Face-Slapping11 min read
“I Cancel the Wedding” — The Night I Burned Their World
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I pushed the door open and felt for light with the back of my hand.
"It's dark," I said, listening. "Jocelyn? You here?"
No answer. The suite smelled like perfume and something else I couldn't name. My foot hit soft fabric and I nearly fell.
"Who—" I started.
A heavy hand closed around my ankle, hot and hard. I screamed. Men moved in the dark like predators. Somebody hissed, "I can give you whatever you want."
I kicked. I bit. I tasted metal, heard a grunt, and then I ran.
I drove home in a fog. My phone was full of missed calls from Allison.
"Amelia, where are you? The hotel—" she said when I finally picked up.
"I—" I swallowed. "I left."
"No, sit down. Don't talk to anyone. Not yet."
I ignored her. I had to see the truth. I had to know. I got home and every room from the living room to the bedroom smelled like other people. Clothes lay on the couch, shoes on the floor. My wedding dress hung in the closet like a joke.
"Who the hell—" I clicked the record button on my phone and walked in.
Dylan Brun stood in the doorway, wet hair, Angelina Devine by his side.
"Amelia," Dylan said, and his face was a child's face when it first learns a lie. "I—"
"Out," I said. "Both of you, out."
Dylan put a hand out. "I'm sorry. I love her."
"You love her?" I laughed once, sharp. "You love her while lying in our bed?"
Angelina raised her voice, red eyes wet. "Amelia, please. We love each other. Let us go."
"Let you go?" I walked to the table. I smashed the porcelain vase over Dylan's head.
"Jesus!" Angelina screamed. Dylan staggered, clutching his temple. Blood trickled between his fingers.
"Tomorrow," I said slowly, into my phone camera. "Tomorrow at eight. The wedding is live."
I made a call. "Allison, open the doors. Full media. Live stream."
"Are you serious?" Allison's voice broke. "That's—"
"Do it."
The lobby of the hotel the next night was full of flash and cheap flowers when I walked down the aisle alone. Cameras pushed forward like knives.
"Smile," I told Dylan when we reached the altar. "For the cameras."
He tried to smile and failed.
When the priest asked me if I would take him—
"I don't," I said.
Silence fell like a curtain. The live feed staggered. Reporters gasped. Dylan's face went white.
"Why?" asked one of them. "Amelia, why now?"
I picked up the hand that had once held mine and shoved him back.
"Because he's not worth my name," I said. "Because he lied in our bed. Because he chose her."
Then the big screen behind us cut to black and showed footage Allison had secured: Dylan and Angelina, fully exposed, recorded earlier that week. No blur, no excuses. A thousand phones recorded, a million eyes watched.
"You're disgusting," Angelina cried as people shouted. "You set us up!"
"Shut up," I said. "Shut up both of you."
People shouted, cameras flashed, online chat filled. Someone threw a bottle. Security dragged Dylan and Angelina out. I left the stage, head held high. I had saved myself from being a laughing stock tomorrow. That night I felt nothing and everything.
The next morning, the internet turned. There were hands at my throat across comment threads, but there were hands on my side too. Gage Wilson posted, "She never deserved this." A handful of strangers defended me. A few fans sent messages: "We believe you."
Bowen Francois called into a livestream and accused me of worse. He said I had taken Jo Rain's life, that I bought roles with men, that I was a killer. Bowen's face on camera was raw. He cried words into the lens and millions swallowed them.
The next hours were a nightmare. My face flooded feeds with ugly words. A livestreamer with a cracked voice named Fan—no, Bowen—said my sins were many. He had been Jo Rain's old manager, he said. He knew details. He cried for the dead. People piled on. Hashtags rose. My agency dropped me. My company's head asked for five hundred million in damages. My father, Ruben Curtis, read the news and hid his face.
"Amelia, don't go outside," Allison said. "I'll handle the PR. Don't open the door."
"I have to," I said. "My grandmother—"
"Stay put."
