It was a contract.

It was a sum of money designated to be paid, on a schedule, directly to Gabriel, on one stated condition: that he marry my sister.

My parents’ elegant signatures were at the bottom, the same signatures I had seen on birthday cards and permission slips my whole life, and there, next to theirs, in his own dark careful hand, was Gabriel’s.

The scream tore out of my throat before I could do anything to stop it, echoing off the concrete stairwell doors, a sound of pure betrayal.