Chapter 3 - The Price of a Soul
"This is a setup!" Camille shrieked, her voice losing its sweet, lyrical quality and turning shrill. "Evelyn, you've always been jealous of me! You've always tried to act superior because you save lives while I enjoy them! Grant loves me. We've been sleeping together for six months!"
She said it proudly, expecting it to wound me. She expected me to cry, to show the pain of a woman whose fiancé and best friend had been sleeping behind her back.
Instead, I just looked at her with pity. "I know, Camille."
She blinked, stunned. "What?"
"I've known for five months," I said calmly. "Did you really think a chief cardiothoracic surgeon wouldn't notice the sudden, recurring charges on our joint credit card for the boutique hotel three blocks from your apartment? Did you think I didn't see the traces of your signature Chanel No. 5 perfume on Grant’s collar every Tuesday night when he allegedly had 'board meetings'?"
Grant’s eyes widened. "Evelyn, if you knew, why did you—"
"Why did I go through with the wedding planning?" I finished his sentence for him, a cold smile touching my lips. "Because I needed you to feel completely safe. I needed you to think you were playing me, so you would become careless. I needed you to gather all your family's illegal offshore assets into one single, vulnerable basket: the Mercer-Cross Children’s Wing foundation."
I turned to the board chair, Arthur Sterling. "Arthur, did the wire transfer go through?"
Arthur checked his tablet, a grim smile on his face. "Precisely four minutes ago, Dr. Cross. The moment Mr. Mercer utilized your forged signature to authorize the asset transfer, our security protocols flagged it. The entire twenty-million-dollar endowment, along with the Mercer Group’s forty percent holding, has been legally seized by St. Catherine’s under the hospital's fraud and embezzlement clause."
"No!" Richard Mercer roared, lunging forward. "That’s our entire liquid capital! You can't do this!"
"We can, and we did," Jonathan Reed spoke up, his voice like grinding stones. "My family foundation has just purchased the remaining debt of the Mercer Group. As of ten minutes ago, Richard, I own your company. I own your house. And by tomorrow morning, I will own your freedom."
Jonathan stepped closer to the elder Mercer, his eyes burning with a father's absolute fury. "You tried to steal my son's heart for a business deal. I will make sure you spend the rest of your miserable life in a cell so small you'll forget what the sky looks like."
The guests began to whisper frantically. Some of Grant’s business partners were already quietly slipping out of the ballroom, trying to distance themselves from the radioactive fallout of the Mercer name.
Grant looked around the room, realizing his empire was collapsing like a house of cards. His eyes landed on me, desperate and pleading.
"Evy, please," he whimpered, using the pet name I used to love. "We can fix this. It was my father's idea. He pressured me! He told me we would lose everything if we didn't get that heart. I did it for us! For our future! I love you, Evy. Camille is nothing to me. It was just a distraction!"
"Grant!" Camille screamed, her eyes bulging. "What did you just say?!"
"Shut up, Camille!" Grant snapped, turning on her with venom. "You're a parasite! You've been throwing yourself at me for years! You forced your way into this dress! You're nothing compared to Evelyn!"
"I forced myself?!" Camille cried, her face twisting in rage. She lunged at him, her manicured nails clawing at his face. "You told me she was a cold, unfeeling robot! You told me you couldn't stand touching her! You told me we would take her money and run to Europe!"
They began to claw and scream at each other right there under the flower arch, a pathetic, chaotic spectacle of greed and betrayal. The grandmother's veil was ripped from Camille’s head, falling into the dirt and trampled beneath their feet.
I looked down at the veil, feeling a brief twinge of sadness for the memory of my grandmother, but then I looked at my hands. The hands that had saved Noah Reed. The hands that were clean.
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"Officers," I said to the police waiting by the door. "I believe you have enough evidence of grand larceny, medical fraud, and conspiracy."
The officers moved in, separating Grant and Camille, who were still screaming insults at each other. The handcuffs clicked into place, the metallic sound ringing clearly over the ruins of my wedding.
