“My feelings belong to me.”
“Then you should have trusted them enough to tell me the truth.”
She moved toward him.
Security moved between them.
That was when Madison changed.
The crying stopped.
The frightened bride disappeared.
And the woman underneath stepped forward.
“You think you can do this quietly?”
She looked at the king.
“There are international sponsorship agreements tied to this wedding. Foundation partnerships. Media contracts. Millions in pledged donations.”
The king regarded her calmly.
Madison mistook silence for fear.
“If you humiliate me in front of the entire world, the palace gets humiliated with me.”
Sebastian whispered, “Stop.”
She ignored him.
“By tonight, I can be the insecure American girl crushed by an institution that demanded perfection. Do you know how sympathetic that story will be?”
I stared at her.
There she was.
The Madison I knew.
Always looking for the version of events where consequences belonged to someone else.
King Richard surprised everyone by smiling.
Not warmly.
“You seem to believe this ceremony was interrupted because of your résumé.”
Madison’s face changed.
“What?”
“The wedding was canceled before Commander Bennett’s aircraft left Virginia.”
He nodded toward the chapel doors.
They closed.
Guards began asking members of the press to shut down cameras.
A different group of officials entered through a side door.
No ceremonial uniforms.
No smiles.
Investigators.
The king continued.
“We brought your sister here because she deserved to hear the truth in the room where her identity was being used.”
He paused.
“And because your false biography is the smallest problem we discovered.”
Madison stopped breathing.
An investigator placed photographs on a table.
“Approximately $2.4 million from the Royal Children’s Recovery Fund was routed through a consulting company incorporated shortly after your engagement became public.”
Sebastian stared at Madison.
“No.”
“I didn’t take anything!”
“The company is registered to Celeste Ward.”
For the first time that morning, genuine fear crossed Madison’s face.
I saw it instantly.
She knew that name.
The chapel door opened again.
A woman in her late fifties entered wearing a cream-colored suit.
Madison whispered, “Celeste.”
The woman stopped beside the investigators.
“Hello, Madison.”
An officer explained that Celeste Ward had been detained hours earlier while attempting to board a private flight.
She had agreed to cooperate.
Emails.
Bank transfers.
Recorded conversations.
A consulting agreement promising Madison a percentage of future “royal access revenue.”
Madison’s face collapsed.
“I never touched that money.”
Celeste shrugged.
“You intended to.”
“You set me up.”
“No. I found someone ambitious enough to say yes.”
Two guards approached Madison.
She looked at me.
For a second, she was twelve again.
Scared of thunderstorms.
Running into my room because she didn’t want to sleep alone.
“Liv.”
No one had called me that in years.
“Please.”
Every instinct I had as an older sister told me to move.
Protect her.
Fix it.
Take the hit.
Then I remembered all the years she had counted on exactly that.
I stayed where I was.
“I can’t keep saving you from choices you made on purpose.”
Her expression hardened.
Then something strange happened.
She looked over my shoulder.
And smiled.
“You still think this is about me.”
Before I could ask what she meant, every screen inside the chapel turned white.
The lights flickered.
A photograph appeared.
My official Navy portrait.
Then a headline.
