Chapter 2 - Victor Demands The Truth Himself
Victor stopped at the foot of the aisle and looked past Emma toward the groom.
Daniel Cross had not moved.
His hand still rested beside the open ring box, but the confidence that had filled his face minutes earlier was gone.
Emma lowered the roses.
“Ask me,” she repeated.
Victor’s voice was quiet.
“Did you sign the transfer?”
Several guests exchanged confused looks.
Emma did not.
“No.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“This is insane. Security needs to remove him.”
Victor turned.
“Interesting. I didn’t say what transfer.”
Daniel froze.
That was the first crack.
Victor reached into his jacket and produced a folded document. It appeared to authorize Emma to transfer forty-one percent of Vale Meridian Holdings into a private trust controlled by Daniel after their marriage.
Emma stared at the signature.
“That isn’t mine.”
Daniel laughed nervously.
“You signed it three weeks ago.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
Victor watched her carefully.
He had spent the previous forty-eight hours believing Emma had betrayed him.
Now he saw genuine confusion.
A woman in the third row stood.
Victor recognized her immediately.
Clara Bennett, his late father’s former attorney.
She was the person who had sent him the message that brought him back.
Victor looked at her.
“You said Emma signed this.”
Clara shook her head.
“I said someone filed it under her name.”
A murmur moved through the ballroom.
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Clara, be careful.”
She looked directly at him.
“I’ve been careful for six years.”
Emma’s breathing changed.
“Six years?”
Clara walked toward the altar carrying a slim leather folder.
“Victor, the document isn’t the reason I called you back. It’s what was attached to it.”
Inside was an old hospital record.
The date was six years earlier.
The patient name was Victor Vale.
He frowned.
“I wasn’t hospitalized then.”
Clara nodded.
“I know.”
The record claimed Victor had suffered a severe neurological episode and had been declared temporarily incapable of managing his financial affairs.
His signature appeared beneath the physician’s assessment.
Victor had never signed it.
Emma whispered:
“This looks like the same handwriting.”
It did.
The forged signature on the six-year-old medical record matched the forged signature on Emma’s transfer.
Daniel stepped backward.
Victor noticed.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not standing here while you turn a wedding into some paranoid spectacle.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed.
“Then answer one question.”
Daniel looked at her.
“How did you know Victor was coming?”
The room fell silent.
Victor had told nobody.
Clara had contacted him through an encrypted number that morning.
Yet Daniel had stationed two extra security guards near the ballroom doors before the ceremony.
Emma had noticed.
She had assumed they were there because of wealthy guests.
Now she understood.
Daniel had been expecting Victor.
Victor looked toward the security guards.
Neither moved.
Then one quietly removed his earpiece.
“I don’t work for Mr. Cross.”
Daniel went pale.
The guard continued.
“Mr. Vale hired me yesterday.”
Victor had returned more prepared than anyone realized.
He had not come only to confront Emma.
May you like
He had come to discover who panicked when he walked through the doors.
And Daniel Cross had just answered that question.
