Elena’s POV

The wedding march stopped so abruptly that for a brief second I thought it was merely a technical mistake, a glitch in the sound system that would be corrected within moments. Yet the music did not resume. Instead, the banquet hall—still fragrant with roses and heavy with expectation—was filled with low, ambiguous moans and breathless gasps that echoed through the speakers with humiliating clarity.

At first, I truly believed I was imagining it.

Slowly, almost mechanically, I ...