I lifted Bennett into my arms and turned toward my parents. I don’t know what showed on my face, but both of them stepped back.
My father recovered first, as men like him always do when they think intimidation might still work. “This is absurd,” he said. “You have no case, no witness, and no reason to detonate your own wedding over ancient allegations.”
“No,” I said, and my voice surprised even me. It was steady. “You detonated it when you attacked my child.”
My mother tried to step closer, tears streaking her makeup. “Maris, please. We were trying to protect you.”
“From what?” I asked. “The truth? Or your donors?”
That landed. Several guests shifted uneasily. A woman from the second row—one of my father’s long-time business acquaintances—stood and walked out without a word. Then another followed. Public shame, the one consequence my parents truly feared, had finally entered the room.
Keaton looked sick. Lianne stopped pretending. “You knew?” she asked our mother. “All these years?”
My mother nodded once.
Lianne slapped her.
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t theatrical. It was the sound of a daughter realizing her entire moral vocabulary had been shaped by cowards.
Callum’s attorney, who had arrived quietly with his partner at the back of the venue twenty minutes earlier at Callum’s request, stepped forward. I hadn’t even noticed them. He informed my parents, in a voice stripped of emotion, that any attempt to destroy records, contact Douglas Wren, or retaliate against witnesses would be documented. He also handed me a folder containing archived emails, hospital reports, and a signed statement from a retired event coordinator who remembered seeing me leave that office in distress the night of the fundraiser.
I looked at Callum, stunned. “You planned this?”
He shook his head. “I planned to protect you if they forced the truth into the open. I hoped they wouldn’t.”
