Page 8 of Shattered

Really, I was just a coward.

The music changed, pulling me back to the present. The wedding march. Everyone stood, turned toward the doors at the back of the church.

I stood with them, preparing myself to watch Delia walk down this aisle toward Jake. Preparing for the moment when she’d say yes and every possibility I’d never let myself imagine would close permanently.

But the doors didn’t open.

The music played. People waited. The officiant kept glancing toward the entrance, expression growing increasingly strained.

Something was wrong.

Whispers started rippling through the crowd. Phones buzzed. The woman next to me leaned toward her companion, speculating in urgent whispers about delays and cold feet.

I watched Daniel, standing at the front near the altar. His expression had gone grave. The officiant leaned toward him, whispered something urgent.

Daniel’s entire body went rigid.

Then he turned and walked quickly toward the back of the church, disappearing through a side door.

The music stopped.

The whispers got louder.

I stood there, caught between sitting back down and following the instinct screaming that something had gone catastrophically wrong. Around me, three hundred people were making the same calculation, some sitting, others remaining standing, all of them confused.

I made it to the side door Daniel had used, pushed through into a hallway that led to the bridal suite and vestibule. Voices came from somewhere ahead—Daniel’s, sharp with command, and Sarah’s, thick with tears.

Then I saw them.

Delia being guided down the hallway by Daniel and Sarah, her face drained and blank, eyes unfocused. She was still in her wedding dress but her veil was gone. She moved like someone in shock—stiff, distant, barely tethered to the moment.

They were taking her away from the sanctuary. Away from the wedding that clearly wasn’t happening.

I stepped back, letting them pass without seeing me. Daniel saw me and something passed across his face—recognition, then relief.

“Axel,” he said. “Good. Wait for me. I need—just wait.”

He disappeared into the suite holding Elena’s hand, closing the door firmly behind them.

I stood in the hallway, trying to piece together what had just happened. Jake clearly wasn’t here. The wedding wasn’thappening. And Delia had looked shattered in a way that made my chest constrict.

Then Jake’s mother appeared, crying so hard she could barely walk. Someone was supporting her, guiding her toward the exit. She kept saying “I can’t believe he did this” over and over.

He did this.

Jake had done something.

The rage hit first—white-hot and absolute. Pure fury at Jake for whatever he’d done to put that look on Delia’s face.

And beneath that rage—buried so deep I almost didn’t recognize it—was something else.

Relief.

Terrible, selfish, monstrous relief that she wouldn’t marry him after all.

The realization made me sick. Here was Delia, clearly devastated—and some dark part of me was glad. Glad she was still unmarried. Glad Jake was out of the picture. That the future I’d been dreading—watching her belong to someone else permanently—had just evaporated.

I hated myself for it.