I didn't. My grandmother was in the hospital. The hospital hallways were bright like a knife. Reporters chewed at the curtains. Fans and haters were both like wolves. Someone—Gage—helped me sneak out in his car. He didn't say much, just gripped the wheel.
"You don't have to do this alone," he said.
"I'm not alone," I said. "Not anymore."
At the hospital my grandmother opened her tired eyes and said, "My girl, you look like a storm."
"I'll fix this," I promised her, and I meant it.
I won't pretend every plan was noble. I won't pretend every move was clean. I learned fast: people in this city had names and alibis and loyalty for sale. I learned where Jocelyn Li's smiles were bought. I learned Esperanza Wallin wore charity like armor and used others like stepping stones. They had pulled strings for years.
"Why would they do it?" Gage asked when I told him about the hotel switch that had trapped me. "Why Jocelyn? Why Esperanza?"
"Money, position, revenge," I said. "They wanted the house, my father's name, my life. Jocelyn wanted everything I refused to share."
Gage's jaw set. "Then make them pay."
I needed proof. I needed to make people watch while the truth hit them like a live wire. My first step was small: force an admission, get a number, corner a liar.
I stalked Angelina to a karaoke club and dragged her into a bathroom. I held her head under the sink until she coughed a name.
"It was a message," she spit. "A number. I swear. I didn't pick. I—"
"Whose number?" I asked. Water clogged her voice.
She pointed at Dylan like a child betrays a parent. "I don't know. It came from a private line."
I took it. I copied the number.
"Who did it?" I said. My voice had something in it then—no humor, no softness.
She couldn't answer. She fell silent. I let her go.
Then I found Bowen. He had been pushed into playing a role. I found him in a run-down streaming room, pale, shaking. He babbled about death and guilt. He said he wanted to do the right thing. He said he had been paid.
"By who?" I asked.
"Someone with deep pockets," he whispered. "Someone who hated you."
"Name her."
He looked at me for a long time. "Esperanza Wallin."
I had the smell of them all: hot money, colder hearts. Esperanza had found a willing pawn in Bowen and put a megaphone to the old hangers-on. Jocelyn had smiled and handed over hotel names. They had planned my fall like a play.
I had to make the stage real.
I arranged a dinner at one of Cristian Shimizu's properties. He was a man everyone whispered about—cold, careful, impossible. He was also the kind of man people used for one night favors and rumors. He had watched me once, in a club, and he had watched me again the night I smashed the vase. He had a clean face and hands that could order the wind. I decided to test him.
The plan was simple and cruel in its precision: go in public, ruin the mother and daughter's faces, strip away the power they thought they owned. But I needed the right moment, the right audience, and the right weapon. Truth is a weapon when it's timed; lies are just dirt.
I invited Jocelyn and Esperanza to a charity gala hosted by Cristian's family—Aurora Haas had insisted on an "evening of reconciliation." The cameras would be there. The donors would be present. The city would watch.
Jocelyn wore white. Esperanza wore pearls like a judge's chain. They smiled at reporters, their teeth flawless. They thought themselves untouchable. They thought they had already won.
I walked in with a look that could cut glass and sat at a table across from them. Cristian sat beside me, an island of composed danger.
"You could leave," he said quietly when we met eyes.
"I could leave," I answered. "But I won't."
Dinner passed. The orchestra played. Glasses chimed. Cristian offered me water. I nodded. He leaned in, "You're dangerous."
"Maybe," I said. "Maybe you like danger."
"Not like you," he said.
I had Allison stream the gala secretly to a private channel. I had reporters receive a single file with a red header and the word "LIVE." I had the lawyer of a small magazine wait for a cue. I had Joanna—my old assistant—ready with phones and files. I had the evidence assembled: invoices, phone records, a payment trail that led like a rope from Esperanza to Bowen to the fake uploaders and to a burner hotel number Jocelyn had used.
At dessert I stood.
"Excuse me," I said. Cameras craned. "I have something to show you."
They pointed microphones. My voice was steady.
"This city has a habit of eating its own," I began. "Tonight I will show you who backed the machine that tried to destroy me."
Jocelyn laughed at me like a bird.
