Chapter 8 - The Question at the Altar
The walk took exactly two minutes. To the two hundred guests watching from their velvet seats, it was the picture-perfect image of an American romance—the self-made logistics king and his elegant, charitable bride meeting at the summit of their lives.
When Camille reached the altar, she handed her bouquet of white orchids to her maid of honor, turned to face Ethan, and offered him her hands. Her skin was warm, her fingers steady, her eyes shining with a look of profound devotion that made the elderly donors in the second row sign with envy.
The minister—a high-ranking bishop from the North Shore parish who had been paid ten thousand dollars to perform the ceremony—cleared his throat and opened his gold-trimmed book.
“Dearly beloved,” the bishop began, his voice echoing through the grand acoustics of the ballroom. “We are gathered here today in the sight of God and these witnesses to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
Ethan did not look at the bishop. He kept his eyes fixed onto Camille’s face, his dark green gaze boring into her eyes through the thin lace of her veil.
The service moved with a terrifying, rhythmic regularity through the standard readings, the opening prayers, and the traditional declarations of intent. Camille answered each cue with a clear, silver “I do” that carried to the very back of the hall.
Then the bishop turned to Ethan.
“Ethan Alexander Whitmore, do you take this woman to be your wedded wife, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as you both shall live?”
The ballroom went completely still, waiting for the final, definitive affirmation that would seal the Whitmore fortune.
Ethan did not speak.
The silence stretched for five seconds. Then ten. Then fifteen.
The bishop blinked, his gold book shaking slightly in his hands. “Mr. Whitmore?”
Camille’s perfect smile faltered, her fingers tightening around Ethan’s hands with a sudden, desperate strength that felt like a wire trap closing. “Ethan?” she whispered, her voice too low for the microphones to catch. “What are you doing? Say the words.”
Ethan slowly withdrew his hands from her grip. He didn't rush. He reached into his tuxedo jacket, pulled out a small, high-density wireless microphone, and switched it on. The sharp click of the audio connection echoed through the ballroom speakers like a gunshot.
He turned away from the altar and looked down at the front row, where the little girl in the pink dress was watching him with wide, innocent eyes.
“Sophia,” Ethan said, his voice carrying into every corner of the grand hall, flat, calm, and terrifyingly clear.
May you like
Sophia blinked, dropping her plastic cup of apple juice onto the carpet. “Yes, Mr. Ethan?”
“Can you tell the bishop what Miss Camille told you about the quiet game?”
