It sat on our small cake table, shining under the cheap string lights. It was the only piece of my grandmother that was there.

Two weeks later, my phone buzzed while I was making dinner. It was a text from my father.

There was no congratulations. No asking how the day went.

It just read: “We need to send $8,400 for your brother’s wedding. The caterer needs the deposit by Friday. Send it to my account.”

I stared at the screen. I actually had to read it three times because my brain genuinely stopped working for a second.

He ignored my entire wedding, ruined my relationship with my relatives, and now he was treating me like a personal ATM for his favorite son.

I didn’t get angry. I just felt this deep, tired calm.

I opened my banking app, searched my father’s contact, and initiated a transfer. I sent exactly one dollar.

In the memo line, I typed, “Best wishes.”

Then I called Marcus and told him we needed to call a locksmith. I wanted every single lock on our house changed before sundown.

I didn’t want my father or Leo ever stepping foot near our door again. The locksmith, a nice older man named Gary, got the job done in an hour.

I thought that would be the end of it, but the reaction was incredibly fast.

That same afternoon, a loud, heavy knock rattled our front door. When I opened it, my father was standing there, his face red and blotchy, with two police officers standing right behind him.

He looked at me with this smug, awful grin.

“She broke into my house and stole a high-value family heirloom,” my father told the officers, pointing directly at me.

The younger officer looked at me. “Ma’am, is this true?”

I smiled, but my hands were shaking in my pockets. “Come inside,” I said calmly.

I walked them into the kitchen. The cake server was sitting on the counter, shining in the afternoon light.