Chapter 2 - The Stolen Allowance
The note scrawled in lavender ink across the canceled bakery invoice read: *“Cake covered by Mark’s family. Transfer the $1,500 budget balance into the Cayman Reserve account before Friday.”*
My breath hitched. Lila hadn’t just skipped out on paying Grandma four hundred and eighty dollars for ingredients. Mark had given her fifteen hundred dollars from their joint wedding fund specifically to hire a professional baker. She had pocketed Mark’s hard-earned cash, conned our seventy-eight-year-old grandmother into doing the grueling labor for free, and stashed the stolen money into an account Mark didn’t even know existed.
My brother Mark was an electrician. He worked sixty-hour weeks in humid crawlspaces and freezing attics, coming home with calloused hands and bruised shoulders just to give Lila the fairy-tale wedding she claimed she deserved.
Ten minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of the modest two-bedroom bungalow Mark had bought two years ago. Lila’s white Audi SUV—bought on Mark’s credit—was parked crookedly in the driveway.
I didn't knock. I pushed open the front door.
Mark was sitting at the kitchen table, his hair messy, hunching over a mountain of unpaid vendor bills. In the corner of the dining room sat Grandma’s cake box, shoved carelessly beside a recycling bin.
“Mark,” I said, my voice dead and cold.
Mark looked up, rubbing his exhausted, bloodshot eyes. “Hey, Jenna. If you’re here to help fold napkins, please grab a chair. Lila says the ivory satin ones need a diamond fold, and I’ve been at this since five a.m.”
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“Lila? She went to the salon for her final tanning session,” Mark sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Why? What’s going on?”
I walked over to the table and dropped Grandma’s handwritten grocery receipts right onto his spread of bills. “Grandma spent four hundred and eighty dollars of her social security check on ingredients for Lila’s cake. Lila took the cake, laughed in Grandma’s face, told her she never intended to pay a dime, and walked out.”
Mark flinched, but then his expression hardened into defensive exhaustion. “Jenna, come on. Lila wouldn’t do that. You’re exaggerating.”
“Exaggerating?” My voice rose. “Grandma was crying, Mark! Her hands are swollen to twice their size from piping those damn sugar roses! Lila literally called her amateur and said poor people should be happy to feel useful!”
Mark dropped his pen, standing up. “Lila is under an insane amount of pressure! Her parents aren't helping with the costs, her bridesmaid dropped out yesterday, and the wedding is in forty-eight hours! She probably just made a bad joke that you took the wrong way. We’re family now, Jenna. Family helps family for free.”
“Is that so?” I pulled out Lila’s leather planner and threw it down beside the receipts. “Then why did you withdraw fifteen hundred dollars from your joint savings last Tuesday marked *Cake Vendor*?”
Mark froze. The defensive color drained instantly from his face. “How did you…”
“She canceled the downtown bakery, Mark. She took your fifteen hundred dollars, made Grandma do the work for nothing, and funneled your money into an account called *Cayman Reserve*.”
Mark stared at the open planner. For three seconds, I saw a flicker of horror in his eyes. But then, as if a switch flipped, he slammed the planner shut.
“You went through her private things?” Mark shouted, his voice cracking with panic and denial. “What is wrong with you, Jenna? You’ve hated Lila since day one because she has ambition! Because she wants more out of life than this rundown neighborhood!”
“She’s stealing from you, Mark!”
“Get out,” he said, his jaw clenching. “Get out of my house right now. If you can’t support my marriage, don’t even bother showing up on Saturday.”
I stared at my brother. The boy who used to defend me from school bullies was now shielding a parasite who was bleeding him dry.
“Fine,” I said quietly, backing toward the door. “I’ll leave. But you should check the glove compartment of her Audi, Mark. Because if she’s hiding bank accounts from you, that cake isn't the only thing she lied about.”
I walked out into the cool evening air. My hands were shaking, not from fear, but from an icy, absolute resolve. Mark was too blinded to save himself.
If I wanted to protect my brother and avenge my grandmother, I couldn't do it with shouting.
May you like
I needed proof.
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