My father hadn’t started investigating them that evening.

He’d started three weeks earlier, after an internal audit flagged missing corporate funds.

The audit had uncovered forged invoices, diverted payroll, and a commercial loan application bearing my forged signature.

They hadn’t merely excluded me—they’d tried to make me criminally responsible for their theft.

The wedding trap had simply handed us an immediate motive, two hundred witnesses, and their own recorded voices.

Eleanor’s confidence cracked.