After 3 Years No Contact, My Family Lured Me to a Fancy Dinner—Then Their Trap Backfired Spectacularly

The waiter placed the black leather bill folder in the center of the table, and my father pushed it toward me with two fingers as casually as if he were passing the salt.
“You’re paying, right, Claire?”

Sixteen faces turned toward me.

Not one of them looked surprised.

My mother smiled sweetly. Ryan smirked over the rim of his wineglass. My aunt Carol stared at me expectantly. Even my younger cousins stopped scrolling through their phones to watch.