Chapter 3

Ryan' s condescending laughter filled the humid night air.

"You, Gabby? You want to play poker?" He looked at his uncles and Jennifer, sharing the joke. "She thinks this is like Go Fish."

Jennifer giggled, a high, sharp sound. "Oh, this is cute. She wants to defend her daddy' s honor."

Carl, the bigger of the two uncles, leaned back in his chair, which groaned under his weight. "Honey, this ain' t a game for little girls. Why don' t you go inside and help your mama with the dishes?"

The humiliation was thick and suffocating. They weren' t just insulting me; they were stripping away my family' s dignity, piece by piece, right in front of everyone. They saw us as rich, soft, and stupid. Easy marks.

Ryan stepped forward, his voice dripping with false concern. "Gabby, seriously, stop. You' re embarrassing yourself. You' re embarrassing me."

He turned to his family. "I' m sorry about this. She' s just upset. She doesn' t know what she' s doing."

Then he looked back at me, his eyes cold and hard. "And where' s the money, Gabby? The dowry. You know I' ve been paying for everything. My training sessions barely cover my own bills. I' ve been depending on that money for our future. For the down payment on our house."

It was a lie. He lived off me. His personal training business was more of a hobby, a way to maintain his physique and meet new, impressionable clients. I paid for our apartment in Austin, for his car, for his expensive supplements. He was a parasite, and he was shaming me for the very money he leeched from me.

"If you can' t produce that money," he said, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper, "the wedding is off. I can' t marry into a family that' s this irresponsible."

His words were for me, but his performance was for them. He was establishing his power, his control. He was the victim, and we were the problem.

His family nodded in solemn agreement, their faces a mixture of pity for him and contempt for me. They were a pack of wolves, and they had us surrounded.