Everything changed when I turned eighteen. That was the age when guardians were legally required to transfer remaining trust funds to the beneficiary—in this case, me. I walked into the lawyer’s office with trembling hope and walked out with a hollow ache where that hope had been.
Most of the money was gone. “Your guardians claimed it as expenses,” the lawyer explained, eyes soft with pity. “Without proof of misuse, the law protects them.”
I should have screamed. I should have confronted them. Instead, when I got home and Marcia asked casually, “How did the meeting go, sweetheart?” I forced a smile and said, “Everything’s fine.”
Because that was the day I made a promise:
If the Aldens believed they had escaped consequences, they were wrong.
I would wait. I would watch. And when the opportunity came, I would take everything they valued just as they took everything meant for me.
Through scholarships and part-time jobs, I paid my way through university. The Aldens contributed almost nothing, though they boasted publicly about “putting Lila through college.” I let them brag. Their image mattered more to them than anything else.
I majored in finance partly out of interest, partly because knowledge is power, especially against those who robbed you. Over the next several years, I built a career in investment analysis. Slowly but surely, I carved out the stability my parents had once envisioned for me.
Meanwhile, Brenna drifted from one failed career attempt to another, cushioned by her parents’ thinning accounts. When she married a man who treated the world as his personal stage, the Aldens paid for a lavish wedding funded, ironically, by the remnants of my parents’ money. I attended politely, wearing a modest dress I bought on clearance.
Marcia strutted around like royalty, gushing to anyone who would listen about how blessed their family was. Years passed. And then—their downfall began.
Bad investments. Ballooning credit card debt. A lifestyle they could no longer afford but refused to abandon.
