Chapter 3 - The Collateral Damage
"Don't let him leave!" Mom shrieked, making a desperate move toward the gangway, but Thomas Parker stepped directly into her path.
"Stay back, Carmen," Thomas said, his voice cold as a winter vault in Chicago. He turned to his wife, who was already gathering her designer tote bags from the mahogany bench. " Martha, we're leaving. This isn't a wedding alliance; it's a fraud investigation waiting to happen."
Within three minutes, the grand engagement cruise had devolved into a chaotic parking lot evacuation. The Parkers were gone. Half of the extended family members, realizing there would be no open bar and no catered yacht ride down the Savannah river, quietly slipped toward their sedans without even saying goodbye.
By noon, only a handful of people remained on the deck: Mom, sitting rigidly on a white canvas chair with her makeup starting to streak from the humidity; Dad, standing motionless by the rail with his old leather business folder clutched against his chest like a shield; and Aunt Denise, still holding her phone steady, broadcasting every agonizing second straight to my screen.
"They're all leaving, Lexi," Denise whispered quietly into the phone, her voice barely audible over the wind. "Your mother is crying into a napkin, and your father looks like he’s about to have a stroke."
"Is anyone checking on them?" I asked softly from my car.
"Your brother-in-law-to-be is currently loading his luggage into an Uber," Denise replied dryly. "And Riley is locked inside the yacht’s VIP head screaming bloody murder. Honestly, honey? You broke the whole machine with one text message."
"I didn't break anything, Aunt Denise," I said, watching Dad through the windshield as he slowly lowered himself onto a deck chair, his shoulders finally caving in under the weight of seventy years of false pride. "I just stopped propping it up."
Before Denise could answer, the door of the yacht’s salon swung open. Riley stepped out, her white dress slightly wrinkled, her mascara smudged beneath her eyes. She didn't look like a glowing bride-to-be anymore. She looked like a spoiled child whose favorite toy had just been smashed with a hammer.
She marched straight over to Dad, snatched the phone right out of Denise’s hand, and stared directly into the camera lens. Her face filled the entire screen, distorted by rage and humiliation.
"Are you happy now?" Riley screamed, her voice shaking with a pathetic, high-pitched fury. "You ruined my life! You ruined my engagement! You couldn't just let us have one weekend where we looked successful, could you? You had to pull the rug out from under us just to prove how rich and powerful you are!"
I didn't flinch. I kept my voice entirely level, speaking through the car's Bluetooth speaker so the audio carried clearly across the dock.
"I didn't ruin your engagement, Riley," I said. "You ruined it yourself when you decided that the person paying for your entire life was too embarrassing to invite to the party."
"I am the bride!" she shrieked, tears finally breaking over her eyelashes. "It was my day!"
May you like
"It was my money," I replied calmly. "There's a distinct difference. And until you and Mom and Dad learn to live in reality instead of streaming your lives through a ring light, you're going to keep finding out what happens when the credit card gets declined."
Riley slammed the phone down onto the teak deck. Through the cracked screen, I watched her boot come down hard, shattering the glass completely before the video feed cut to black.
