The laughter reached me through the water before I realized I was sinking.

It came from above the trembling surface, distorted by the pressure in my ears. The lights beneath the hotel’s glass atrium stretched into pale ribbons. My formal dress dragged at my legs like wet canvas, and when I kicked downward, my shoes found nothing.

I tried to call for help.

Water entered my mouth instead.

I had never learned to swim.

My younger sister knew that.

Through the shifting surface, I saw Corinne at the pool’s edge in her wedding dress. One hand covered her mouth. For a fraction of a second, I mistook the gesture for shock.

Then I saw her eyes.

She was amused.

She did not reach down or call for help. She simply watched, waiting for the surrounding guests to understand that this was supposed to be funny.

My shoulder struck something solid.

Jocelyn had jumped in fully dressed.

Another guest caught the back of my gown while a man near the bar grabbed my forearm. Together, they dragged me toward the tiled edge. Hands closed around my wrists. My knee scraped stone. Someone called for towels as they pulled me onto the wet floor.

I rolled onto my side and coughed until my ribs burned.

Water streamed from my hair into my eyes. Each breath came in a narrow, painful pull.

Jocelyn knelt beside me, soaked from the shoulders down, one hand pressed firmly between my shoulder blades.

“Don’t sit up yet,” she said. “Just breathe.”

Corinne remained beside the pool.

Guests gathered loosely around us. Some looked alarmed, others confused. Several still wore the uneasy smiles people use when they cannot decide whether they witnessed cruelty or comedy.

“It was a joke,” Corinne said.

Her voice carried beneath the glass ceiling.

She smiled at the crowd, inviting them to accept her version before I could speak.

“Leah, tell them you’re okay.”

I raised my head.

My throat felt scraped raw, but my words came clearly enough.

“She pushed me. I can’t swim.”

The smiles disappeared.

Corinne’s expression shifted for less than a second. Her eyes narrowed, not because she feared for me, but because I had rejected the explanation she offered the room.

Then she pressed both hands to her chest.

“Oh my God, Leah. I didn’t know you would panic like that.”

“You knew I couldn’t swim.”

A harsh cough stopped me.

Jocelyn steadied me while someone wrapped a hotel blanket around my shoulders. Another guest said medical help had been called.

That was when I noticed Marin.

Adrian’s fifteen-year-old daughter stood several feet behind Corinne, pale and completely still, holding her phone against her chest.

She did not appear surprised.

She looked as though she recognized something.

When Corinne turned toward her, Marin deliberately stepped back.

“Sweetheart,” Corinne said, using the gentle public voice that had earned donors’ trust and praise from parents of vulnerable teenagers. “Go find your father.”

Marin did not answer.

She moved toward the atrium doors without looking away from Corinne.

Near the deep end, Corinne’s maid of honor, Mallory Kent, stood on a blue mosaic tile with her phone clenched in one hand.