Chapter 2: The Name on the Ribbon
Part 2 ⬇️
The candle stand had tipped.
No one else had seen it.
Claire stood frozen, staring at the scorch mark along the hem of her mother's gown — the gown her father had kept folded in tissue paper for thirty years, the one he had pressed into her hands the night before he passed.
"Get him out," her groom Marcus said, his voice low and tight.
"Now."
But Hammer wasn't moving.
He reached slowly into his vest and pulled out a folded ribbon — ivory, hand-stitched, with a name embroidered in faded blue thread.
Claire's breath stopped.
That was her father's handwriting.
"He asked me to give you this," Hammer said quietly.
"On your wedding day.
He said you'd know what it meant."
Marcus stepped forward.
"I don't know who you are, but you need to leave."
Hammer looked at him for a long moment.
Not angry.
Not afraid.
"I know who you are," he said.
"And so did her father."
The room went completely silent.
Claire looked at Marcus.
Something in his expression had shifted — just slightly — but enough.
She had seen that look before.
The night she found the deleted messages.
The night he told her she was imagining things.
Her hands were trembling as she reached for the ribbon.
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What did Claire's father know about Marcus — and why did he trust a stranger to deliver his final message?
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The full truth is more heartbreaking than anyone expected.
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