Otto wasn't having it. He shoved Benedict aside, seized my arm, and started dragging me toward the front.
"Denise Henson, don't think having a pile of brothers makes you right. A wrong is a wrong, and an apology's an apology—you're going to own both!"
The pull sent me stumbling. Two of my brothers grabbed Otto's arm and snapped,
"Let go of our sister!"
The rest closed in around us, ringing him in, leaving him no way out.
Lena's face went pale. She screamed,
"You—what do you all think you're doing? Throwing your weight around like this?"
"Brendan Lambert, Carter Fleming, what are you standing there for? Can't you see they've got Otto surrounded?"
The words had barely landed before Otto's groomsmen crowded in, faces twisting, shouting over one another.
Otto's parents charged over too, grabbing at me, until one of my brothers swatted them off.
Katherine shrieked in my face,
"Denise Henson, don't be so ungrateful. We watched Lena grow up. She's the sweetest, most cheerful girl, and you've bullied her to tears. Is one apology really so hard?"
The whole thing was one spark from blowing up.
Benedict couldn't be bothered with another word. He took out his phone, tapped the screen, and sent off a single message.
Barely a minute passed before Otto's assistant came rushing onto the stage, white-faced and frantic, shoving through the crowd, his voice shaking.
"Mr. Sanchez, we've got a problem! All three investors on the West Harbor project just pulled out at once—the multimillion-dollar one!"
"And—and they've put the word out that they'll never work with our company again!"
The line dropped, and the room erupted.
Otto froze, his pupils shrinking to points. His head whipped around and locked onto Benedict, his voice stunned.
"That's impossible!"
"You're just some ordinary working stiff. Last month you took a hundred grand off me to buy a car. How could you tear down a multimillion-dollar project of mine just like that?"
He shook his head like a madman, panicked and stubborn all at once.
"Coincidence! This has to be a coincidence!"
He clenched his fists white and threw his threat out cold, in front of everyone.
"Fine. Your Henson family's got nerve! She calls off the wedding today, then someday she can come crawling back crying, and I won't spare her a second glance!"
I stood quietly amid all that red silk, and all that was left in me was indifference.
I had actually spent five whole years swallowing everything and bending for a man this shallow, this arrogant, this incapable of telling what mattered from what didn't.
I lifted my eyes to him and let out a cold laugh.
"Otto, I won't beg you."
"The moment you deliberately misspelled my name and turned my own wedding into a joke for a laugh, we were completely finished."
Otto's face went ashen. He ground his teeth and forced out one last vicious line.
"Fine! Let's see who else wants a worn-out shoe like you once you're free of me! Who else can give you the silk and the feasts!"
And just then, from the entrance of the banquet hall came a low, familiar voice.
"Who says no one wants her?"
