That was their favorite word for me.
For two months, they had spread rumors that I had been unfaithful, that Daniel had discovered it, that the stress had driven him to speed that rainy night. They told relatives I had emptied his accounts. They told neighbors I was unstable. They told Daniel’s company I could not be trusted with his documents.
What they didn’t know was that Daniel had told me everything before the crash.
He had come home pale, holding a folder and his phone.
“My mother and Grant have been using my name,” he said that night. “Loans. Forged signatures. A shell company. They’re trying to pin it on you if it falls apart.”
I remembered letting out one breathless, frightened laugh. “Me?”
Daniel had looked sick. “You’re the outsider. That’s why they chose you.”
He went to a lawyer the next morning.
Three days later, he was dead.
The police called it an accident. Brake failure on a wet road. Tragic. Sudden.
Vivian called it freedom from embarrassment.
Now she reached for tears again. “Daniel would be ashamed of this.”
Noah looked at her with a child’s ruthless honesty. “Dad said you would say that.”
The room shifted.
Vivian’s lips parted.
I gently took the phone from Noah—not to stop him, but because he had already carried enough.
“This funeral is over,” Grant snapped. “Elena, don’t make this uglier.”
I looked at him. “Uglier than stealing from your dead brother?”
