Oh my god. Look at them. They're like black rats trying to gnaw everything away. Victoria Caldwell pressed the binoculars to her eyes. Disgusting.
Utterly disgusting. Animals in suits are still animals. She grabbed her phone and called 911 without hesitation. Yes, I need the police immediately. There's an illegal black wedding next door.
Drugs, weapons, trespassing. Send everyone. She wanted this wedding wiped out. Every trace of it gone. Meanwhile, at the altar, the groom quietly adjusted his cufflinks.
His mother touched his shoulder. You look so much like your father, darling. He smiled. Gently. Softly.
He didn't know what was about to happen. And she didn't know who she'd just gotten into a fight with. What happened afterward would completely turn her life upside down. The morning sun hit the Ridgemont Estate like liquid gold. Rows of grapevines stretched toward the Blue Ridge horizon, their leaves catching the light in waves of green and amber.
White chairs lined the lawn in perfect arcs. A floral arch, white roses, trailing ivy, tiny glass lanterns, stood at the end of a stone aisle. A string quartet tuned their instruments beneath an old oak tree whose branches had shaded this land for over a hundred years. The air smelled like Virginia wildflowers and fresh-cut grass. This vineyard had history.
Black history. Three generations of a family had worked this soil before it was abandoned, forgotten, nearly swallowed by developers. Aaron Underwood bought it back 4 years ago. Restored every fence, replanted every vine. Rebuilt the stone walls with his own hands on weekends.
Turned it into something beautiful again. Today, he was getting married on it. Inside the estate's main house, Aaron stood before a tall mirror. His tuxedo fit like it was stitched onto his bones. Clean, sharp, not a thread out of place.
Morning light poured through the window and caught the edge of his jaw. His best man, Cole Anderson, leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed. You nervous? Aaron adjusted a gold cufflink. Simple, engraved with his late father's initials.
Not even a little. Liar. Aaron smiled. Cole had known him since they were 12. Same block, same school, same dream of making it out.
Not away from their people, but forward for them. Cole became a federal prosecutor. Aaron went further. Much further. But today, none of that mattered.