Isabela walked slowly back onto the pool deck, water dripping steadily from her hair and dress, her calm expression never wavering despite the humiliation she had just endured in front of nearly three hundred wedding guests. She stopped directly in front of Celeste, standing close enough that the bride's earlier laughter faltered completely.
"I don't need a phone," Isabela said quietly, her voice calm and measured despite the intensity building steadily behind her dark eyes, "to control what belongs to me."
Celeste blinked, momentarily thrown by the strange, cryptic statement. "What are you talking about?" she asked, though a faint, unfamiliar unease had begun creeping into her voice, replacing the earlier confidence entirely.
Isabela didn't answer immediately, her gaze remaining fixed and unblinking on Celeste's face, an intensity radiating from her expression that felt entirely disproportionate to the simple confrontation that had unfolded moments earlier. Guests nearby fell into uneasy silence, sensing without fully understanding that something far larger than a wedding day rivalry was unfolding directly in front of them.
A low, deep hum seemed to build faintly in the air around them, so subtle at first that most guests dismissed it as background noise from the estate's sound system. Celeste glanced around uncertainly, searching for the source of the strange, growing vibration, her earlier confidence rapidly dissolving into something closer to genuine alarm.
"What is that sound?" she demanded, though her voice carried far less authority than it had only minutes earlier while mocking Isabela in front of the entire crowd.