We Are Still Your Family
As Gideon and I prepared to leave, my mother hurried toward me.
“Marissa, please wait.”
I turned.
Her composure was gone. Taryn stood behind her with red eyes, while Russell spoke quickly into his phone.
“Blake misled us,” my mother said. “We didn’t understand how far he was taking this.”
I looked at the woman who had just described me as incapable in front of a judge.
“You accepted money from him.”
“We thought it was an investment.”
“You agreed to question my judgment.”
“I was trying to protect the family.”
“Which family?” I asked.
She reached for my arm, but I stepped back.
“Marissa, we are still your family.”
I held her gaze.
“Family doesn’t sit in a private room and celebrate the destruction of someone they claim to love.”
Taryn started to cry.
“We made a mistake.”
“A mistake is forgetting a birthday,” I said. “What you did required meetings, signatures, hidden accounts, and months of planning.”
I lifted my leather case.
“You didn’t lose me today. You lost me each time you chose their plan over the truth.”
Then I walked away.
