“It’ll be small,” she said sweetly. “Just close people.”
I offered to help. I’d saved for this.
A pause.
“We want to be independent,” she said. “We’re adults.”
After that, I was erased—no guest list, no venue, no planning. When I asked Lucas, he snapped.
“You’re being controlling.”
Three weeks before the wedding, a message arrived.
Don’t come. Alyssa doesn’t want you there. She says you’ve been critical. I need to put my future wife first.
I read it again and again.
My only child. Uninviting me.
I called. Voicemail. Texted. Nothing.
On the third sleepless night, something hardened. I closed the joint accounts I’d opened for Lucas years earlier—accounts I’d funded.
$71,800. Transferred back to me.
That evening, the bank called. Someone had tried to access the closed account—multiple attempts, correct password. The location traced to downtown Harbor City.
Where Alyssa lived.
This wasn’t about love. It was about money.
I researched. Alyssa’s “consulting” career didn’t explain the luxury lifestyle splashed across her public photos. Her previous partner, Evan Kline, a real estate developer, had gone bankrupt right before she started dating Lucas.
Two weeks after his collapse.