Chapter 1
The month of.
When Bella awoke, she felt content. It was a pleasant surprise, considering how late they'd stayed out. There was no hangover, no headache, and she felt well rested. She concluded that she must have been
relatively
responsible. The latter half of the bachelorette party did get a little fuzzy though. When she eventually grabbed her phone and checked the time, she was shocked for two reasons -- the first being that it was actually three pm while her alarm was supposed to go off at noon, and the second being that she had no idea where she was.
She pulled the blanket up higher to cover her body fully while she surveyed the surroundings. The room was sort of cramped, and there was stuff everywhere -- beer cans, computer games, disorganized piles of mail and torn envelopes.
Where the hell am I?
She thought. Then just as soon as she did, she felt calm. It didn't matter where she woke up today, it was nothing to worry about. It was so much easier to just not think about it, especially when she still had heaps to do.
She got up and resigned herself to putting her outfit from last night back on until she could get home. When she caught her reflection in the mirror, she stopped an examined her profile -- as if one night of partying might have somehow undone all of her hard work lately.
Nope, still looking good,
she thought. She was once again grateful that she'd inherited just enough from her mother's side of the family to fill out her breasts but not so much that she got her metabolism -- or her temper. She couldn't find a hair brush, so she did what she could with her fingers as a temporary fix.
Just as she was finishing getting dressed and ready to leave, her phone rang.
Spam, I bet
. She was just about to dismiss the call when she paused. It wasn't somebody from her contacts, but something about the number seemed familiar. She swiped across and lifted the phone to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?" said a deep, soothing voice. It was a voice she loved listening to.
All of the tension drained out of her muscles. That sounded like a wonderful idea. Isobel had always liked passing the time by playing a little solitaire. She walked over to the bench and cleared a small space from the papers that covered it. She put the phone down and activated the loudspeaker.
The cards were already in her hand. They felt right to be there. She shuffled the deck then laid them out in front of her in neat, ordered piles. Then, she started turning cards. Seven of clubs. Ace of diamonds. Queen of Hearts.
She froze.
"Do you see the Red Queen, Isobel?"
"Yes Sir," she replied. There was nothing else. She was safe here. She was ready to obey.
"It's time to execute order one."
She scanned through her list of instructions.
"Yes Sir."
"When you're done with that, I want you to visit your good friend Aiden. Do you remember him?"
"Yes Sir."
"You remember where to meet him, don't you?"
"Yes Sir."
The phone line went dead. She stood and moved out of the building. There was no need to take the cards, they'd be with her whenever she needed them.
* * *
Bella screamed. A metal object clanked on the floor below her. The dress. The beautiful dress she'd spent so much time deciding on. Her stomach had fallen away completely. There were multiple large slashes down the front of it. She ran her hands across it, as if her eyes might have lied and that perhaps it was actually unharmed after all.
She looked down at her feet and saw a knife. Some of the white fibers still lingered on the edge of the blade. At some point in the last five seconds, her eyes had started to develop tears, although she was too distracted to know precisely when.
"Honey, what's the matter?" she heard as her fiance's footsteps bounded down the hallway.
She couldn't speak.
"Hun?"
She could feel Mark standing behind her now.
"I..."
"What the heck happened... oh, oh shit, what? Who did that?"
"I..." she continued, now openly sobbing. "I think I did..."
He pulled her close and looked into her eyes.
"It's ok baby, it's ok," he said, then wrapped around her in a gentle hug.
"I thought I had everything under control," she said, "I thought everything was going smoothly. I guess... I guess it all just got to me?"
It kind of made sense to her. Sort of. But as the words left her lips, they felt more like an excuse than an explanation.
"Oh god Mark, what are we going to do?" she continued. Mark pulled back slightly.
"I know you didn't want to involve family too much, but you know one of my cousins
is
a dressmaker, right?"
"Wait, really?"
"Yeah, do you want me to see if he's able to do anything with it? Otherwise we'll have to look at getting something else done on short notice."
She felt the weight lifting off her shoulder. Partially.
"I'll pay of course," she said. "I don't want them doing any more for us, it feels ridiculous considering-"
"Alright," he said, cutting her off. "I'm sure he won't have any trouble sending an invoice to Missus Moneybags here." She smiled and looked up again.
"That's
future
Missus Moneybags."
"My apologies,
miss
," he said. "Now, why don't you let the
future Mister Moneybags
here take care of this. You've done so much organizing and planning already. I think you can take the rest of the day off."
She smiled, then stood up on her toes and kissed him.
"I love you, Mark Christopher Liu," she said.
"And I love you, Miss Rossi," he replied with a smile. "Now go away and relax for a while, right?"
Isobel knew exactly how she could relax. She powered on the car and pulled out into the street. Aiden wasn't that far. It might have seemed odd to some people -- Aiden wasn't a masseuse or anything like that. But he was tremendously good at one thing -- helping Bella relax. Aiden was the kindest, warmest, most wonderful human being she'd ever known in her life. It totally wasn't anything untoward, not cheating, but it would be hard to explain.
I shouldn't tell anybody about my meetings with Aiden
, she thought. That seemed correct.
Ten minutes later, she was there. She felt a little bit anxious.
That's why I'm here
, she thought. His office was one half of what probably used to be a residential house. There was an unlocked door that let you pass between where he was and a thrift shop on the other side.
She liked to imagine that Aiden was some kind of therapist. He certainly helped her a lot. But as she looked around, she wasn't so sure. There was nothing on the walls except holes where things used to be hung. There was no furniture to wait in. There was nobody to screen anybody on the way in. She brushed the thoughts aside and knocked on the door.
"Come in," he said. He had such a lovely deep voice.
Aiden's voice is very relaxing. I love listening to it
, Isobel thought.
She crossed the threshold into the room, and felt immediately at ease once she laid eyes on him. He wore a rather sharp three piece suit, all shades of dark grey and black. She smiled, but he simply looked focused.
"Good to see you Isobel," he said. "Please, please, take a seat."
