The Bride Wore Blood At The Finish Line Chapter 05
Grandma Ellie’s cane cracked against the marble floor.
It wasn’t loud. But it cut through the room sharper than any scream.
The whole hall went silent.
Three hundred guests. Not one of them dared make a sound.
Eighty-two years old. Hair completely white. A simple dark grey dress. Spine straight as a rifle.
She walked out of the front row. One slow step at a time. Toward the stage.
Nobody stopped her.
Hunter stood frozen. His lips moved. “Grandma—”
She didn’t look at him.
She walked right up to me. And she looked down at my bare feet first.
The soles were bleeding. Ripped open walking out of the hospital. I’d left a red trail all the way down the aisle.
Then she saw the dress.
Dark red crusted into the white satin. Stiff patches all over the fabric.
Then she saw the burned helmet in my arms.
Her cane started shaking.
“Nora.”
Her voice trembled.
“That blood… is it yours?”
I didn’t answer. I just held the helmet a little tighter against my chest.
She turned her head. Looked up at the giant screen. At the ultrasound.
7 weeks gestation. Fetal demise due to blunt force trauma.
She stared at it a long time.
Long enough that I thought she didn’t understand.
Then she whipped around, raised the cane over her head, and brought it down across Hunter’s shoulder with everything she had.
The crack was clean and sharp.
The oak snapped in half.
Hunter staggered a step. Didn’t dodge. Didn’t dare.
“Grandma!”
Chloe rushed forward. “Please, don’t listen to her, she’s—”
“Shut. Your. Mouth.”
Grandma Ellie’s head snapped around. Her eyes were pure venom.
Chloe’s words died in her throat.
“Hunter.”
The old woman turned back. Her voice was shaking. But every word landed on his face like a nail.
“Three years ago. The fire. Who pulled you out of that car?”
Hunter’s lips moved.
“Nora. And Ethan.”
She pointed the broken half of the cane at his face.
“A nineteen-year-old girl. Ran into a fire for you. Four months in the ICU. Three skin grafts. That scar from her collarbone down to her chest—I saw it with my own eyes. Like someone peeled her alive.”
Her chest was heaving.
“I told you never to touch a race car again after that. Who spent three days in my study, wearing me down until I gave in? Nora. Three days. She wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t eat. She just kept begging me to let you keep the club. You forget that?”
Hunter’s face went ash-gray. He forced a few words out.
“Grandma, let me explain—”
“Explain what?”
She took another step forward.
“Explain how you cornered Ethan into signing that waiver? Explain how you ripped the cooling system out of his car and handed it to a stranger? Explain how you kicked my great-grandchild out of her body?”
The last words came through her teeth.
In the frozen silence, a woman in the back gasped.
Hunter’s throat worked.
His eyes finally dropped to the blood on my dress. Something violent was churning behind them.
But Chloe wouldn’t let it go.
She grabbed Hunter’s sleeve. Shrank behind his back. Eyes red.
“Hunter, the old lady is being played. That baby doesn’t exist. The specialists said you couldn’t—”
Grandma Ellie’s eyes cut sideways to her.
“Couldn’t?”
She took an envelope from Mr. Brooks and threw it in Chloe’s face.
“Signed by the top maternal-fetal specialist in the country. I had a DNA paternity test run on the tissue.”
The envelope split open. Pages fluttered to the floor.
“It’s Hunter’s baby.”
Chloe’s face drained. Inch by inch.
Hunter looked like someone had ripped his spine out. He took half a step back.
His mouth opened. Nothing came out.
I watched him standing there like that.
I felt no rush.
Just something sour rising up my throat.
“Grandma.”
I spoke.
Softly. But in the dead-quiet ballroom, it carried.
I reached into my pocket and slowly pulled out the proxy transfer document. The corner soaked stiff with blood.
I opened it in front of her.
Her handwriting. Her seal. The date. All of it.
Hunter’s head snapped up. His pupils shook.
He recognized it.
The one thing he’d wanted his whole life.
The signed transfer of the Vance Family Trust. Sole heir status. Absolute control.
And that piece of paper had been in my pocket the entire time.
Since the night my brother died.
“I got this for you.”
I looked at Hunter.
“I spent three days in her study wearing her down. Six months chipping away at her. She finally agreed to hand the whole family over to you.”
Hunter’s lips began to shake.
“I was going to give it to you at the wedding. As a surprise.”
I looked down at the document.
Then, in front of three hundred guests…
I tore it in half.
Then again.
Four pieces. Eight.
Scraps drifted through my fingers like snow.
The room was dead silent.
Hunter lunged forward. His hand shot out. His fingertips brushed one scrap.
He didn’t catch it.
The pieces landed in the blood at my feet. Soaked up the red. Ruined.
“No…”
One word forced out of him.
I stepped back. Held the helmet tighter.
“Hunter. My brother’s life. My baby’s life. Your family’s future.”
I said it slow. Word by word.
“As of tonight. All of it. Gone.”
I turned to leave. My knee buckled for a second.
I bit down on my tongue. Kept myself upright.
Walked off the stage.
The aisle was long. My bloody footprints trailed all the way to the door.
Behind me, a heavy thud.
Something hit the floor.
Grandma Ellie.
“GRANDMA!”
Hunter’s scream ripped through the hall.
My feet stopped for half a second.
I didn’t turn around.
But the moment I stepped through the doors, the tears finally broke loose. And they wouldn’t stop.