Betrayed, I Rise novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: No

The three screens went black.

Then the first photo came up, twelve feet high.

A cafe table in Lisbon. Skylar, laughing, her head thrown back.

A man's hand on her waist.

The room murmured, not understanding yet.

The next slide was the same hand, zoomed in.

A pale, crooked scar across the knuckles.

A college class ring.

I held up Vincent's right hand, still wrapped around mine, so the room could compare.

Somebody at a front table said, "Oh."

Vincent yanked his hand away.

"Carly. What is this?"

The next slide was the cafe window.

The reflection. A tall man with dark curls, bent down, kissing her, his hand in her hair.

Across the bottom I'd typed the date from the file.

April 14. Lisbon, Portugal.

The whole room went quiet.

The string quartet had stopped playing.

"This was April," I said into the microphone.

My voice came out of every speaker in the room.

It didn't shake.

"Vincent told me he was at a rugby coaching clinic in Ohio that week."

"I paid for that clinic," I said.

Someone laughed, a short, shocked laugh, and then covered their mouth.

"Skylar sent me these photos to edit that night," I said. "She told me to crop out the hand."

Skylar was on her feet.

"That's fake!" she shouted. "Turn it off! She edits photos for a living!"

She was grabbing at her tripod.

The livestream was still running.

I could see the comment count on her phone from the stage. It was moving too fast to read.

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