Chapter 2 - THE ENVELOPES SOPHIE WAS TOLD NOT TO OPEN
Sophie told me everything in the library.
Not alone.
Grandma Margaret insisted on staying.
So did my father.
I wanted witnesses.
More importantly, Sophie looked less frightened with Margaret beside her.
“Start wherever you need to,” I said.
Sophie twisted her hands together.
“About four months ago, Miss Olivia started receiving envelopes here.”
“That’s normal.”
“She told me not to put them with your mail.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“In the blue cabinet in the laundry room.”
I had never used that cabinet.
“What kind of envelopes?”
“I don’t know. Some looked like bills.”
“Did you open any?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She continued.
“Sometimes she asked me to give one to her sister when Ms. Natalie came by.”
“How often?”
“Maybe six times.”
Robert asked:
“Did Olivia say what they were?”
“No.”
Then Sophie said something worse.
“One day, she handed me three hundred dollars.”
I frowned.
“For what?”
“She said if anyone asked, I should say Ms. Natalie had helped plan the bridal luncheon.”
Dad and I looked at each other.
“Did Natalie help?”
Sophie shook her head.
“No.”
“What did you do with the money?”
“I gave it back.”
“Immediately?”
“Yes.”
Sophie looked embarrassed.
“She got angry.”
“What did she say?”
Sophie hesitated.
Margaret reached over and touched her wrist.
“Tell him.”
Sophie whispered:
“She said people in my position shouldn’t reject generosity.”
My jaw tightened.
Then:
“She said one day I might need someone to believe my version of something.”
There it was.
Not a bribe exactly.
A warning disguised as generosity.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sophie’s eyes filled.
“Because I needed the job.”
That answer hurt more than any accusation.
Her mother had been ill.
Her younger brother Ethan depended partly on her income.
Her tuition came out of what remained.
Olivia knew all of that.
Power works best when the person using it knows exactly what the other person cannot afford to lose.
I had spent months living in the same house and never noticed.
That was mine to carry.
Not because Olivia’s cruelty was my fault.
It wasn’t.
But because comfort had made me incurious.
My mother, Linda, had once cleaned houses for people who knew nothing about her except whether a sink shined.
I had promised myself I would never become one of those people.
Then I did it more politely.
That realization burned.
Dad asked Sophie:
“Are the envelopes still there?”
She shook her head.
“Miss Olivia removed them after the bracelet.”
Of course.
But Margaret spoke.
“She missed one.”
We all turned.
My grandmother pointed toward the hallway.
“She dropped an envelope beside my chair two weeks ago.”
“What did you do with it?”
Margaret shrugged.
“Put it in my sewing basket.”
I nearly laughed.
At seventy-nine, Grandma had become an accidental evidence locker.
The envelope was still there.
Sealed.
Addressed to Olivia.
Return address:
Bellamy Event Solutions.
I did not open it.
It wasn’t mine.
Instead, we photographed it and gave the information to counsel handling the canceled wedding contracts and financial review.
By evening, Natalie Bellamy had called Olivia eleven times.
We knew because Olivia forwarded me a screenshot accidentally while sending an angry message demanding I stop “harassing” her sister.
Interesting.
The next morning, Natalie called me herself.
“I need to talk to you before Olivia does.”
I looked at Dad.
Then answered.
“What about?”
A long silence.
Then Natalie said:
“Bellamy Event Solutions is mine.”
“I know.”
“But the money wasn’t.”
My grip tightened on the phone.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Olivia told me you knew.”
There it was.
The oldest trick in every family fraud.
He knows.
She agreed.
It’s fine.
People borrow consent by inventing it.
“How much did you receive?”
Natalie whispered:
“About fifty-eight thousand dollars.”
More than we had found.
“And where did it go?”
Another silence.
“Mostly back to Olivia.”
The room went cold.
The wedding had not simply been canceled because Olivia was cruel.
May you like
She may have been using the wedding itself to quietly extract money before becoming my wife.
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