stops beating for a full second before it starts hammering against my chest like a trapped bird.

"No," I whisper before he even opens his mouth. "No, don't say it."

"Miss Mendez." His voice sounds like gravel. "I have something for you."

His hand trembles as he pulls out a folded piece of paper. I recognize the handwriting on the front immediately. David's neat script spelling out my name. The same handwriting that used to write me love letters.

I snatch the paper from his fingers. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely unfold it.

The words swim in front of my eyes:

*Lucia,

I can't do this. I thought I could, but I can't marry you. Yvonne and I are leaving together. We've been in love for months. I'm sorry it had to be this way. Don't look for us.

David*

The world tilts sideways. The cathedral spins around me like I'm on a broken carnival ride. I read the letter again, hoping the words will change, hoping this is some sick joke.

They don't change.

David. My David. Just last night, he kissed my forehead and whispered, "I'd never leave you, mi amor. You're my whole world." The man who brought me soup when I was sick. Who held me when nightmares about my parents woke me up crying. Who said I was the missing piece of his heart.

All lies.

And Yvonne. My best friend. My only friend. The girl who held me when I sobbed about being orphaned at twelve. The girl who promised she'd never leave me like everyone else had.

They've been in love for months.

Months.

While I planned our wedding, she was stealing my husband. While I picked out flowers and cake flavors, they were planning their escape. While I signed over my entire fortune to the man I thought loved me—

Oh God. The papers.

The contracts David brought over last week with champagne and roses. His charming smile as he explained they were just formalities.

"When we're married, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine anyway," he'd said, kissing my forehead. "This just makes it legal."

I signed everything. Every bank account my father built from nothing. Every property my grandfather bought with his own blood and sweat. Every business that carried the Mendez name for three generations.

All of it. Gone. Signed away to a man who was already planning to abandon me.

The letter slips from my numb fingers and floats to the marble floor like a dead butterfly.

"Miss Mendez, perhaps you should..."

"Tell them." My voice sounds hollow, like it's coming from the bottom of a well. "Tell everyone there's no wedding."

I walk toward the altar on legs that feel like they're made of water. Each step echoes through the cathedral. The guests turn to stare at me, and their faces blur together in a sea of false sympathy and barely hidden excitement.

This is the best gossip they've had in years.

When I reach the altar, I turn to face them all. Three hundred pairs of eyes watching me fall apart in real time.

"There will be no wedding today," I announce. My voice carries through the cathedral, strong despite the earthquake happening inside my chest. "David has chosen someone else."

The gasps sound like wind through a graveyard. Some people jump up and rush for the exits, probably racing home to spread the news. Others lean forward in their pews, hungry for more details of my destruction.

"Oh, that poor girl," Mrs. Restrepo whispers loud enough for half the cathedral to hear.

"I always knew that boy was no good," Mr. Herrera adds, shaking his head.

"The Mendez money wasn't enough to keep him faithful, I suppose," someone else mutters.

Their pity feels like acid on my skin. These people watched me grow up alone. They saw me bury my parents when I was barely old enough to understand what death meant. They smiled and congratulated me when I found love.

Now they're watching me break apart like it's dinner theater.

The cathedral empties slowly, people filing out in small groups, their voices buzzing with excitement. My humiliation is the event of the season.

When the last guest disappears, Father Martinez approaches me like I'm a wounded animal that might bite.

"Child, let me help you..."

"Leave me alone," I say through gritted teeth. "Please. I need to be alone."

He hesitates, probably thinking about all the ways this could go wrong. But something in my voice stops him from arguing. He nods and walks away, his footsteps echoing through the empty cathedral.

The silence hits me like a physical blow. I walk to the altar rail and collapse to my knees. The marble is so cold it burns through my dress, but I barely feel it. Everything inside me has gone numb except for the rage.

The rage is growing like a living thing in my chest.

I look up at the crucifix hanging above the altar. The same cross I prayed to as a little girl, begging for my parents to come back. The same cross I thanked when David proposed, sure my prayers had finally been answered.

"You let this happen," I whisper to the silent figure on the cross. "You let them destroy me."

The tears come all at once, but they're not tears of sadness. They're tears of pure, burning fury. Tears that taste like blood and broken dreams.

I think about David's hands on my body last night, promising me forever while he was already planning to leave. I think about Yvonne helping me pick out my wedding shoes last week, asking about honeymoon plans while she plotted to steal my husband. I think about my family's empire, built over generations, now in the hands of a man who sees me as nothing more than a bank account.

Everything I am, everything I was born to be, everything my family worked for—gone in one afternoon.

But it doesn't have to stay gone.

I reach into my small purse and pull out the silver letter opener I've carried since my eighteenth birthday. My grandmother's initials shine on the handle: A.M. for Anna Mendez. The strongest woman who ever lived.

She would be disgusted by what I've become. A pathetic little girl who gave away everything for empty promises and fake smiles.

But if I'm going to die here, if I'm going to bleed out on this altar where I thought I'd find happiness, then I'm going to make one last promise. One final vow before I leave this world.

The silver blade catches the candlelight as I press it against my wrist. My hand shakes but my voice is steady when I speak to the empty cathedral.

"I swear on this holy ground," I say, looking up at the crucifix. "If I survive this, if somehow I live through what they've done to me—I will take back everything they stole."

I drag the blade across my skin. The pain is sharp and clean, and the blood wells up immediately.

"For every tear I've shed, they will shed a thousand more."

The first drop of blood hits the white marble altar with a wet sound that echoes through the cathedral.

"For every lie they told me, I will show them the truth about pain."

More blood flows, warm and sticky down my arm. It soaks into my grandmother's white dress, turning the delicate lace crimson.

"For every piece of my heart they broke, I will destroy their entire world."

The blood keeps flowing. More now. Faster.

The marble turns red.

My hand shakes.

I feel light.

Like maybe I'm already gone.

"David Rodriguez and Yvonne Castillo think they've buried me," I whisper, watching my blood pool on the sacred stone. "They have no idea they've just given birth to their worst nightmare."

The cathedral tilts.

Spins.

Falls apart.

My knees buckle. I crash to the marble floor, my head striking the altar steps with a sickening crack.

Everything hurts.

Then nothing hurts.

The world becomes fragments. Broken pieces of light and shadow.

My wedding dress spreads around me like spilled milk. The blood paints red flowers across the white silk.

Pretty.

Like roses.

David always said I looked beautiful in white.

Liar.

The taste of copper fills my mouth. My eyelids feel heavy as stones. Each blink takes more effort than the last.

The candlelight grows dimmer.

Or maybe that's just me.

Dying.

My fingers twitch weakly against the cold marble. My breath comes in shallow gasps that echo strangely in the empty space.

This is really happening.

I might really be dying.

Part of me is terrified. But a bigger part hopes I survive just long enough to keep my promise.

Just long enough.

To make them pay.

My thoughts become fragments. Broken pieces that don't fit together anymore.

Cathedral.

Blood.

White dress.

David's letter.

Yvonne's betrayal.

My family's fortune.

Gone.

But through it all, one thought remains crystal clear: my vow. My promise sealed in blood on holy ground.

If I live, they'll regret the day they crossed me.

If I die...

If I die, at least I'll die knowing I didn't go quietly.

The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is my blood pooling on the sacred marble, carrying my oath into eternity.

The cathedral door creaks open.

Footsteps echo across the marble.

Someone calls my name.

But the voice sounds so far away.

So very far away.

Then nothing.