The man beneath Sienna smiled as the tablet displayed her face beneath a white veil.
“You’re the bride,” he whispered. “Tomorrow.”
Before security reached the rooftop, the device revealed a location and a countdown: an abandoned chapel outside the city, 11:59 the following night!
The groom’s face remained hidden.
Sienna secretly copied the files before surrendering the attacker to police. She told no one about the chapel—not even Aaron Reed, the FBI partner who had watched her back for six years.
That decision saved her life.
At 11:57 the following night, Sienna entered the chapel alone. White flowers lined the aisle. Candles burned beside rows of empty chairs. On the altar rested photographs of federal agents who had died under mysterious circumstances.
Each photograph showed an agent dressed as a bride or groom.
Then a man stepped from behind the altar wearing a black suit.
It was Aaron.
Sienna’s partner was the groom.
He explained that “the ceremony” was an assassination system created inside the FBI. The bride was the target. The groom was someone close enough to approach without raising suspicion.
The wedding attack had been carefully engineered. The sniper was never trying to kill the bride. The bullets forced Sienna to tackle her.
Hidden beneath the bride’s lace bracelet was a biometric scanner. The moment Sienna grabbed her, it copied her fingerprints, pulse pattern and facial profile.
Aaron now had everything needed to enter the FBI’s protected-witness database under Sienna’s identity.
After the files were stolen, Sienna would be murdered—and every piece of evidence would identify her as the traitor.
Aaron pulled a collapsible baton and attacked.
Sienna avoided the first strike, drove him into a church pew and knocked the weapon from his hand. He grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her against the altar, sending photographs across the floor.
A handgun slid from beneath his jacket.
Both reached for it.
Sienna kicked it beneath a pew, trapped Aaron’s arm and forced him face-down against the aisle. But before she could secure him, every candle in the chapel suddenly went dark.
A voice came through the speakers:
“Ceremony complete.”
The tablet showed hundreds of protected-witness files downloading under Sienna’s credentials.
She had less than sixty seconds.
Sienna used Aaron’s hand to unlock his phone and found the encrypted control application. He refused to give her the cancellation code—until she noticed a photograph of his kidnapped daughter hidden inside his wallet.
Aaron had not betrayed her for money.
The organization had forced him.
He finally gave Sienna the code with three seconds remaining. The transfer stopped, and she immediately sent the entire database, the wedding footage and Aaron’s confession to an independent federal investigator.
Police surrounded the chapel minutes later.
But the people controlling the operation were already gone.
As Aaron was taken away, his phone received one final message:
THE GROOM FAILED. PREPARE THE NEXT CEREMONY.
Below it was a new photograph.
The next bride was the woman Sienna had saved at the wedding.
And the new groom was her husband.
