Chapter 4

"What a coincidence! Where's the payment record? The screenshot or the receipt. Show it to me!" I stared at Selena, pressing harder.

Selena froze, panic flashing in her eyes as she glanced at Mom. She stammered, "I-I can't find it under such short notice…"

William stood firmly behind me, his voice low and steady. "Can't find it? Or does it even exist at all?"

The room fell into dead silence. With the lie exposed, Mom's face shifted between pale and flushed.

After a few seconds, she finally snapped. She threw the remote onto the couch. As if she had suffered some great injustice, her voice rose sharply. "Fine! I didn't pay for you! So what?"

She glared at me, completely unapologetic, and shouted, "Your brother doesn't make much. He didn't have extra money these past few days. It's freezing, and Alex is still so young. What if my grandson gets sick?

"I just used your heating money for their place first. Do you really have to question me like this?

"You're the older sister. It's only right to help your brother. It's just a thousand-something dollars. Do you have to be so petty and stir up the whole family over this?

"Besides, you make good money. That amount is nothing to you. Just turn up the AC if you're cold. Why come here and make a scene?"

Her words cut into me like knives. I looked at her agitated expression, then at Howard and Selena. They were silent yet complicit, as if all of this were perfectly justified. The room spun around me.

My voice trembled, and my tears finally poured. "Mom, that was my money! And Ciara is your grandchild, too! She's only five years old. And she's at home right now with a fever from the cold.

"How can you say that? Does your concern for your grandson mean that my daughter deserves to freeze?"

Selena chimed in, pretending to mediate, "Oh, Vanessa, listen to yourself. We're all family. Helping us with a bill is not even that much. Why make such a big deal out of it? Worse case… we'll pay you back."

Howard muttered, "Yeah. You're overreacting, Vanessa. It's just over a thousand dollars. Not like it's ten thousand dollars."

My gaze swept across the three of them. In this warm room, I felt like I was plunged in icy water. The last thread tying me to them snapped under their words.

I wiped away my tears and looked at these three so-called "family members", my eyes now cold and bleak. "I gave Mom two thousand dollars. The heating bill is 1,870 dollars. Keep the rest. I just want the heating bill money."

Selena's eyes widened, clearly not expecting me to be this blunt.

"What? You don't want to pay it back?"

Her expression faltered. Having just said she'd pay me back, she had no choice but to reluctantly transfer the money to me.

Ignoring their dark expressions, I turned and walked out.

Back home, seeing Ciara's flushed face from the fever, the last trace of hesitation in me vanished. I calmly picked up my phone and canceled the monthly allowance I'd been sending Mom. Then, I contacted the bank and stopped the automatic credit card payments I'd been covering for Howard.

Since they saw me, the married daughter, as an outsider whose support was only natural and expected, with no right to ask for anything in return, then that bond wasn't worth keeping.

As for the money, I wouldn't give them another cent!