Chapter 5 - The Bride Who Disappeared
“Camila!”
Lorenzo ran toward the side corridor.
Isabella followed.
They found her veil caught on a broken wooden door.
Nothing else.
Lorenzo's face went cold.
“She was taken.”
Isabella shook her head.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“There are no drag marks.”
She pointed toward the floor.
Camila's shoes.
She had removed them herself.
“She walked away.”
Lorenzo stared at the empty corridor.
“Why would she leave?”
Isabella crouched.
Something glittered beneath the veil.
A small wedding ring.
Not Camila's.
Lorenzo picked it up.
Inside was an engraved letter.
C. R.
Camila Russo.
Isabella looked at him.
“She left a message.”
“For whom?”
“Maybe for us.”
They searched the ring.
Nothing.
Then Isabella noticed a tiny scratch on the inside of the band.
Three lines.
A symbol.
Lorenzo recognized it.
His expression changed.
“My father used that.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means safe passage.”
He looked toward the chapel's rear entrance.
“She wasn't kidnapped.”
They found Camila there.
She was crying quietly beside an old confessional.
“I had to leave,” she said.
Lorenzo approached carefully.
“Why?”
“My father warned me.”
“About Arthur?”
Camila nodded.
“He told me never to trust the man who always knew where I was.”
Lorenzo's eyes hardened.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because my father made me promise.”
She reached into her dress.
A folded letter emerged.
“He gave me this before he died.”
Lorenzo opened it.
One sentence had been underlined.
Arthur Pendleton is not working alone.
Isabella felt the room become colder.
Arthur had not built this plan by himself.
May you like
Someone above him was giving the orders.
And that person had known about the wedding long before Lorenzo announced it.