"Scandal," she called. "What next? She'll cry on camera."
"This is not theater," I said. "Watch."
I hit play. The screen behind me lit and played an audio of a phone call. A woman's voice, crisp as a bargain, ordered Bowen to make noise. It was Esperanza. Then the screen flicked to bank transfers, amounts matched and funneled through shell companies into Bowen's accounts. The exact motel number Jocelyn had texted to Angelina was on the log. Toner receipts, taxi invoices—proof threaded by paper like beads.
"That's fake!" Esperanza shrieked.
"Is it?" I asked. "Or is it the truth you hoped to hide?"
A man from the audience, a small-time reporter, began to ask questions.
"How can you prove those transfers?" Esperanza demanded. "Who are you to—"
"Ask the bank," I said. "Ask the auditor." I aimed the microphone at Bowen, who I had persuaded to sit in the back. "Bowen, do you recognize these transfers?"
He looked like a man who had just been told his child was dead. His voice came out thin. "Yes."
"Who paid you?" someone shouted.
Bowen tried to step back. He raised both hands. "I was—paid by—Esperanza Wallin," he said. "I was paid to spread lies."
The room stopped breathing.
"You're lying!" Jocelyn screamed. "You sold your soul, you liar!"
Bowen folded. He turned to the cameras. "They paid me to 'clean the field.' I took the money. I thought it was just politics. I was wrong. I—" His voice broke. He started crying. "I'm sorry, Amelia."
Cameras flashed like lightning. I felt nothing and everything again.
"Why?" Esperanza's voice was smooth with rage. "You think you'll get away with this? I am married to power. I have friends."
"Who are your friends now?" I asked.
At that moment my lawyer stood and pushed a document across the table. "We have filed a criminal complaint," she said. "We have copies of the transfers, phone logs, and witness statements. We have footage of intimidation. We ask the police to act."
Sirens wailed outside as if on cue. Some donors stood and murmured. A smartphone live-stream had already reached millions.
"Arrest them!" someone yelled. "Take them!"
The next hour became a free fall of exposure. Journalists swarmed the room like scavengers; cameras swallowed every reaction. Esperanza's smile cracked, then splintered. Jocelyn's makeup ran with sweat and fear.
"You're making this up!" Jocelyn cried, voice thin.
"Look at the records!" Bowen shouted, facing her. "I have transcripts of your calls. I have the number you bought. I have the taxis you paid. I have recorded messages where you call me 'make it loud.'"
"You're delusional!" Jocelyn lunged, but security—finally—held her back. Reporters circled. A woman in the crowd filmed Esperanza's face up close.
"You can't do this!" Esperanza hissed, but no one seemed to obey her.
The police arrived. Aurora Haas watched from a doorway, her face a mask. She had believed in the decorum of her house—she had allowed this gala—she had not signed up to be a judge of moral ruin. The cameras kept rolling.
"You're under investigation," an officer said to Esperanza, and for the first time she looked small.
"You're going to ruin my life!" she sobbed. People recorded every sob.
A midnight tribunal of public opinion formed in that hall. Sponsors pulled back. News channels cut to live. The accounts of Esperanza's shell companies were frozen within hours as banks checked legal orders. A few sponsors withdrew pledges worth millions. Jocelyn's PR team scrambled, but their phones rang off the hook with angry voices. The board of one of Esperanza's charities put out a statement of shock and suspended her.
The fallout didn't stop with apologies and shock. One of Esperanza's business partners resigned on camera and said, "I had no idea what she was doing." Donors refused to be associated. Within twenty-four hours the woman who had tried to buy a life for her daughter woke up to headlines calling her a fraud, a liar, and a manipulator. Her social accounts were flooded with recordings of her voice demanding "make it loud." Videos went viral.
Jocelyn's career imploded even faster. A major cosmetics brand dropped her within the day. Her publicist called for a press conference—no one came. People recorded her leaving a restaurant and uploaded the clip with captions. Her mother was asked on local radio about how she had raised such a daughter. Jocelyn's phone filled with calls from estranged friends who suddenly remembered principles. She cried on TV and begged not to be judged. The internet recorded it all and decided to judge.
