Chapter 8 - The Stripping of the Emerald
Victoria stood entirely alone on the raised dais.
The groom was gone. The guests had backed away toward the outer walls, leaving an empty, circular arena of black-and-white marble around the altar. The white hydrangeas and gardenias, which had seemed so pure an hour earlier, now looked like the wilting decorations of an open tomb.
From the center of the aisle, Caroline began to walk again.
Her bare feet made a dull, rhythmic slapping sound against the stone as she ascended the three white marble steps. Her hospital gown swayed loosely around her bruised knees, the frayed cotton catching the light of the candles. She did not stop until she was standing less than two feet from her younger sister.
The contrast between them was devastating: the pristine, sculpted bride in fifty yards of French satin and seed pearls, versus the bruised, battered survivor wrapped in rags.
Victoria took half a step backward, but her back hit the solid edge of the mahogany head table, trapping her against the briefcase and the fan of incriminating bank drafts. She was panting, her chest rising and falling in frantic, shallow spasms, her hands shaking so violently she could barely keep them raised.
"Caroline..." Victoria whimpered, her voice dropping from shrill rage into a pathetic, childlike plea. "Please... we're sisters. You don't understand what it was like... living in your shadow... Dad always looked at you like you were the only one who mattered..."
Caroline looked at her.
There was no hatred in Caroline’s brown eyes. There was no fiery rage, no theatrical fury. There was only the vast, indifferent emptiness of an ocean that had swallowed a ship and smoothed its surface without a ripple.
"I gave you everything, Victoria," Caroline said, her raspy voice vibrating in the quiet room. "When Mother died, I gave you her jewelry. I gave you the seat on the arts council. When you ran up two million dollars in gambling debts in Monaco, I covered the markers from my personal accounts so Dad would never know. I protected you because I thought you were broken."
Caroline leaned forward slightly, the faint, sharp scent of hospital antiseptic washing over the bride’s expensive French perfume.
"I didn't realize you weren't broken," Caroline whispered. "I didn't realize you were just evil."
Caroline slowly raised her right hand.
Victoria flinched, throwing her arms up to shield her face, anticipating a blow.
The blow never came.
Instead, Caroline’s fingers—calloused, bruised, and steady—reached behind Victoria’s neck. With a smooth, practiced flick of her wrist, Caroline found the delicate platinum safety catch of the forty-carat Colombian emerald collar.
CLICK.
The clasp gave way.
The heavy platinum chain slid smoothly from Victoria’s neck, the massive green stone falling gently into the palm of Caroline’s hand. The cold emerald seemed to catch the chandelier light with an ancient, unyielding brilliance, glowing like green fire against her pale, scarred skin.
May you like
Victoria gasped, clutching at her bare throat as if Caroline had just torn away her jugular vein. Without the emerald, without the groom, and without the family fortune, she was merely a woman in a ridiculous, oversized white dress, shivering beneath the contempt of two hundred witnesses.
Caroline did not put the necklace on. She simply held it in her fist, letting the platinum chain drape between her bruised fingers, and turned her back on her sister.
