“She can’t sing Ave Maria,” Mara whispered, but the microphone captured every syllable.
The ballroom went completely still.
I watched her eyes widen in horror when she realized the speakers had carried her words across the entire room. Then panic tightened her expression. For weeks, she had called me ordinary, forgettable, talentless. Now two hundred guests sat waiting for me to crumble beneath the spotlight.
I took one slow breath, looked directly at her, and asked quietly, “Are you certain you want me to start?”
The instant Mara shoved the microphone into my hands, silence flooded the ballroom for all the wrong reasons. Everyone knew exactly what she wanted.
Failure.
Her smile gleamed beneath the crystal chandeliers — polished, elegant, and vicious. Behind her, the wedding band froze mid-song. Two hundred guests turned in gold chairs, forks suspended above sea bass and champagne glasses sparkling beneath the lights like tiny warning signals.
“Come on, Lena,” Mara crooned sweetly. “You said you used to sing in school, right?”
I stared down at the microphone.
I had never told her that. My aunt had, years earlier at a family dinner Mara apparently stored away because humiliation was her favorite hobby.
Mara Vale was the bride — a recent graduate from Bellmont Conservatory — and she wore her degree like royalty wore a crown. Throughout the reception she reminded everyone she was “classically trained,” that her voice carried “European color,” and that true music was “never meant for amateurs.”
I was her husband’s cousin.
The quiet cousin.
The one who worked “in production,” as Mara loved saying, as if I spent my life untangling cables backstage.
Her bridesmaids giggled beside the wedding cake.
“Don’t be shy,” Mara said louder. “Consider it my wedding gift from you.”
My cousin Daniel shifted uncomfortably beside her but said nothing. Somehow that hurt more than Mara’s cruelty. When we were children, I used to sing him to sleep during thunderstorms. Now he stood silently beside the woman orchestrating my public humiliation.
“Mara,” I said gently, “this is supposed to be your night.”
“Oh, I insist.”
Of course she did.
Three weeks earlier she overheard Daniel telling his mother I had “a beautiful voice.” Since then, she mocked me every chance she got.
“Beautiful by family standards?” she laughed once. “Like karaoke beautiful?”
Tonight was clearly the final performance she planned for me.
No rehearsal.
No warning.
No sheet music.
Just a microphone, a ballroom, and an audience waiting for disaster.
“What would you like me to sing?” I asked calmly.
Mara’s eyes sparkled maliciously.
“Ave Maria.”
A murmur swept through the room. Even people unfamiliar with classical music understood the trap. The song was exposed, demanding, unforgiving.
I glanced toward the pianist.
He immediately looked away.
Then I noticed the small black camera mounted beside the flower archway, its red recording light blinking steadily. Mara hired a videographer.
She wanted this immortalized.
I smiled.
Not because I felt brave.
Because two months earlier, the Royal Meridian Opera signed me as their newest lead soprano under my stage name, Elena Maris.
And Mara had just handed me the microphone herself.
