Lucas’s recorded voice filled the dining room.
“Once Felicity signs after the wedding, this will all be mine anyway.”
No one moved.
The sentence seemed to hang above the table, surrounded by copied keys, half-filled plates, and the wedding china Beatrice had taken from my cabinet without asking.
Lucas stared at Mara’s tablet as though it had betrayed him.
Then he lunged for it.
One of the security officers stepped between them before his hand reached the screen.
“Do not touch her property,” the officer said.
Lucas took a step back.
His face had gone red.
“Turn that off.
That was a private conversation.”
Mara, my attorney, calmly paused the recording.
“It was recorded by a security camera inside Felicity’s home,” she said.
“A home you entered using a key she did not authorize you to distribute.”
Beatrice rose from my father’s armchair and marched toward the table.
“This is ridiculous.
Lucas is her fiancé.
He does not need permission to enter his own house.”
Mara opened the blue folder and removed the deed.
She placed it beside the ring of copied keys.
“This is not Lucas’s house.”
Beatrice snatched up the document.
Her eyes moved quickly across the page.
I watched her mouth tighten when she reached the line naming the legal owner.
Felicity Morgan.
Only my name appeared.
No Lucas.
No Beatrice.
No future in-laws.
Beatrice tossed the deed back onto the table.
“A piece of paper does not decide how a married family lives.
Lucas said she was adding him after the wedding.”
I looked at him.
“I never said that.”
Lucas pointed at me as though I were the one who had lied.
“You said we would share everything.”
“Sharing is not the same as taking something behind my back.”
“I did not take anything.”
I glanced toward the staircase.
Suitcases had been carried into my bedroom.
Furniture had been moved.
At least eight copies of my key lay on the table.
“Your family chose rooms in my home before telling me they were coming.
Your mother ordered me to cook for them.
You told them you bought this house.
What would you call that?”
He looked around for support.
His relatives avoided his eyes.
Only Beatrice remained defiant.
“I call it preparing for a wedding,” she said.
“A wife joins her husband’s family.
She does not stand apart from it, guarding rooms like a hotel manager.”
One of her sisters murmured in agreement.
That small sound gave Beatrice confidence.
