I stayed quiet for months, planning to bide my time until I was old enough to leave. But everything changed during a family gathering at the new house. Ray confronted me in the kitchen about not cooking breakfast for his relatives, sneering, “Don’t talk to me like that in my house.” Something inside me snapped. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Actually, it’s my house. You bought it with money you stole from me.” The entire room went silent. My mom gasped, furious that I’d embarrassed them. But I didn’t care — for the first time, I wasn’t afraid to speak the truth.
