My mother refused to walk her "greatest regret" down the aisle, right up until my 81-year-old grandfather stopped the wedding to expose her.

Dad stepped forward, trembling, his hands clasped as if in prayer. "Emma... sweetheart, please. If the Attorney General sees those records, your mother and I are going to prison. The foundation will collapse. Paige and Lauren will lose their homes. Everything we worked for... gone."

"Everything you *stole*," Grandpa Arthur corrected coldly.

"Emma," Dad pleaded, tears rolling down his weathered cheeks. "You're an accountant. You know the legal loopholes. If you sign a retroactive gift declaration—stating you willingly loaned the trust funds to Stone Harbor Development—we can satisfy the bank audit. We can save the family name."

I looked at my father. For years, I had held onto a childish hope that he was just a bystander, that he was merely dominated by my mother’s cruelty. But seeing him now, begging me to commit federal fraud to save his own skin, I saw him for what he truly was: a coward who had traded his daughter's future for country club memberships and expensive scotch.

"Sign a retroactive declaration?" I repeated, looking down at the legal documents he pulled from his briefcase. "You want me to lie to federal investigators to protect the people who robbed me blind?"

"We are your parents!" Mom cried, her voice cracking. "Blood comes before everything!"

"Grandma Evelyn was my blood too," I said coldly. "And she protected me from the grave. You spent eleven years trying to erase her legacy and rob her favorite grandchild. Well, Mom... you succeeded in one thing."

Mom blinked, breathing heavily. "What?"

"You made sure that today, in front of everyone who ever respected you, you became *my* greatest regret."

Arthur stood up from his chair, using his cane to walk toward his daughter. He towered over her, his expression etched in stone. "Get out of my house, Margaret. Before I have the police remove you for trespassing."