A thin black case, half hidden behind folded silk ribbon.
It had not been there before.
Lila waited until they were gone. Then she crouched beside the urn as if checking the stems.
The case was small. Not decorative. Not part of any floral supply. It had been pushed behind the roses in haste.
Inside was a silver flash drive.
Lila’s breath stopped.
For a moment she did nothing. Every instinct in her body argued at once. Leave it. Take it. Tell Dante. Pretend she never saw it. Walk away from the estate, from the wedding, from the kind of people who destroyed lives before dinner and still slept on imported sheets.
Then she remembered Vivienne’s laugh.
Women like that are always grateful.
Lila closed the case and slipped it into the pocket of her apron.
All afternoon, she worked with the weight of it against her hip.
She saw Nico twice. Once near the reception tent, speaking to a man Lila recognized from the wedding schedule as Vivienne’s uncle, Sterling Hale. Once near the east hedge, searching the ground with a smile that looked casual only from far away.
He was looking for the case.
By evening, the estate had turned gold in the low sun. Lila’s assistants finished the centerpieces and left in a van loaded with empty buckets. The planners moved to the ballroom for final checks. Guests had not yet arrived, but the estate already felt crowded with secrets.
Lila should have gone home.
Instead, she found a quiet corner in the service kitchen and plugged the flash drive into her battered laptop.
The first folder was labeled Ceremony Video.
Inside were edited clips of Dante: him speaking at business dinners, him turning away from cameras, him standing beside Vivienne with a cold expression. Each clip was cut to make him look cruel, controlling, suspicious. There were voice recordings too, sliced into fragments, arranged to sound like threats when they were not. Lila listened for less than a minute before closing the file, sickened.
The second folder was worse.
Bank transfers. Corporate documents. Signature pages bearing Dante’s name. Draft statements accusing him of fraud, abuse of charitable funds, and intimidation. Some documents were clearly staged. Others had been twisted from real events. Together, they formed a trap built not merely to embarrass him, but to destroy him publicly.
The third folder carried Nico’s initials.
Lila opened it.
Messages.
Not between Vivienne and Dante.
Between Nico and Sterling Hale.
Nico had planned everything. Vivienne was not innocent. She had agreed to humiliate Dante, to sign false statements, to marry him long enough for the trust documents to shift control. But Nico had gone further. Once Dante fell, Vivienne would be blamed for the forgery. Sterling would be tied to the transfers. Nico would step forward as the grieving cousin, the clean successor, the only Vescari left untouched.
Lila sat back slowly.
This was not a wedding.
It was a funeral with flowers.
A sound came from the corridor.
Footsteps.
Lila shut the laptop. She slid the flash drive into her pocket and lifted a tray of boutonnieres just as Nico entered the service kitchen.
His smile appeared instantly.
“Miss Marlowe,” he said. “Still here?”
“Flowers don’t arrange themselves.”
“No. I suppose not.”
His gaze moved over the counters, the boxes, the laptop bag by her feet.
Lila kept her face still.
Nico took one step closer. “You didn’t happen to find anything near the garden, did you?”
She looked at him blankly. “Like what?”
“A small case. Probably dropped by one of the planners.”
“Ask the planners.”
“I’m asking you.”
“And I’m telling you I’ve been working.”
His smile thinned. “You know, people underestimate service workers. I don’t.”
“That must make you very wise.”
For one second, his eyes turned empty.
Then Dante’s voice came from the doorway.
“My cousin bothering you?”
Nico’s expression recovered quickly. “Just looking for something.”
Dante looked at Lila. “Did he find it?”
Lila’s heart slammed once.
She understood the question beneath the question.
“No,” she said. “He didn’t.”
Dante held her gaze.
Nico laughed lightly. “Well. Let me know if it turns up.”
He left.
Lila did not move until his footsteps faded.
Dante entered the kitchen and closed the door behind him. His security men remained outside.
“You have it,” he said.
It was not a question.
Lila set down the tray. “If I say yes, do I become a problem?”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
“Men like you say that before people become problems.”
“I’m not asking you to trust men like me.”
“Then what are you asking?”
Dante stepped no closer. That restraint mattered more than it should have.
“I’m asking you to trust what you saw.”
Lila pulled the black case from her pocket and placed it on the table between them.
Dante did not touch it immediately. His eyes remained on her face.