This Bloody Bride begins with a story of love, money, and deception. The whispers started before I even reached the altar, with hundreds of eyes judging me for marrying Rosalie Durham, the daughter of a wealthy family, for financial gain.
According to everyone in Minneapolis, I wasn’t getting married because I was in love, but because my family’s company had collapsed, and the only way I could survive was by marrying the richest man’s daughter.
The story they told was simple: I was selling myself, and no man would ever choose Rosalie unless millions of dollars came with her. They laughed because they believed she was ugly, with a deep wine-colored birthmark stretching across her cheek and neck.
But when Rosalie walked toward me, she didn’t wear a veil, and her birthmark was completely visible, just like she’d planned. She refused to hide from people who had already decided who she was.
Some guests looked away, while others stared without shame. I watched her instead, and I saw a woman who was beautiful not because she fit someone else’s standards, but because she walked through a room filled with people waiting to humiliate her and never lowered her head.
That kind of courage isn’t something you can fake. Three weeks before the wedding, we’d finally met without her father’s lawyers sitting between us. She surprised me immediately, saying, «My father says you’re desperate.»
I admitted that my family needed help, but I told her I hated pretending. Then she asked the question everyone else avoided: «They told you I’m ugly, didn’t they?»
I looked straight into her eyes and answered honestly, «I’d rather make up my own mind than believe people who enjoy hurting someone.» She looked shocked, then smiled so carefully it almost seemed painful, like kindness was something she’d forgotten existed.
Later that afternoon, she told me about her mother. Officially, everyone said she’d slipped from a balcony twelve years earlier. Rosalie never believed it, and something in her voice told me she’d spent years living with questions nobody wanted answered.
She also admitted she’d recently found a tiny key hidden inside her late mother’s sewing kit. She didn’t know what it unlocked, only that she was certain someone desperately wanted it to disappear.
The night before our wedding, she secretly stitched it inside the lining of her wedding corset. The next morning, two men working for her father searched every drawer, every suitcase, every corner of her bedroom. They never touched the dress.
During the ceremony, I noticed something that seemed insignificant at the time. As photographers crowded around us, Emmett Durham placed his hand on Rosalie’s shoulder, and she flinched so violently that the marriage certificate nearly slipped from her hands.
Everyone laughed nervously, assuming she was overwhelmed. I didn’t laugh, and something about her reaction stayed with me for the rest of the day. It wasn’t fear of crowds; it was fear of one man.
Hours later, after the reception finally ended, one of the housemaids quietly stopped me in the hallway outside the bridal suite. She looked terrified, whispering, «Sir, there’s blood on the back of Mrs. Durham’s wedding dress. She won’t let the doctor’s inside.»
My stomach dropped, and I knocked gently on the bedroom door, promising I wouldn’t come in unless she wanted me there. Several long minutes passed before the lock slowly clicked open.
Rosalie stood beside the bed with the back of her gown partly undone. The hidden key had ripped through the fabric and cut deep into her skin. But the blood wasn’t what froze me in place; it was what the torn dress exposed beneath it.
Table of Contents
Part 1: The Bloody Bride’s Secret
The torn fabric exposed dozens of faded scars circling both wrists, more around her ankles, and thin white marks crossing her back. They weren’t random injuries; they were the kind left behind after someone had been restrained over and over again.
