Then I grabbed my father’s heavy glass paperweight and slammed it down onto his wrist.
Adrian screamed, loud enough that Vanessa stopped laughing.
He staggered back, clutching his arm, shock written all over his face. I had never hit him before. Not once. For seven years, he had mistaken my silence for weakness. He thought obedience defined me. He thought fear was love.
He was wrong.
“Are you insane?” he shouted.
I stood slowly, still shaking, still bleeding, but no longer afraid in the same way. The paperweight remained in my hand, slick against my palm.
“No,” I said. “I’m finished.”
Adrian lunged at me again, but this time I was ready. I stepped aside, and he crashed into the dining table, knocking over the vase my mother used to fill with yellow roses every Sunday. It shattered across the floor.
That sound hurt more than anything he had done.
I grabbed my phone from the cabinet and hit record.
Adrian saw it and froze.
“Put that down,” he said.
I raised the phone higher. “Say it again. Tell me how my inheritance belongs to you. Tell me how you came here to force me to sign legal documents while I’m grieving my parents.”
His eyes darted toward Vanessa.
She suddenly looked uneasy.
“Isabella,” she said, “don’t blow this out of proportion.”
I let out a short, strange laugh.
“You came to my parents’ house after their funeral to help my husband steal from me,” I said. “This is already big.”
Adrian stepped closer. “You think anyone’s going to believe you?”
That was when I threw the front door wide open.
And what I saw outside changed everything.
Our neighbors were there.
