handled it.
Families do things like this for each other.”
“No,” I said.
“Families ask.”
Brooke’s composure cracked.
“You are not going to destroy my wedding over paperwork and a plate of chicken tenders.”
Ava flinched beside me.
I placed my hand on her shoulder.
“This is not about chicken tenders,” Michael said.
“You punished an eight-year-old because Sarah would not give you more money.”
Brooke laughed once, sharply.
“Punished? She had crackers.
She wasn’t starving.”
Michael stared at her as though he no longer recognized the woman in front of him.
“You made her sit beside children who were eating dinner.”
“She is dramatic, just like her mother.”
A murmur moved through the room.
Linda reached for Brooke’s arm.
“Stop talking.”
But Brooke had spent the entire day surrounded by people who obeyed her.
She seemed unable to understand that the room had shifted.
She pointed at me.
“Sarah has interfered with this wedding from the beginning.
Every time I asked for something, she made me justify it.
Flowers, transportation, guest bags, the hotel upgrade.
She wanted control.”
“I asked for receipts,” I said.
“You treated me like an employee.”
“I treated you like someone spending my money.”
Brooke’s face reddened.
Michael closed the folder and handed me my phone.
“Open the travel app.”
Brooke stepped between us.
“Michael, think very carefully about what you are doing.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re letting your sister manipulate you on our wedding day.”
He looked past her toward Ava’s bowl of crackers.
“She didn’t create that.”
I opened the app.
The reservation appeared immediately: two business-class tickets to Rome, followed by eight nights at a hotel on the Amalfi Coast.
It had been my wedding gift to them, purchased partly with travel points I had saved for years.
Because I had booked it, my name remained the primary account holder.
Changes and cancellations required my authorization.
Brooke saw the screen.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said.
I looked at Michael.
The trip had been my gift to both of them.
I would not cancel it merely to humiliate Brooke.
I needed to know what my brother wanted.
Michael understood the question without my asking.
“Cancel it,” he said.
Brooke went still.
“Michael.”
“I’m not getting on a plane with you tomorrow.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“I have never been more serious.”
Linda moved closer to him.
“You have had champagne.
You are emotional.
Everyone needs to sleep before making permanent decisions.”
Michael opened the folder again and held up the forged authorization.
“She signed my sister’s name, stole nearly ten thousand dollars, excluded my niece from our family photographs, and ordered the caterer not to feed her.
Which part should I sleep on?”
Brooke looked around for support.
Her bridesmaids avoided her eyes.
One of them, a woman named Chloe, placed her champagne glass on the table and stepped backward.
Michael noticed.
“Chloe, did you know about this?”
Chloe’s face drained of color.
“I knew Brooke was angry about the flowers,” she said.
“I didn’t know she took Ava’s meal away.”
“Tell him the truth,” Brooke snapped.
Chloe swallowed.
“You said Sarah needed to learn that refusing you had consequences.”
Linda closed her eyes.
Brooke stared at her friend with open hatred.
Chloe continued before she lost her nerve.
“You also said you
