Chapter 2

I refused to believe it was suicide.

I tried to talk to the police, to anyone who would listen.

"Sarah wasn't like that!" I' d insisted.

But I was just a grieving girl.

They patted my head, offered condolences, and told me to let it go.

Eleanor Thorne herself had paid for a quiet, quick funeral.

The official investigation concluded: "Suicide due to acute mental distress."

A neat, tidy lie the town swallowed.

The Thornes were too powerful, their influence too deep.

So I left.

I studied, I learned, I prepared.

For eight years, the memory of Sarah, the injustice, fueled me.

Forensic psychology, criminal behavior, the art of deception.

I became an expert in minds that break, and minds that kill.

All for one purpose: to find out what happened in that room, to make them pay.

Now, I was back in Havenwood.

The town hadn't changed much, nor had the Thorne's deadly tradition.

Seven more brides, seven more "suicides."

Each death was a fresh stab of pain, a reminder of Sarah.

One bride, they said, was a champion swimmer, strong and fearless.

She was found drowned in a small basin in the study, a basin barely large enough to wash her face.

How does a strong swimmer drown herself like that?

The mystery only deepened, the legend of the curse solidified.

Eleanor Thorne, the matriarch, was a woman carved from ice.

But I saw the desperation in her eyes when I made my offer.

The Thorne name was dying, the whispers turning into accusations of something darker than a curse.

She needed a bride, any bride, to prove the lineage could continue, to silence the talk.

"You understand the risks, Miss Vance?" she' d asked, her voice like clinking glass.

"Of course," I' d replied, smiling sweetly. "But I have faith."

The town buzzed with my audacity.

"Gold-digger," some sneered. "Crazy," others whispered.

They didn't see the calculation in my eyes, only the ambition they expected.

Eleanor Thorne saw it too, or thought she did.

She saw another girl dazzled by the Thorne wealth, willing to risk death for a chance at it.

"The wedding will be next week," she announced, a thin, predatory smile on her lips.

"Julian will be pleased."

Julian, throughout our brief, public courtship, seemed resigned, a handsome puppet.

My father, Michael, reacted as I expected, as Eleanor Thorne expected.

He found me at the hardware store, his face a mask of fury and grief.

"Are you insane, Elara?" he yelled, his voice hoarse.

"Marrying into that family? After what happened to Sarah?"

"I know what I'm doing, Dad," I said calmly.

"You're chasing money, just like they all say! You're disrespecting your sister's memory!"

His words were meant to hurt, and they did, but not for the reasons he thought.

I looked him in the eye.

"You gave up on Sarah," I said, my voice cold. "You let them get away with it."

"I did what I had to do to protect you!" he shot back, his face pale.

"Protect me? Or protect yourself?"

He raised his hand, then let it fall, his shoulders slumping.

"If you go through with this," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "you are no longer my daughter."

He turned and walked away, leaving me standing alone among the tools and silence.

A public disownment. Perfect.

It was all part of the plan. My plan.

But as he left, I saw a flicker in his eyes, something I hadn't seen in years.

A deep, hidden pain, and something else... resolve?

No, it had to be my imagination. He had given up long ago.