Chapter 1Hijacking My Hijacked Bride

The day of our engagement party, the bride’s entire family failed to show up.

I stood in the lobby of the crowded restaurant, sweat pooling at my collar, dialing my fiancée's number over and over. When she finally answered, her voice was light, airy, and completely devoid of warmth.

"Sorry, babe," she said, sounding as though she were discussing a change in dinner plans. "Your bride just got hijacked."

I froze, the noise of the banquet hall fading into a low hum. "What are you talking about, Tiffany?"

She actually chuckled. "It means someone else is throwing me an engagement party right now."

I couldn't breathe.

"The other guy put down three hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars cash," she continued, her voice sharpening. "One hundred grand more than your family’s pathetic offer. What did you expect me to do? Your cheap family was holding me back. Honestly, stop embarrassing yourself. I have three words for you: lose my number."

The line went dead.

That afternoon, my family was utterly humiliated, transformed into the local laughingstock. But I didn't stay down. Later, I came back with eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars to play her own game.

I was going to hijack her back. I’d make her fall for me all over again, and then I’d drop her on her face.

Some people believe in taking the high road. I don't.

* * *

The banquet hall was dead silent.

Even though Tiffany had hung up, her final words seemed to vibrate in the air.

When the phone had rung, I’d put it on speaker, naive enough to believe she’d have a logical explanation for being late. I wanted my parents and the relatives to hear that everything was fine. Instead, she had taken my dignity, thrown it on the floor, and stomped on it.

My face burned with a toxic mix of shame and rage.

My father’s face went entirely white. He was a man who lived and died by his reputation, and Tiffany’s words were the equivalent of a public slapping. Beside him, my mother looked even worse. She collapsed back into her chair, her eyes wide and blank.

She was a simple woman who spent her life cooking, playing neighborhood cards, and bragging about her family. To her, Tiffany had been an angel sent from heaven. The whiplash of this betrayal was so violent I thought she might faint.

Then, the silence broke, and the room erupted.

"This is disgusting!" my aunt shouted, slamming her napkin onto the table. "I’ve lived sixty years and I’ve never seen such shameless trash! Planning a wedding with us while secretly taking bids from another man?"

"If she wanted out, she should have said so," my cousin chimed in, red-faced. "This was designed to humiliate us."

My uncle walked over and placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. "Wyatt, look at me. A girl who can be bought for an extra hundred grand is a curse, not a wife. You’d have been miserable. This isn't an engagement party anymore. We're celebrating your narrow escape."

"He's right, Wyatt. You're better off."

"Forget her, man."

But their kind words did nothing to clear the fog in my head.

Tiffany and I had met through a mutual acquaintance. During our three months of dating, she had been the epitome of sweet, gentle, and understanding. Once we decided to get serious, her family—who lived in a small, traditional town upstate—presented us with an endless list of financial demands.

There were engagement tributes, maternal compensation fees, luxury jewelry gifts, and a massive cash down payment on a house in her parents' name. It totaled nearly seven hundred thousand dollars. My father had sat in silence for a long time when he saw the list, but eventually, he nodded. If she's the one you want, we'll make it work, he’d said.

My mother had quietly expressed her worries to me, but she still emptied her life savings to help cover it, all while continuing to paint Tiffany as the perfect future daughter-in-law to our neighbors.

And what did I think back then? I believed Tiffany when she told me she hated all these transactional traditions, but that her family’s social standing in their hometown depended on them. I didn't want to make things hard for her, so I agreed. I had a good degree and a corporate salary of fifteen thousand a month; I figured I could earn the money back.

But the voice on the phone today belonged to a stranger.

I looked around the room. A few relatives looked genuinely concerned, but many of them were biting their lips, struggling to hide their amusement.

The embarrassment was a physical weight. After today, our family would be the subject of hushed whispers and mocking smiles for years.

I couldn't take it. I bolted from the hall, ignoring the voices calling after me.

"Wyatt, wait!"

"Don't do anything stupid!"

"Wyatt!"