Our Marriage License Was A Lie Chapter 06

Our Marriage License Was A Lie Chapter 06

The message went through. The read receipt never came. No typing indicator. Nothing. 

One minute. Two. Ten. 

No matter how bad things got between them – the fights, the silent treatment, the cold shoulders – Elena always 

answered. Always. 

The silence settled in his chest like a stone. 

Julian was on his feet before he’d made the conscious decision 

to move. He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. 

“I’m going to find her.” 

His voice came out harder than he meant it to – but 

underneath, something was shaking. 

The shift in Julian’s energy hit Chloe before he reached the 

door. She threw herself between him and the exit, arms wide. 

“Julian, where are you going? The ceremony starts in an hour. The guests are on their way. You can’t leave now.” 

“Something’s wrong with Elena.” His jaw tightened. 

Chloe’s voice climbed. 

“Find her? For what?” 

“You know her. You know what she’s like. She’s the best 

actress I’ve ever met.” 

“She set this up to get you running after her. That’s all she 

wants — to make you feel guilty enough to chase her.” 

“She can’t stand that we’re happy. This is sabotage.” 

Julian hesitated. For a second, the doubt got in. 

He thought about Elena’s screaming, her thrashing, the wild look in her eyes when they’d dragged her out. The rational part of his brain whispered that maybe Chloe was right – maybe 

Elena was performing. 

But the dread in his gut wouldn’t let go. 

His voice dropped. 

“Move.” 

Chloe latched onto his arm, tears welling. 

“I won’t let you.” 

“After everything, you’re still choosing her over me?” 

“She’s horrible to me. She’s horrible to you. Why do you keep going back?” 

“She’s insane. Honestly? We’d all be better off if she just-” 

Julian ripped his arm free. The look he gave her could’ve frozen glass. 

“That’s enough. Whatever she is to you, she’s still a person, 

Chloe. She’s still Elena.” 

“I don’t care if it’s real or if it’s an act. I’m not going to sit here and guess. I need to see her.” 

Chloe called after him, crying, grabbing. He didn’t look back. 

The door slammed shut behind him. 

He drove like something was chasing him. His sweaty hands slipped against the steering wheel. 

The phone sat silent on the passenger seat. Still no reply. 

He called her number. Again. Again. Every time, the same 

automated voice. 

Straight to voicemail. 

He floored it toward the location the police had given him. 

Ten minutes on the road. It felt like a year. 

He didn’t wait for the car to come to a full stop. He threw the door open and sprinted toward the cordon. 

A black sedan lay flipped on its roof in the middle of the 

highway. 

“Elena Vance! Where is she where’s Elena!” 

– 

His eyes were bloodshot. He grabbed the nearest paramedic by 

the collar. 

The paramedic’s face told him everything before the words 

did. 

“Sir, when we arrived, the woman wasn’t in the vehicle. We 

found four men all injured – but no female passenger.” 

“Based on the physical evidence and witness statements, she forced the door open while the car was still moving. She jumped.” 

Julian’s legs went out from under him. He caught himself, 

barely. 

“She jumped?” 

“That’s no. Where is she? Did you find her?” 

An officer approached, report in hand. He didn’t sugarcoat it. 

“We’ve searched the full stretch of highway–shoulders, 

ditches, median. No body.” 

“From what we can reconstruct, she hit the road at speed. Oncoming traffic – she was struck almost immediately. Possibly dragged. All we recovered was blood, hair, and a torn piece of her clothes.” 

“Search and rescue is widening the perimeter, but I need to be honest with you, sir. The outcome here isn’t in question.” 

Julian watched as the officers dragged the four men – the fake orderlies, now in cuffs – toward the squad cars. 

They were banged up and white–faced, blood on their clothes. 

“It was the sister! Chloe paid us!” one of them bawled at the cops, desperate to make a deal. “She told us to dress up like hospital staff and grab Elena. She said nobody would come looking that we could do whatever we wanted with her-” 

– 

“We tried to touch her 

– 

on the road – but she fought back,” 

another babbled, shivering. “She had a knife, a little one, and 

she cut us up pretty bad. And while we were dealing with that, 

– 

she just she opened the door. We couldn’t stop her. It 

happened too fast.” 

“We didn’t mean for anyone to die!” the first one screamed as an officer shoved his head down into the cruiser. “She just she’d rather jump out of a moving car than let us touch her.”