The Wedding Was A Game And Her Father Was The Prize Chapter 06
More than a dozen hours later, Nolan let himself back into the Back Bay penthouse.
The place was dead silent.
Confetti from the night before was still scattered across the living room floor.
The tiered birthday cake had been abandoned on the corner of the dining table, the frosting sagging in on itself, giving off a sickly sweet, rotten smell.
Nolan forced himself to think.
She had gone to Munich. He knew that much.
But he didn’t know where she was staying. He couldn’t reach her. He wasn’t even sure she had landed safely.
Then he walked into the bedroom, and something in his chest sank, inch by inch.
A drawer had been pulled open. One whole compartment inside was empty.
Her driver’s license, her passport, her credit cards. All gone.
The file pouch on the bottom shelf of the bookcase was gone too.
That was where Henry’s medical records had lived. Every scan, every report, every diagnosis of the last five years.
Nolan stared at the empty spaces where those things used to be, and it finally landed.
She hadn’t left in a fit of anger.
She had planned this for a long time.
He panicked. He called his assistant and told him to find her.
Half an hour later, the assistant called back.
“Mr. Ashford, I found her.”
“Ms. Sutton boarded Lufthansa 423 to Munich yesterday morning at eight. She took her father with her.”
Nolan remembered the airport. She hadn’t been there to fly to Aspen with him.
She had been there to leave him, for another country entirely.
The assistant hesitated, then went on.
“There’s one more thing.”
“The night before she flew out, Ms. Sutton was rushed into the ER at Mass General.”
Nolan’s breath caught.
“The ER?”
The assistant lowered his voice further.
“Severe anaphylactic shock.”
“According to the intake notes, she’d ingested food contaminated with live leech tissue. Ten more minutes and she would have suffocated from the swelling in her throat.”
The room tilted around him.
That night, Claire had taken one bite and gone white.
He had seen it. He had seen all of it.
But the moment Bianca cut the back of her hand, he had run to Bianca.
He remembered the wedding, too. Henry doubled over after a single swallow of champagne, dry-heaving.
That blind old man, who couldn’t see a thing, had still fumbled his way through covering for Bianca, saying as long as everyone’s having fun.
And Nolan had stood on the altar and watched Bianca laugh, watched the guests raise their phones to film.
He had known it wasn’t a joke.
He had known Henry was the only family Claire had. The man who had gone into the White Mountains in a storm and dragged him out of a rockslide five years ago.
But all he had cared about was keeping the ceremony on schedule. He had even turned around and told Claire not to blow it up any bigger.
That same night, Boston PD pulled Bianca off her Aspen trip and brought her back for questioning.
Nolan was called in with her.
Bianca walked into the interview room already looking annoyed.
“Officer, are you sure you have the right person? Did you really have to drag me all the way back from Colorado?”
Then she looked up, saw Nolan sitting across from her, and her expression stiffened.
Nolan looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot.
Laid out on the table between them were Claire’s ER records from Mass General, security footage from the church, the receipts for the cake order, and page after page of screenshots from the college group chat mocking her.
The officer looked at Bianca.
“Ms. Whitmore. Claire Sutton nearly died of anaphylactic shock after ingesting a cake you made yourself.”
Bianca blinked, then tried to hold her ground.
“I had no idea she’d react that badly. It was just a joke…”
The officer slapped a hand on the table.
“You knew she was severely allergic to leeches, and you fed her a cake laced with them. You’re calling that a joke?”
Bianca’s mouth snapped shut.
Nolan sat next to her, his throat working several times before he managed to speak.
“That night… I’m responsible too.”
The officer turned to him.
“Mr. Ashford, you were her fiancé. You knew what she was allergic to. Why didn’t you take her to the ER the moment it happened?”
“And at the wedding. You allowed Ms. Whitmore to stamp Mr. Sutton’s face and to spike his drink. Were you aware of what was happening?”
Nolan bowed his head.
“I was aware.”
The officer closed the file and stood up.
“Ms. Whitmore, Mr. Ashford, you’ll both cooperate with the investigation.”
“Whether criminal charges are filed will depend on the medical assessment and the full evidence chain.”
Bianca shot to her feet, still insisting she hadn’t meant any harm.
Nolan didn’t seem to hear a word of it. He just sat there, staring at nothing.
He only understood one thing.
Things had come this far.
She was really done with him.