Part 5: The Strike of the Blades
Your body often registers a threat long before your conscious mind can process it.
My gaze dropped from Joan’s eyes to her right hand. Concealed slightly against the fabric of her ivory suit was a pair of small, gleaming silver sewing scissors she had pulled from the emergency bridal vanity kit.
I whirled around, my heart leaping into my throat. "Joan, what on earth are you doing?"
She didn't flinch. She simply offered that same soft, devastating smile. "Fixing a structural problem."
Snip.
The sound was sharp, metallic, and horrifyingly loud in the quiet room. The delicate lace split instantly under the force of the blades.
"Stop!" Claire screamed, lunging forward.
But Joan was faster. She drove the scissors downward a second time. The right side of the beautiful overskirt parted away from the bodice, falling loose, jagged, and completely ruined.
For two agonizing seconds, nobody in the bridal suite breathed. Then, absolute chaos erupted.
"Are you completely insane?!" Tessa shouted.
"Oh my God! Call security!"
Joan calmly lifted both of her hands, still loosely holding the silver scissors like an award. "It was entirely too much dress for her frame. Everyone in high society knows it. I merely gave it some much-needed movement."
The photographer lowered her camera in absolute horror. The makeup artist backed away against the far wall, gripping her brushes. Joan stepped into my personal space, leaning close enough so that only a few of us could hear her next words.
"You were never going to outshine Madison, Dakota. Not in this family. Know your place."
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It wasn't the ruined lace that broke my restraint. It wasn't the months of design work destroyed in seconds. It was that single, definitive sentence.
I lifted my hand and slapped her across the face.
