His words hit like a poisoned spike driven straight into my chest.
The air in the room went still. The accusation on every relative's face froze in place. Even Ethan's dark expression flickered with something close to shock.
I stood where I was, my fingertips trembling slightly—not from fear, but from a rage so complete it had nowhere left to go.
Mom.
The woman who had left this world when I was fifteen, taken by illness, leaving behind nothing but warmth and love and every tender thing she had.
The woman who had fought with everything she had to give me a good life, but who had never once wanted me to chain myself to a marriage just to survive.
And now they were using her as leverage.
I lifted my head and looked directly at my father, my voice stripped of everything except cold, de
