PART 1: THE WEDDING OF DESTRUCTION

Chapter 1: The Pinnacle of Artificial Perfection

St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown Manhattan was more resplendent today than any day in its hundred-year history. Thousands of white roses and peonies, flown in from France, covered the aisles and the altar. Sunlight streamed through the brilliant stained-glass windows, illuminating the guests who were the elite of New York: politicians, Wall Street billionaires, and A-list Hollywood stars.

I, Annabel Lee, stood before the mirror in the bridal suite. The custom-designed Vera Wang wedding dress, worth $50,000, hugged my slender frame. It was beautiful, pure, and perfect. Just like the mask I had worn for the past 3 years.

Today, I would become Mrs. Annabel Dangel. I would officially step into the Dangel family – one of the most powerful “Old Money” families on the East Coast.

“You look beautiful, Annabel,” Julian walked in, holding a glass of champagne. He was the best man, my fiancé’s best friend, and also my secret lover for the past 5 years.

I glanced at the door, signaling him to lower his voice. “Don’t be stupid, Julian. Ethan could come in here at any moment.”

Julian smirked, stepping closer to adjust my lapel. He whispered in my ear, his hot breath against my neck: “He’s busy greeting guests with his parents. He trusts you absolutely, Annabel. Once today is over, when you sign that marriage certificate, half of the Dangel empire will be within our grasp.”

“Half?” I sneered, looking at myself in the mirror with cold eyes. “I want it all. Ethan is too weak and trusting. He doesn’t deserve that fortune. Only we, who have had to crawl up from the mud, know how to use money.”

The church bells rang. H-hour had arrived.

I took a deep breath, regaining the innocent, saintly expression – the weapon that helped me conquer Ethan Dangel’s heart. I walked out of the room, took the arm of my father (an old actor I hired to play the role of a retired university professor father), and stepped into the sanctuary.

Canon in D began to play. All eyes turned to me. Admiration. Envy.

Ethan stood at the end of the aisle. He wore a black tuxedo, his golden hair shining and his blue eyes looking at me full of love. He looked like a prince straight out of a fairy tale. A foolish prince about to hand his kingdom over to a witch.

I walked up to him. Ethan took my hand. His hand was cold, and slightly trembling. I thought it was the nervousness of happiness.

I was wrong.

Chapter 2: The Shocking Rejection

The ceremony went smoothly. The priest read the admonitions about love and faithfulness. I bowed my head, playing the role of the bride moved to tears perfectly.

Then came the most important moment.

The priest turned to Ethan.

“Ethan Edward Dangel, do you take Annabel Lee to be your wedded wife, promising to love, respect, and protect her, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, until death do you part?”

The space fell silent. Everyone held their breath waiting for the sweet “I do.”

Ethan let go of my hand. He took a step back.

His blue eyes, just moments ago filled with love, suddenly darkened, cold and sharp as two daggers. He looked straight into my eyes, unblinking.

“No,” Ethan said.

The sound wasn’t loud, but it echoed in the cathedral vault like a gunshot.

The priest was stunned. “You… what did you say?”

“I said NO,” Ethan repeated, his voice steely, booming through the microphone attached to his lapel. He turned to look at the 500 guests who were gaping in astonishment.

“I cannot marry this woman. I cannot marry a sinister, fake, and cruel person like her as my wife.”

The cathedral erupted. Whispers exploded like a broken beehive.

I froze. My blood seemed to coagulate. This scenario was not in my calculations.

“Ethan… what are you saying?” I tried to force a smile, reaching out to take his hand. “You’re joking a bit too much. Everyone is watching.”

Ethan brushed my hand away roughly.

“Joking? Do you think this is a joke, Annabel? Or should I call you Annie ‘The Cat’ – your nickname when you were a stripper in Las Vegas 6 years ago?”

Blood drained from my face. That past… I had spent a fortune to wipe it clean. Why did he know?

“You’re drunk, Ethan,” Julian stepped up from behind, trying to salvage the situation. “You’re just having pre-wedding stress. Go inside and rest a bit…”

“Shut your mouth, Julian!” Ethan shouted, pointing straight at his best friend’s face. “Do you think I don’t know who you are? You’re not my friend. You’re her lover!”

Chaos reached its peak. Ethan’s parents stood up abruptly in the front row.

“Ethan, what are you doing?” Mrs. Dangel screamed.

Ethan didn’t answer his mother. He pulled a remote control from his jacket pocket. He pressed the button.

The large screen, intended to show our romantic wedding slide show, suddenly went black, then displayed a different video.

