The Stolen Bride's Revenge

Lily

I should have known something was wrong when Rose handed me the champagne. “To your happiness, sister,” she said, her smile too sweet and perfect, like honey laced with poison.

It was my engagement party with the man I had loved for five years, so, I was too happy to notice. Too blinded by the fairy tale I thought I was living.

David’s ring was heavy on my finger. Ten carats of pure deception.

I took the glass. I drank.

That was my first mistake.

Wait no, who am I kidding? My first mistake was trusting the people I called family.

The room started spinning twenty minutes later, and I stupidly waved it off, thinking it was the excitement and the overwhelming joy of finally having everything I’d ever wanted.

“Are you okay?” Rose asked concerned. “You look pale.”

“I think I’m just a little light headed.” I clutched my head, trying to steady myself. “The room is spinning.”

“Oh, you must be so tired. Let me take your hotel room upstairs.” She grabbed my hand, and her other hand wrapped around my waist. Her voice was so caring. So concerned.

Again, I should have known better.

The last thing I remember clearly was the door opening. A man’s shadow. Then nothing.

I woke up about two hours later to my father standing over me with murder in his eyes.

“Get up, you brat.” His tone was cold. The kind of cold that freezes a person up and shatters their bones.

I blinked, confused and disoriented. My head was pounding like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my skull. “Dad? What—”

“Don’t call me that.” He threw something at me. Photos. “You disgraceful child. Is this how I raised you!?” They scattered across the bed like fallen leaves, each one worse than the last.

Me. In bed. With a man I’d never seen before.

My heart stopped.

"This is what you do?" His voice rose, shaking with rage. "On the night of your engagement? You disgrace this family? You disgrace David?"

"No." The word came out strangled. I grabbed the photos with trembling hands. "No… I didn't."

“How will you explain the fucking pictures then, Lily?” He pointed at the images. The physical proof of my ‘betrayal’. “And it’s bad enough that a hotel staff gave them to David.”

“Dad, please, you have to believe me. I would never do this.” A tear rolled down my cheek. I felt so weak. Whether it was from being drugged, or the effects of the drug still swirling in my veins, I couldn’t tell.

“I have no reason to believe you.” His hand came down on the dresser hard. “Your mother would be so ashamed and disappointed in you.”

The mention of my dead mother, my real mother, cut deeper in my heart that any knife.

“Where is David?” I grabbed my father’s arm. “Where is he? I need to talk to him. I need to explain.”

“He’s downstairs, and unlike you, your sister, Rose is actually helping the situation.”

Rose. Of course. She was the one who drugged me anyway.

I pushed past him, ignoring the way my body screamed in protest. The stairs felt endless. My vision blurred with tears I refused to let fall.

The party had transformed into something else entirely. An execution. My execution.

Everyone stared at me as I descended. The whispers started immediately, spreading through the crowd like wildfire.

"That's her."

"On her engagement night!"

"How shameless?"

David stood in the center of the room; Rose tucked against his side. He looked devastated.

"David." My voice cracked. I hated how desperate I sounded. "Please. Tell me you believe me."

"How could you, Lily?" His voice was so pained. "I loved you. I gave you everything. And you repaid me like this?"

"I didn't do anything!" I was screaming now. "Someone drugged me! Someone set me up!" My gaze settled on Rose and my arm shot up. “She set me up.”

The murmurs started again, and I knew that I had lost because I had no evidence.

"Lily." Rose's voice was soft, sympathetic as she stepped forward. "I know you may not like me very much because I’m not your real sister, I’m only adopted. But blaming your mistakes on me isn’t the right way to atone for them."

I slapped her hand away. "You did this."

Her eyes widened, fake tears forming. "What?"

"Stop lying and pretending.” My voice broke. “Please, tell them the fucking truth."

"You filthy thing." Mrs. Rebecca Wilson, Rose's mother and my stepmother appeared beside me and grabbed my arm.

"Get your hands off me." I jerked away. Away from all of them.

"That's enough!" My father's voice boomed. "Lily Wilson, you are no longer my daughter. Get out of my house. Get out of this family."

"Dad—"

"I said GET OUT!"

"Robert Wilson." My grandmother's voice cut through the chaos. She pushed through the crowd; her aged face filled with anger "You cannot do this. Lily is telling the truth. She would never—"

"Mother, please." My father's voice was cold. "Don't defend her. Not after what she's done."

"I know what I know." Grandmother's hand found mine, squeezing tight. "And I know my Lily."

But it didn't matter. One voice against a hundred. One person who believed me in a sea of judgment.

David stepped forward. "Lily, I'm calling off our engagement. I can't marry someone who betrayed me like this."

Rose tucked herself closer to him, and I saw it. The quick glance they exchanged. The tiny curve of her lips before she schooled her expression back to sympathy.

They'd won.

And I'd lost everything.

"Fine." The word came out hollow. Dead. I felt something inside me shatter as my chest heaved. I continuously wiped the tears that kept falling. "I'll leave. But you can never claim me again."

“No one wants a shameless person in their life anyway.” Rose snarled, looking at everyone for approval while they nodded their heads.

The rain started the moment I stepped outside.

I continued walking. I didn't know where I was going. Didn't care. My phone kept ringing. Unknown numbers. They were probably reporters. The scandal would be everywhere by morning.

The perfect Wilson family daughter, caught in bed with a stranger on her engagement night.

My legs gave out on some random street corner. I collapsed onto the wet pavement, finally letting the tears fall. They mixed with the rain, washing away my perfect makeup, my perfect life, my perfect lies.

I wanted to disappear. To stop existing.

That's when the black luxury car pulled up beside me. And in that moment, when I didn’t know if I was going to be saved or kidnapped, I blacked out.