A familiar nausea crawled up my throat, the same feeling I’d had when my father looked away at Sunday dinner.
“They knew,” I whispered.
“Maybe,” Raymond said. “Maybe they told themselves it wasn’t that serious. Maybe Cass told them you were ‘helping’ her. But the optics are bad. And it gives us leverage if we choose to expand the civil claim.”
I swallowed hard. “You mean sue my parents.”
“I mean include them if evidence supports complicity,” Raymond replied. “At minimum, it strengthens the case against Cass, because it shows planning and support.”
I pressed my palm to my forehead. “I don’t want to sue them,” I said.
Raymond didn’t argue. He just asked, “Do you want to protect them?”
The question landed hard because it forced honesty.
“I want the truth,” I said slowly. “I want them to face what they did. But I don’t want to burn everything to the ground.”
Raymond sighed lightly. “Understood. Then we proceed strategically. We depose Cass. We depose the notary. We keep your parents as potential witnesses. If they lie, that changes things.”
My stomach twisted. Depositions meant sitting across from Cass while lawyers asked questions that cut through family like a blade. It meant hearing her justify, minimize, spin.
“Okay,” I said.
Raymond continued, “One more thing. Cass’s attorney is pushing hard for you to sign a reconciliation statement. Not just for sentencing optics. For the civil case.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because if you sign anything suggesting consent or forgiveness,” Raymond said, “they’ll use it to muddy the narrative. They’ll imply you approved. They’ll imply this was a family agreement gone wrong.”
My jaw clenched. “So it’s a trap.”
“Yes,” Raymond said simply.
I stared at the floor. “I’m not signing anything.”
“I know,” Raymond replied. “But I need you to understand: this will get uglier before it gets quieter. Cass is losing the image she built. She will try to replace it with a new one: victim of a cruel sister.”
I let out a slow breath. “She already tried.”
Raymond’s voice softened slightly. “Then you keep doing what you’ve been doing,” he said. “Facts. Documentation. Boundaries.”
When I hung up, I sat in silence for a long time.
My parents had been at the closing.
Even if they hadn’t signed, even if they hadn’t forged, their presence was a kind of signature. A silent endorsement. A choice.
That night, I didn’t call my mother. I didn’t call my father.