Chapter 4

I threw it right back at him. "What wouldn't I dare?"

"My company has the best legal team there is. This is exactly the kind of case they handle."

Stella whipped out her phone and deleted the video.

"There, the video's gone. That's enough, right? I was just too angry earlier and wanted to vent online. How was I supposed to know it'd blow up like that?"

Luke stepped in front of Stella. "Enough. Your sister-in-law already apologized. Stop blowing this out of proportion!"

"She didn't even say sorry. You call that an apology?"

"Sorry. There, happy now?"

"No. You're going to post a video setting the record straight about everything that happened today, and you're going to get up on that stage and apologize to me properly."

Stella frowned and set her jaw. "This is my wedding day. There's no way I'm getting on that stage to apologize to you."

"I already deleted the video. There's no way I'm posting some clarification. If I do, everyone online will be all over me, tearing me apart."

"Being torn apart is exactly what you deserve, isn't it?"

Luke shoved me hard. "Denise, that's enough! Don't push your luck when we're trying to be decent to you!"

"Mom, Dad, do something about her. She's completely out of control!"

Mom pulled me aside and started in with all her earnest coaxing.

"Denise, honey, your brother's forty. It wasn't easy for him to finally get a wife. Quit while you're ahead and stop making a scene. What if you really back Stella into a corner and she divorces your brother?"

"Just give your brother the card and drop this whole apology thing."

I looked at my mother for a moment, then walked over to Stella.

"Stella, I'll ask you one more time. Are you posting the clarification video, and are you apologizing?"

Stella stood her ground. "Neither."

"Fine. Then wait for the lawyer's letter."

Slap. Another blow landed across my face.

My father pointed at me. "You send your sister-in-law a lawyer's letter, and every one of us cuts ties with you!"

Luke saw me get hit and laughed.

"Serves you right!"

My father roared at me. "Give your sister-in-law the card!"

I didn't move.

So he grabbed for it.

He yanked the card out of my hand and shoved it into Stella's.

"Take it, daughter-in-law."

Stella's face was all smug triumph, and my brother wore the exact same look.

My mother watched me, shook her head, and sighed.

Then they turned around, put their smiles back on as if nothing had happened, and went off to toast the guests.

Monica stood beside me, crying.

"Denise, this isn't fair to you. It really isn't."

I drew a deep breath, and then, out of nowhere, I laughed.

"No. It really isn't."

I pulled out my phone and called the head of my legal department. "That video and those screenshots I just sent you, get them organized and file them with the court. I'm suing Stella Fox for spreading rumors and defamation."

Then I called my assistant. "Get people out to my family's newly built mansion right now and level it. Send extra crews. I want that place flattened before the sun goes down."

After that I called the bank and reported the card lost.

I hung up and let out a long breath.

"Denise, wasn't your family's mansion just finished not long ago? You're going to tear it down?"

"That's right. Didn't my dad say the second I sued Stella, they'd cut ties with me?"

"Well, if we're cutting ties, then they don't get to live in the new house I paid for."

That mansion of ours was a five-story European-style house with a big yard of its own.

Nothing like your average rural build.

Back then my parents said the old house in the hometown was too shabby, and the woman the matchmaker had lined up for my brother turned him down over it.

So I paid to have a new house built for the family on the spot.

It was all because that match of my brother's, Stella herself, said she'd marry him the second he had one of those European-style mansions.

I didn't say a word. I just wired half a million and had the mansion built.

The whole family moved in overjoyed. They divided up all five floors of that mansion, and they didn't leave a single bedroom for me.

Maybe that was the moment I should have seen this family for what it was.

I took out my phone and watched my assistant's live feed.

"Ms. Barnes, we've started, just like you ordered!"

I nodded. "Good. Nice work."

I watched the little mansion crumble bit by bit under the excavator, while over there Stella and Luke laughed themselves silly, not a clue between them.

I waited until they'd seen off the last table of guests and finished the big family dinner and were ready to head home. Only then did I get up.

The car drove all the way back, and when we climbed out Stella was still glowing.

Right up until she saw the new house razed to the ground.

"Babe, am I seeing things? Where's our big mansion?"