My father paid my boyfriend $75,000 to leave me for my cousin, saying I’d never be enough. Three years later, at my brother’s wedding, they went pale because I returned successful, confident, and unstoppable.

The words did not strike me like a slap, instead they settled slowly in my chest like a weight that had always belonged there. I remembered childhood moments that now arranged themselves like evidence, the drawing I handed him when I was eight that he admired briefly before returning to a business call, the scholarship letter I received at seventeen while he asked Olivia about her exam results instead, the day he described my marketing career as pleasant but unremarkable while praising Olivia’s courtroom victories.

Now he was calmly negotiating my future like a minor logistical inconvenience.

“Give it two weeks,” my father said. “End things with her cleanly and make the breakup appear natural. The money transfers the following day.”

Two weeks felt both specific and terrifyingly casual. I remembered Cameron bringing home my favorite dessert only days earlier while smiling with warm affection that now felt rehearsed.

“Olivia does not know anything about this,” my father added. “She does not need to know. Simply pursue her respectfully once the situation resolves.”