Harris turned back to the crowd, voice cold and sharp. “I want my inheritance. She wants hers. But I am not desperate enough to chain myself to this reckless, filthy disaster. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
He paused, letting the words hang like a guillotine, scanning the room, the posture of a man who had been wronged in his own estimation, who believed the world owed him compliance, respect, and fear. “Do you see her?” he said, pointing a perfectly manicured finger in my direction. “This is what I am supposed to marry. Someone who can’t even show up on time, someone who drags street children like props to a staged tragedy, someone who—God forbid—might actually ruin the perfection of my family’s legacy. A Vasquez heir, and this is what we get.”
He leaned slightly toward me, voice dropping to a venomous hiss only I could hear. “Do you understand what it is to disgust me? Every word, every glance, every step you’ve taken today has screamed—failure. Weakness. Worthlessness. And yet, somehow, the Thompson family has been forced to witness it.”
I stood straighter, ignoring the thrum of pain through my body, my bruises screaming, my split lip stinging, my eye burning. Every ounce of myself focused on the boy at my side, on the unspoken promise I’d made. I would not falter. Not in front of him. Not in front of Harris. Not in front of anyone.
Harris straightened, straightening his tie with a snap of precision, like a soldier taking his stance after issuing a sentence.
His eyes were cold now—no anger, no heat—just the flat, indifferent chill of someone who knew he held all the leverage.
“Elena Vasquez,” he bellowed, each syllable dripping with contempt, carrying effortlessly through the chapel. “You—choiceless, deaf, and mute—dare to arrive late, as if life had ever offered you a choice? Was it not just yesterday that your worthless boss fired you?” He took a slow, deliberate step forward, eyes piercing mine. “And mark my words—you will not be receiving your inheritance, for I will not be marrying you.”
Then, turning to the stunned crowd with a theatrical sweep of his arm, he declared, voice ringing with self-satisfaction, “I, Harris Thompson, first son of the Thompson family, hereby postpone this wedding!”
The words hung in the air like a blade.
Pride, malice, and cruelty oozed from every gesture, leaving me frozen, humiliated, and exposed before everyone.
My stomach plummeted, a hollow drop that stole the air from my lungs.
No.
Not postpone. Not later. Not maybe.
I needed this. Today.
The inheritance wasn’t greed. It wasn’t ambition. It was survival—bare and brutal. Rent due in two weeks. Utilities already overdue. The hearing aids in my ears, buzzing faintly, costing more every month while slowly damaging what little hearing I had left. Groceries calculated down to the dollar. The ring payment plan I’d already committed to. A job I no longer had.
Harris had trust funds that replenished themselves. Properties he didn’t remember buying. A family that could erase problems with a phone call and a wire transfer.
I had none of that.
If this wedding didn’t happen—if those papers weren’t signed today—I wouldn’t survive the month.
I felt it with terrifying clarity, like standing on the edge of a cliff and realizing there was no ground behind me anymore.
I opened my mouth to speak.
To beg, if I had to.
To threaten, if begging failed.
To lie. To promise. To say I would do better, look better, be better—anything to keep him from walking away with my future clenched casually in his fist.
But the words tangled in my damaged throat.
Air scraped past scar tissue. My voice refused to rise.
For a horrifying second, I couldn’t make a sound at all.
A ripple of discomfort moved through the pews. I saw lips moving—whispers, speculation, judgment—but the words were lost to me, swallowed by the low, distorted hum of my hearing aids.
Faces blurred. The chapel felt suddenly too large, the ceiling too high, the space too exposed.
In the front pew, the boy watched me.
His small face was tilted upward, eyes wide and shining—not with fear this time, but with something that cut deeper.
