Chapter 3 - THE MOTHER’S TERROR
Victoria stopped dead in her tracks.
The color drained from her face so fast she looked like a corpse.
“Lies!” Victoria screamed, her voice cracking with sudden panic.
“He’s a deranged vagrant! Security, throw him out!”
Two massive bouncers in black tuxedos rushed forward.
They grabbed the elderly waiter by his shoulders.
“Get your hands off me!” the old man shouted, struggling against them.
“Sarah, look at me!”
“Your mother told you your father died in a car crash before you were born!”
“It was all a lie!”
Sarah stood frozen in place.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow, frantic breaths.
She looked at Victoria.
Then she looked at the silver-haired stranger.
“Mom?” Sarah whispered, her voice trembling.
“What is he talking about?”
Victoria forced a harsh, shrill laugh.
“Darling, listen to me.”
“He’s a bitter old man hired by my enemies to ruin your special day.”
“Look at him! He was just fired from another restaurant yesterday!”
The waiter shook off one bouncer’s grip.
He pulled a worn leather wallet from his inner jacket pocket.
He tossed it across the ruined cake toward Sarah’s feet.
“Open it,” the old man panted.
“Look at the hospital band inside.”
“Look at the date matching your birth certificate.”
“Look at the picture of the nursery I built before your mother locked me out of our lives!”
Victoria lunged forward like a striking cat.
She kicked the wallet across the floor into a puddle of raspberry coulis.
“Don’t touch it, Sarah!” Victoria hissed.
“If you open that, you are spitting on everything I sacrificed for you!”
I stepped forward from my bridesmaid position.
May you like
I bent down.
I picked up the sticky, ruined wallet before Victoria could stop me.
