Elena woke to the smell of wilted roses.
For a long moment, she simply lay there. Then she blinked. The ceiling slowly came into focus. She tried to remember. White flowers. Her mother. Her father. Her sister. Music. Adrian's hand reaching for hers... then nothing.
Pain pulsed behind her eyes.
She pushed herself up, one palm pressed against the cold marble floor. Her wedding gown was ruined. Dust clung to the lace, and crushed petals stained the hem.
The ballroom was empty.
No guests. No waiters. No music. Just silence and the faint scent of old champagne.
Elena turned in a slow circle. Half-melted candles leaned sideways. A broken glass sparkled under a chair. White roses lay crushed into the floor, their petals sticking to the shards.
This wasn't how weddings ended. What happened here? It looked like something people wanted to forget.
She looked around again.
Adrian?
Her eyes swept across the ballroom. It was empty. The familiar emptiness rose in her throat, the same silence she had carried since she was a child.
She reached for her notebook that wasn't there. Even her phone was gone. Her hands started signing before she remembered no one was watching.
That frightened her more than the empty ballroom. Without it, she had no way to ask a single question, and now someone had taken it from her.
Elena gathered the front of her dress and hurried toward the entrance. The hem caught on broken glass, but she didn't stop. The hallway outside was just as deserted. Even the lights were off. Only pale moonlight came through the tall windows.
She almost ran. Instead, she forced herself toward the open ballroom doors.
Where was everyone? Someone should have been here. Even if the wedding had ended, someone should have stayed. She twisted the fabric of her skirt until her knuckles turned white. The last thing she clearly remembered was standing at the altar. Adrian waiting for her. Rachel smiling in the front row. Then nothing.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe.
Empty ballroom. What was going on? She steadied herself against one of the pillars. "Am I dead?"
The thought flashed through her mind and vanished just as fast. No. That was ridiculous. Right?
One of the ballroom doors had been left ajar, a thin strip of light cutting across the polished floor. Elena rested her hand on the handle. Every part of her wanted to run, yet her fingers pushed the door open anyway. The old hinges complained, and moonlight poured into the deserted hall.
A man stood near the altar, his back partly turned to her. One hand rested in his pocket. The other slowly turned an ivory cigarette holder between his fingers, a thin ribbon of smoke curling toward the broken chandelier. He looked like he had been waiting.
He looked up.
Their eyes met.
Adrian.
Air rushed back into her lungs. He was alive.
For one second.
She frowned. His suit was spotless. His face gave nothing away. Too calm.
If he had been looking for his missing bride, there should have been panic. Worry. Something.
He smiled. Elena's fingers tightened around her skirt. That smile belonged to a stranger wearing Adrian's face. It settled across his face as though he'd been expecting this moment all along.
Elena couldn't move.
Adrian started walking toward her, slow and unhurried, like they were meeting for a normal date instead of standing in the wreckage of their wedding.
He stopped right in front of her.
Neither of them spoke.
His eyes moved over her ruined dress, the dirt on her hands, the loose strands of hair across her face. He was checking that everything was exactly as he expected.
Then he raised a hand.
Elena flinched.
His fingers paused for a second before gently lifting her chin.
"You're awake," he said softly.
His voice was the same calm tone that used to comfort her. Now it made her pulse race.
"I wasn't sure how long the poison would keep you out."
The words hit her like ice water.
He knew.
He didn't ask if she was hurt. He didn't ask what happened. He already knew.
Elena's lips parted, but nothing came out. She grabbed his sleeve with one hand and started signing fast with the other.
What happened? Where is everyone? Why?
Adrian's eyes followed her hands, but his expression didn't change the way it used to — the small nod, the half-smile that told her he was keeping up. This time there was only a pause, a beat too long, before he answered.
"Rachel did exactly what I asked her to do."
Elena froze.
Rachel?
She shook her head hard enough that loose strands of hair brushed her cheeks, then signed the name again, sharper, and pointed toward the empty ballroom.
Where is she?
"She believed she was winning," Adrian said.
That was all.
Elena felt like the floor had dropped beneath her. She reached into the hidden pocket of her dress, already knowing it would be empty. No notebook.
Her fingers settled over her throat out of habit. Nothing changed. It never did. Words crowded behind her lips with nowhere to go.
Instead, she grabbed his wrist tightly.
Adrian glanced down at her hand, then back to her eyes.
"You still want the truth."
It wasn't a question.
Elena nodded once.
Adrian leaned in until she could see the faint scar beneath his jaw.
"The man you thought you were marrying," his voice barely rose above a whisper, "never existed."
Elena searched his face for a trace of the man she'd loved. She found nothing familiar.
Her grip loosened.
Every memory rose at once — him laughing while trying to tie her apron. The flowers he'd sent every Friday. The way he'd squeezed her hand during the vows.
Had it all been fake?
She searched again, desperately, for the Adrian she had fallen in love with.
She couldn't find him.