Chapter 7
The wedding schedule answered part of the question.
Victor’s council meeting had originally been scheduled to end at two-thirty.
A week before the wedding, Serena personally asked his assistant to extend it until three-fifteen.
Her reason:
She wanted the bridal floor empty while photographers worked.
Then, forty-eight hours before the ceremony, she changed one detail.
Victor was asked to stop at the bridal suite immediately after the meeting to collect a small gift Lily had supposedly prepared for him.
Victor had never heard about the gift.
Neither had Lily.
Neither had Nora.
The assistant remembered Serena’s exact instruction:
“Make sure he comes himself. No bodyguard.”
Victor stared.
“What did you think the gift was?”
The assistant looked miserable.
“I assumed something sentimental.”
“Did you confirm with Lily?”
“No.”
Again.
People followed instructions because Serena was becoming his wife.
No one checked.
The assistant produced the schedule.
Victor had been routed to the bridal suite between 3:15 and 3:25.
The camera’s private continuous-recording period ran from 3:10 to 3:30.
Rebecca did not need to say it.
Victor did.
“She expected me there.”
“Yes.”
“She also expected the staff out.”
“Yes.”
“But Nora stayed.”
“Yes.”
“And Lily?”
Rebecca looked at the schedule.
Lily was supposed to be in the bridal suite for flower-girl hair photographs at 3:12.
Everything aligned.
Clue number three.
Serena had deliberately created a ten-minute window where Victor was scheduled to enter a continuously recorded private room containing Serena and his four-year-old daughter, with almost everyone else instructed to leave.
Nora’s refusal to leave was the variable Serena had not controlled.
Still, Rebecca warned:
“This proves planning around the room. It does not prove she intended violence.”
Victor nodded.
He did not want a theory.
He wanted evidence.
That arrived indirectly.
The photographer’s assistant remembered Serena asking one more question during camera setup.
“If someone moves out of frame near the vanity, can the doorway camera still catch them?”
The assistant demonstrated the angle.
Serena repositioned the flower-girl chair herself.
Two feet closer to the vanity.
Exactly where Lily later stood while Serena used the clippers.
Victor felt ill.
But Part 8 came before accusation.
May you like
If Serena really had tried to bait him into losing control, Victor needed to do the one thing her plan might not survive.
Tell the complete truth about his own behavior first.
