The scent of fresh roses filled the grand hall, but Isabella couldn't smell anything beyond the bitter taste in her mouth.
Her white wedding dress clung to her skin like a shroud. Around her, guests whispered behind jeweled hands. Their smiles were sharp, their eyes glinting with pity — or was it amusement?
She stood alone at the altar, trembling, clutching the bouquet so tightly the stems cut into her palms.
He wasn't coming.
The gilded double doors remained shut. The man she'd loved, the man she'd sworn her life to — her groom — had vanished.
Her father's face darkened, her mother's eyes brimmed with humiliation. Someone in the crowd snickered.
And then, through the whispers, she heard it:
"He ran away with her sister, didn't he?"
"What a pitiful bride."
Her sister.
Isabella's stomach turned as the doors finally creaked open — and there they were. Her groom, in his perfectly tailored suit, his arm around her younger sister's waist. Smirking. Victorious.
"I'm sorry," he said, though his voice carried no regret, only mockery.
"You were never enough for me."
The guests gasped. Isabella felt her knees buckle, but she didn't fall. Not yet.
Not even when her sister leaned close and whispered, sweet as venom:
"You should've known he was mine all along."
The world tilted. Darkness crept in at the corners of her vision. The sound of laughter, the camera flashes — everything blurred. And then — nothing.
When she opened her eyes again, she wasn't in the hall anymore.
She was… in her old bedroom.
On her old bed.
And when she looked at the calendar on the wall, her breath caught.
It was five years ago.
Her hands began to tremble — not with fear this time, but with something hotter, sharper.
This time, she wouldn't be the pitiful bride.
This time, she'd make them all pay.