Chapter 3 - An Altar Built on Lies
Under the soaring neo-Gothic arches of St. Bartholomew’s Church, five hundred of New York’s most prominent families rose to their feet as the opening chords of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus thundered from the pipe organ.
Walking down the white silk runner was Sienna Vale.
She wore a sixty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown of hand-embroidered French lace, a diamond tiara catching the light of five thousand beeswax candles, and a veil that trailed twenty feet behind her like a royal train. She held a bouquet of rare white peonies, smiling with the predatory, triumphant ecstasy of an assistant who had successfully crawled from the typing pool to the penthouse of Fifth Avenue.
Standing at the altar in his midnight-blue morning suit, Grant Kingsley smiled back.
Yet beneath the polished veneer of white teeth and tailored elegance, Grant’s collar felt suffocatingly tight. A bead of cold sweat ran down the back of his neck, soaking into his linen shirt.
The sound of that baby crying on the speakerphone still rang in his ears like tinnitus.
“Her name is Aurelia.” “My name is Dominic Moretti.”
Grant’s hands trembled slightly as he clasped them in front of his waist. He had spent three years ensuring Claire would be left destitute and humiliated. He had paid off doctors, manipulated legal trusts, and ensured that the five million dollars left to her by her grandfather remained tied up in probate court under the pretext of an incomplete family lineage.
If Claire had a child—and worse, if that child belonged to the head of the Moretti syndicate—the legal foundation of their prenuptial agreement was entirely compromised. Section 12 of the Jensen family trust stipulated that any direct descendant of Claire Jensen triggered an immediate, irrevocable transfer of fifty million dollars in commercial real estate situated along the Hudson River—the very parcels Grant had pledged as collateral for his luxury high-rise development.
The organ music crested.
Sienna reached the altar, slipping her gloved hand into Grant’s. Her eyes sparkled with intoxicating ambition.
“You look nervous, darling,” Sienna whispered under the cover of the priest’s opening invocation. “Don't be. In ten minutes, the Kingsley empire is unified.”
“I’m fine,” Grant muttered through a rigid, forced smile.
“Dearly beloved,” the Reverend began, his voice echoing through the vaulted stone nave, “we are gathered here today in the sight of God and these witnesses to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony…”
At the back of the cathedral, the heavy oak doors swung open an inch.
Nobody in the wedding party noticed the two tall men in dark wool overcoats who slipped into the rear pews. One of them carried a slim leather briefcase; the other kept his right hand casually resting inside his breast pocket.
In pew four, Dr. Arthur Sterling—the chief of reproductive endocrinology who had signed Claire’s false medical reports—felt a heavy, iron-hard hand drop onto his shoulder.
Sterling turned, annoyed, but the words died in his throat.
Dante leaned down, his scarred cheekbone inches from the doctor’s ear. “Dr. Sterling. Mr. Moretti requires your immediate presence in the courtyard.”
Sterling went sheet-white. “I… I am a guest of the groom! You can't—”
Dante’s fingers tightened on the physician’s collarbone with a precision that cut off the blood flow to his arm, turning his fingers numb.
“You walk out that side door on your own feet, doctor,” Dante whispered, his voice as cold as a freshly dug grave, “or my associate carries you out by the handles of your tuxedo. Choose before the priest reaches the vows.”
Sterling swallowed hard, his knees knocking together as he stood up, trembling, and allowed himself to be guided down the side aisle toward the shadows of the cloister.
At the altar, the Reverend turned to Grant.
“Grant Kingsley, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
Grant looked at Sienna’s perfect, triumphant face. He thought of the high-rise permits, the society columns, the sixty million dollars hanging on the closing of fiscal quarter three.
“I do,” Grant said clearly.
The priest turned to Sienna. “And do you, Sienna Vale, take this man…”
“I do,” she breathed, practically lunging forward to seal her conquest.
“By the authority vested in me,” the priest concluded, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Grant leaned down and kissed her.
May you like
The cathedral erupted into polite, restrained high-society applause. Cameras flashed, capturing the radiant smile of Manhattan’s newest golden couple.
Neither of them realized that while they were exchanging rings, the legal documents dismantling their entire financial existence had just been delivered to the front desk of the Plaza Hotel.
