Chapter 2Wedding Day Ultimatum: Shackle All Your Kin

When my family came downstairs, Mom was the only one smiling. The rest of my relatives hovered in the lobby doorway, refusing to take another step forward.

"It's a happy day. Let's not bring up monitors," Mom pleaded, her back slightly hunched as she bowed toward Giselle's car window. "It sends the wrong message. It's like saying you don't trust anyone here.

"Let's not jinx the day. If there's anything wrong with what my son did, we can sort it all out after the ceremony."

"Absolutely not!"

Giselle's mother, Donna Harding, shoved Mom aside. "If they can't even handle this one small compromise, my daughter is going to be walked all over by your entire family after she marries in! They're putting them on today, end of story!"

Giselle reached out and pulled her mother back. "Mom, don't make a scene."

She looked at me through the car window, her eyes filled with hurt and disappointment.

"Fine, forget the monitors. They don't have to wear them," Giselle said coldly. "As long as you put down a security deposit."

I knew what she was doing. She wasn't making a concession for my family's dignity—she was doing it for mine, expecting me to feel grateful.

Mom clutched her purse. "Of course, of course. We brought money."

She stepped back beside Dad and unzipped her bag. The two of them reached inside together, their fingers trembling as they recounted the cash over and over again.

It took me right back to my childhood, watching them pay my school tuition. They used to reach into their pockets the exact same way, meticulously counting every single bill to make sure they hadn't miscalculated.

Giselle began running the numbers out loud. "Factoring in the cash gifts we'll collect, the jewelry from me and my bridesmaids, the top-shelf liquor at every table… cut that all in half, and you need to put up two million dollars in cash right now."

My parents froze. They'd brought 50,000 dollars in cash, just as a safety net.

"Well? Is it enough or not? Answer me!" Shawn snatched the purse right out of Mom's hands and dumped its contents in front of everyone.

Five fresh, band-wrapped stacks of hundred-dollar bills tumbled out.

"50,000 dollars?" He laughed. "That's all you brought to a wedding? No wonder you stole my 20,000 dollars. You aren't just cheap; you're completely broke."

"Cheap? They're flat-out poor!" Donna rolled her eyes so hard they nearly disappeared into her head. "I've seen Roy's father digging through dumpsters for cardboard boxes."

Dad, who'd remained silent the entire time, began to visibly shake.

Those boxes were money to him. Every plastic bottle he fished out of the trash was money. He'd saved every single penny to pay off Grandma's medical debts—and he had cleared every cent without ever touching my college savings fund.

He had never possessed the luxury of pride.

Donna continued, "It's utterly humiliating. God knows how many germs he's carrying around. I can't even bring myself to tell people he's related to us!

"Sure, Roy made something of himself, but the rest of his family will never shake off that gutter smell. My poor, foolish daughter… she has no idea what she's marrying into!"

Shawn's expression shifted. "Who's going to give my sister an attitude now? They can't even come up with two million dollars, and she was already giving them a discount!

"And remember when his mother came to help plan the wedding? Giselle stepped out for one day, and all ten pounds of imported fruit I sent over vanished. She scarfed down every last bit of it!

"I've never seen anything like it. It's like she'd never been fed in her life. The hotel reception is packed with high-end produce too. If your whole family gets anywhere near the kitchen, there's no way we can keep an eye on all of you."

"We need to get going," the driver cut in. "We're about to miss the auspicious window for the ceremony."

Mom seemed to shrink even smaller. She picked up the two tracking monitors and strapped them onto her own wrist and Dad's.

"Stay out of it," she said to me without looking up. "Don't delay the ceremony.

"Those fruits were going bad. I threw them out because I was worried about bugs. I didn't eat a single one. I didn't take anything from your family."

Dad twisted the band around his wrist once, but he didn't take it off.

My uncle stepped out of the hallway with his family. He pulled out a thick envelope and stuffed it into Dad's pocket.

"We came here to celebrate a union, not to have our self-respect stripped away. We wanted to put your in-laws' minds at ease. We might be poor, but we'd never steal a single thing from them. Just don't invite us to any family events after this. We clearly don't belong in the same world.

"Forget 20,000 dollars. If even a napkin goes missing today, it'll get pinned on us, and we can't live under that kind of cloud."

They looked at me. "We're going to skip the meal. Don't make things harder for yourselves, and don't make things harder for the boy."