Esperanza's husband—an old man who once loved standing at podiums—received a call from a board member and left the family home that evening. The story spread that he had filed for separation. Where there had been power and pearls, now there was vacuum and silence.
The damage was complete and public. Not a legal mockery; a social execution. They lost money, face, and fans. People recorded them collapsing in real time. They begged, knelt, shouted, cried, tried to buy back goodwill with statements and donations, but the cameras had already carved them into history. The videos of their pleas trended for days. A talent agency dumped Jocelyn; her followers turned into scavengers. Esperanza's name trended for weeks as hashtags tracked her downfall. She was uninvited, unsponsored, and finally, unmoored.
I sat in Cristian's lounge as the news streamed. He watched me with no expression at first. Then he reached out and took my hand.
"You didn't have to do that," he said.
"I did," I said.
He leaned closer. "Do you regret it?"
I did for my grandmother who might have been hurt by the chaos; I did for the nights of sleeping badly; I did for the blood on Dylan's brow when he had been mine. But regret would be an easy comfort for them. "No," I said.
He held my hand as if it were fragile and valuable. "I'm not good with people," he said. "I am good with consequences."
"Is that an offer?" I teased.
"It's an offer," he said.
He was cold for a reason—he ran safety like an engineer runs circuits. Over the next weeks his presence was a quiet thing at my shoulder. He sent security to my grandmother's hospital room. He called lawyers. He sat through meetings in silence and when he spoke people listened.
I did not fall in love with him at once. I learned to use the weapon of attention, and he taught me to let someone carry it for a moment. We shared a strange pact: I would not let him be my weapon; he would not let them break me.
The last scene came months later, in a courtroom packed with cameras. Esperanza watched from the dock as charges of conspiracy, libel, and campaign of harassment were read. Jocelyn folded under cross-examination, and the prosecutor played back the same recordings from the gala. People leaned forward. Bowen gave a full statement about the payments. A judge looked at the evidence and slammed a gavel.
"Madam Wallin," the judge said. "You are hereby found guilty on counts of conspiracy to defame and to incite. Sentencing will be scheduled."
The cameras caught every flinch. Jocelyn wept into a tissue as bailiffs led her out. Board members announced resignations. Sponsors issued statements. The charity Esperanza had used suspended operations. A company linked to her lost stock value and a CEO publicly resigned. Her husband's name appeared in divorce filings. Clips of the scandal replayed on loop.
When it was over in the public square, when their names sputtered in the feeds until the algorithms exhausted the outrage, I walked home with Cristian. The city was quiet. We stopped at a bridge and he turned to me.
"You wanted to take it all back," he said softly.
"I wanted them to stop," I said. "I wanted my life."
He pulled me close. "Will you let me keep you?"
I laughed. "I don't belong to anyone."
"Then don't leave me," he said. "Stay. Not because you must. Because you want to."
I looked at him. The man who had been a danger, who had been a tool I used and a shield I took, waited like a child with his hand out.
It was not a fairy tale. There were still enemies in the dark and the law had not forgiven everyone. But the worst of it had been undone in the harsh daylight.
"Okay," I said.
He kissed me then, simple and serious. When I felt his mouth against mine, I thought of my grandmother's small fingers, of the vase breaking, of Dylan's betrayal. I thought of the night at the gala where words had cut and truth had answered. I thought of how many people will never be held accountable unless someone points a spotlight.
"Stay," he murmured.
The bridge lights flickered. Above the river, the city kept its old, hard noise. I let my head rest on his chest and listened to the slow rhythm there, steady as a heartbeat.
We did not promise forever. We promised now.
And when the first cold wind of morning came, I stood, brushed dust from my dress, and said to myself: I had my life back, but it was mine to build. I would not ask for pity. I would make sure no one could buy me again.
"Let's go," Cristian said.
"Let's," I answered.
We walked away from the bridge together, and the camera of the world blinked and moved on to the next story, but the people who had watched had seen a woman get up and choose her path. That was enough.
The End
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