Not wedding photos.

It was footage from a hidden camera. The setting was the bedroom in Julian’s apartment. In the video, Julian and I were lying on the bed, drinking wine and laughing.

The voices in the video rang out clearly through the church’s surround sound system:

“When is that idiot going to propose to you?” Julian’s voice.

“Soon,” my voice in the video, full of contempt. “He’s head over heels for me. Just need to sign the prenup, then I’ll find a way for him to have a little ‘accident’. Then, the Dangel fortune will be ours.”

“You’re ruthless, Annabel. But I like it.”

The video ended. The entire cathedral sank into a deathly silence. The silence of horror.

I stood alone on the altar, feeling like I was being stripped naked before hundreds of pairs of eyes. The magnificent wedding dress now became a shroud wrapping tightly around me.

Chapter 3: The Fall of the Fake Queen

“That’s fake! It’s edited!” I screamed, my voice cracking with panic. “Ethan, don’t believe it! Someone framed me!”

Ethan walked closer to me. He looked at me with eyes void of any affection, only disgust.

“Annabel,” he said, his voice deep and dangerous. “Did you think I was a stupid rich kid who only knows how to spend money? Did you think I wouldn’t investigate the woman who would sleep in my bed?”

He pulled out a thick file, throwing it into the air. White papers fluttered down to the church floor like summer snow.

“This is your real background. Real name: Annie Miller. Your parents aren’t professors; they are alcoholics in the suburbs of Chicago. You spent 6 months in jail for credit fraud. You changed your name, got plastic surgery to approach me.”

He turned to Julian, whose face was now as pale as a corpse.

“And you, Julian. I knew you were embezzling my company’s funds 2 years ago. I kept quiet to see what you were planning. Turns out you intended to swallow my whole family.”

“Security!” Ethan ordered.

The Dangel family’s security team, instead of protecting the wedding, now moved in like a special ops squad. They subdued Julian immediately.

“As for you,” Ethan looked at me. “You aren’t worth me calling the police right now. I want you to walk out of here, looking like this, so the whole world can see your true face.”

“You… you can’t do that…” I trembled.

“I can,” Ethan said coldly. “From this moment on, the name Annabel Lee will become the laughing stock of all New York. No one, no door of the high society will ever open for you again. You wanted to climb high, now enjoy the feeling of falling hard.”

Ethan turned his back, walking towards his parents. He didn’t look back at me even once.

Guests started whispering, pointing. The admiring looks from earlier turned into daggers of contempt. Phones were raised, filming, taking photos. Tomorrow, I would be on the front page of every newspaper, but not as the bride of the year, but as the fraud of the century.

I watched Julian being dragged away. He kept his head down, not daring to look at me. My only ally had fallen.

I grabbed the hem of my dress, running for my life out of the church. I ran past the rows of seats, past the baskets of white roses that now looked like my own funeral.

I rushed out the main door, down the stone steps. Outside, it started to rain. The cold New York rain lashed at my face, washing away the thick layer of makeup, revealing the true face of Annie Miller – a failure.

I tripped and fell. My knees scraped, blood oozing out staining the pristine white fabric. I sat on the sidewalk, amidst the flashing lights of the paparazzi waiting in ambush. They were like vultures diving onto a corpse.

“Miss Annabel! Is it true you planned to kill your husband?” “Do you have any statement?”

I covered my face, screaming in despair. The dream of changing my life, the perfect 5-year plan, all vanished into smoke with just one word “No” from Ethan.

PART 2: THE PRICE OF THE BLACK SWAN

Chapter 4: Living in a Living Hell

One week after the disastrous wedding, I wasn’t arrested. Ethan kept his word; he didn’t send me to jail immediately. He did something crueler: He let me live outside the law but imprisoned by society.

The Dangel family lawyers filed a civil lawsuit, freezing all the assets I had accumulated (actually money I siphoned from Ethan during our courtship). My luxury apartment was seized. My bank account went into the negative.

I was kicked out of a cheap hotel because I had no credit card to pay. I became homeless, wandering the streets of New York that I once dreamed of conquering.

Whenever I entered a diner or asked for a job, people recognized me. “That’s the scammer bride!”, they whispered, pointed, some even spat on me. The video at the church had reached hundreds of millions of views online. I became the symbol of greed and deceit.

Julian had disappeared. Rumor had it he made a deal with Ethan, confessing all our past scams in exchange for a one-way ticket to South America and never returning. He sold me out to save his own life.

I was left all alone.

