The moment we gathered in my father-in-law’s grand estate, I knew something was off. Leonard had always been a man of riddles, and his will proved no different. The lawyer cleared his throat and dropped the bombshell: to inherit his fortune, our entire family had to live together under one roof for a year—with mandatory family dinners every night.
At first, it seemed simple enough. But the tension in that house could have powered a small city.
My mother-in-law, Evelyn, sat like a queen at the head of the table, her sharp eyes missing nothing. My husband, Thomas, barely spoke, and his brother Garrett smirked through every meal like he knew a secret the rest of us didn’t. Then there was Morrison, the mysterious overseer Leonard had hired to enforce the rules. He watched us all like a hawk, his notebook never far from hand.
The breaking point came when my daughter, Katie, blurted out something about “letters” at dinner. The room went dead silent.
“What letters?” Thomas demanded.
Katie shrank in her seat. “Grandma said Mom was hiding something.”
Evelyn’s smile was ice-cold. “Oh, Olivia knows exactly what I mean.”
That night, I overheard Evelyn and Morrison whispering in her room. The truth hit me like a freight train: Morrison wasn’t just some random lawyer’s assistant. He was Garrett’s son—a secret grandson Leonard never knew about. And Evelyn was using him to cut my eldest son, Jack, out of the inheritance.
Because Jack wasn’t Thomas’s biological child.
I confronted Evelyn, my hands shaking. “You want to destroy my son’s life over money?”
She didn’t even blink. “I want what’s fair.”
In the end, I made a deal. I’d give up my share to keep Jack’s parentage a secret. The next dinner, Evelyn played the doting grandmother again, laughing and pouring wine like nothing had happened.
But I’ll never forget the price we paid for that money—or the lies we had to tell to keep it.