One freezing rainy night, I huddled in an alley in the Bronx. My stomach growled with hunger. I remembered the luxurious dinners at Michelin restaurants with Ethan. I remembered his warm gaze.

I realized, besides greed, I actually had some feelings for him. His kindness, his gentleness… things a person raised in violence like me had never received. But I had crushed it with my own hands.

A black Limousine pulled up at the head of the alley. The window rolled down.

It was Ethan.

He sat in the car, wearing a charcoal gray suit, his face cold but with a hint of fatigue. He looked at me – a dirty, tattered Annabel, far from the goddess in the Vera Wang dress of days past.

“Get in,” he said.

I hesitated, but the cold and hunger won over my pride. I stepped into the car, sitting opposite him, trying to make myself small so as not to dirty the expensive leather seat.

“Did you come to mock me?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“No,” Ethan replied, pouring a glass of strong liquor and handing it to me. “I came to give you a choice.”

I took the glass, drinking it in one gulp to regain some warmth. “What choice? Jail or death?”

“Both are too easy,” Ethan looked out the window. “Annabel, or Annie, or whatever name you want to call yourself. You have talent. You are smart, sharp, and a good actress. You fooled me for 3 years, something not many people can do.”

“Are you complimenting me?”

“I am assessing the enemy’s capability. I have a proposal. I will clear your debt, provide you with a new identity and a small amount of capital. Enough for you to start life over in a place where no one knows you.”

I was stunned. “Why? After everything I did?”

Ethan turned back to look at me. In his eyes, the hatred had vanished, leaving only a vast emptiness.

“Because today is the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. She used to teach me: The best revenge is not to kill the enemy, but to remove the reason for them to be an enemy.”

He sighed. “You became a monster because you were born in poverty and ambition. I want to see, if I give you a chance to be a decent person, will you take it? Or will you use that money to scam others again.”

“Is this a test?”

“Yes. A final gamble I’m placing on the ‘human’ part left in you.”

He placed an envelope on the table. Inside was a passport with a new name, a plane ticket to Australia, and a check for $50,000.

“Go. And never let me see you again.”

Chapter 5: A New Beginning or an Old Loop?

I held the envelope, hands trembling. $50,000. This amount was tiny compared to the Dangel fortune, but it was a whole fortune to me right now.

I could use it to restart my life. Open a flower shop, live peacefully in Australia.

Or… I could use it for plastic surgery again, return to New York, and take revenge on Julian, revenge on Ethan.

The car stopped at JFK Airport.

“Get out,” Ethan said, not looking at me.

I opened the car door. Night wind rushed in.

“Ethan,” I called his name one last time. “How do you know I won’t come back to bite you?”

“I don’t,” Ethan replied. “But if you come back, next time there will be no mercy. That is a promise.”

I stepped out of the car. The Limousine rolled away, leaving me standing alone in the airport terminal.

I looked at the plane ticket in my hand. The flight took off in 2 hours.

I walked toward the check-in counter. But as I passed a trash can, I stopped.

I looked at my reflection in the glass window. A ravaged woman, eyes full of calculation but also full of fear. I had lived my whole life on lies. I was tired.

I remembered Ethan’s gaze when he talked about the “remaining human part.” He had forgiven me, in the manner of a superior granting a favor, but it was the only forgiveness I had ever received in my life.

I took a deep breath.

I didn’t throw away the plane ticket. I didn’t tear up the check either.

I went straight to the ticket counter, checking in.

I would go to Australia. I would not use this money to scam anymore. I would open an acting class. After all, that was the only skill I was best at.

As the plane took off, I looked down at the brilliant lights of New York receding into the distance.

Goodbye Annabel Lee. Goodbye billionaire dream. Goodbye Ethan.

You won this chess game, Ethan Dangel. You not only protected your fortune, you saved a soul – even if that soul was rotten to the core.

5 years later.

In a small coastal town on the Gold Coast, Australia.

A woman named Mary was guiding a group of children rehearsing the play “Romeo and Juliet”. She was simple, her face had wrinkles, but her smile was very bright.

After class, she sat on a park bench, reading an old business newspaper. On the front page was a picture of Ethan Dangel – now Chairman of the Dangel Group – cutting the ribbon to inaugurate a large charity center. He was married; his wife was a pediatrician, not overly beautiful but with a gentle smile.

Mary smiled, folding the newspaper.

“Congratulations, Ethan,” she whispered to the sea breeze. “You chose the right person.”

She stood up, walking towards her small house filled with roses. Life wasn’t wealthy, wasn’t silky, but every night she slept well. And that, perhaps, was the most precious asset she had ever owned.

THE END