Servants carried fresh baskets of flowers past the servants that were busily decorating the hall and stairs. The house was aflutter with activity preparing for the dinner that was taking place in the next few hours. The floors were shined earlier in the day. Every piece of silverware was polished till they reflected like mirrors.

It was as much a dinner as it was a celebration, celebrating the miraculous recovery of their grandfather. Outside the immediate family, some of her cousins, aunts and uncles were invited. A few of them had never met the new daughter-in-law, so they were excited to meet her at the dinner.

"Hey, kid." Vincent snapped his finger at Giovanna, and she came out of her daze. "What's wrong with you?"

She took in his T-shirt, jeans and sports jacket. "You're leaving?"

"No one is being driven today. Your mom gave us permission to leave early." He touched her arm gently. "What's going on. You have been broody the past two days."

Vincent looked over his shoulder towards the house and then back at her. He was one of her closest friends. She even dared to think of him as her best friend. He wasn't as shallow as the others in her circle. Plus, he always gave the best advice. When she overheard the conversation between Kali and her mother, Vincent was the only person she told. He had advised her to not jump the gun and to keep the information to herself until she knew better. Giovanna didn't think he'd approve of what she did.

"Nothing." She sniffed, hugging the shawl she had on tighter around her body.

"Come on, don't be like that. Did you fight with your parents again? Something to do with school."

"I went to speak to Kali." She muttered finally, staring at her feet. He asked her to repeat what she said, and she stared at him. "I went to speak to Kali."

"About the dinner?"

Giovanna scoffed. "No. About what I overheard months ago."

Disappointment flashed in his eyes. "Tell me you didn't fight with her. Please, Giovanna." He stretched her name out with a deep groan, scrubbing his face with his palm. "I told you to look into it. Did you do that?"

"I did. I promise you I did. But I didn't find anything."

"And instead of waiting till you did, you confronted her. Gio, have you completely lost it?"

"I have not lost it. Don't be so hard on me, okay. I know I am right."

He tsked in disappointment. "What did she give you as an explanation?"

"Nothing. She insisted she didn't ask for anything, and mom just paid for it."

"Well, now you know the truth."

"It's not the truth. Why would my mom go around paying off the debts of that woman? That is my brother's job, is it not?"

"You are right. Very right. You know what else?" Giovanna shook her head. "It's also not your business. If she had debts that were paid off, it doesn't concern you at all, yet you made it your business. Why couldn't your mother do the same?"

"If it was just about the debts, then I honestly would have let it be. I would. But it's not. I can't explain the tone with which I heard them speaking. There was an undertone. Kali wasn't thankful. She wasn't grateful that the debt was paid. She was arrogant and defensive like it was meant to be paid."

Vincent sighed. "Whatever you think you heard, you don't know the whole story. Now you have gone, and lost the only thing you had going for you. None of them knew what you heard, none of them. Now, Kali knows. And if she tells your mother, your mother would know too."

"She already knows."

"She told her already?"

Giovanna buried her face in her palm. "I told her."

"What?"

"After the fight with Kali, I was so angry that I blurted everything out to my mother and father." She pulled herself upright. "I thought I could force her to tell me the truth if dad was there, but it didn't happen. She also denied everything."

Vincent chuckled, clasping his hands behind his neck. "I have never seen you behave this foolishly before. And knowing what you are capable of, that's saying a lot."

"You don't have to attack me."

"I am not trying to attack you, but you have not been thinking clearly the past few months. I try to be supportive, but it doesn't mean I am on board with all your decisions. I haven't met your sister-in-law personally, but she doesn't seem like a bad person."

"Appearances can be deceiving."

Giovanna pulled the shawl tighter around her. Since the fight, she felt alone. Her father was angry with her, her mother coloured her hysterical, and her siblings did nothing but scold her because of it. She didn't care much for their words, but she was hurt that her father was disillusioned by her. It wasn't fair.

Growing up, Giovanna watched her father take Samuel's side, but it hurt more now. Giovanna rubbed her cheek, recalling the slap from Kali with anger. He didn't believe her, his daughter. Instead, he took Kali's side and was even ready to make her apologise to his darling daughter-in-law. He would see at the end that she had a point. When everything came to light, he would see that his favoured son was the one in the wrong. Not her.

But she couldn't sit around waiting for the masks to fall. Kali was crafty, and with her mother covering for her, she had even more room to deceive the family.

"Kali is not a good person."

"What proof do you have of that?" Vincent inquired. "The only proof you had turned out to be nothing."

"It wasn't nothing." Giovanna hotly insisted. "It wasn't nothing. They are both lying, covering each other's tracks."

"Why would your mother protect her?"

"I don't know. Maybe she knows something and is using the information to blackmail my mother."

"Is your mother the type of woman to settle for blackmail?" Giovanna thought about it, then shook her head. "If Kali tried that, your mother would have found a way around it."

"But why else would she pay that damned debt. My mother didn't like Kali. She wouldn't have done it out of the goodness of her heart."

"Maybe your mother paid off the debt so she can have Kali under her control."

"What?"

"Think about it. Your mother likes having control of the family. Kali is an outsider. Your mother never had a chance to groom her before the wedding. The debt allows her to do that. With this, she can keep her new daughter-in-law under her control. Especially if Kali is now indebted to your mother and not her previous debtors."

Vincent had a point. One she had never thought of. Her mother would do anything to keep the family under control. It was why Ember moved away, why Samuel had his own home, and why Peter kept his private life private. They each wanted to chip away at their mother's control, even if it was only a little. The debt gave her mother something to hold over Kali.

"You have a point."

"Thank you."

"But there's is something I can't shake."

"The tone."

"The tone." She confirmed sombrely. "If I could shake the feeling her voice planted in me, I will be ready to believe anything. I can't. She was angry, she was arrogant, she was cocky, and she was, in every way, threatening my mother."

Vincent sighed, cocking his head to the side to look at her. "If you are still insistent on proving it, you have to start from scratch. The secret conversation was all the leverage you had. With that gone..."

"I have nothing." She finished for him, hugging the blanket closer to her body.

"Exactly, you're back where you started, but without your element of surprise."

"What do I do?"

"Are you asking because you want my help, or do you just want me to give out advise you will proceed to throw out at your own pleasure?"

She rolled her eyes. "I want your help. I promise to take it seriously."

"You have lost anything you might have had, so just take a step back and regroup. If you are sure something is going on, wave your white flag and make peace."

"You're kidding. They'll never believe I have just accepted the situation so quickly."

"No one says you should. Your stepping-back has to be believable. With time they'll stop playing defensively. However you manage that is up to you. They let their guard down, and maybe they wouldn't be so cautious as to what they say or do, and you can pick up on something."

"Sounds good."

"But..." he stressed, and she groaned. "You have to change your mindset. Stop thinking that what you have come up with is right and true. It's obvious there is more going on, and if you choose to vilify your sister-in-law in your mind, you will be hard-pressed to accept any truth contrary to what you think."

"I don't understand."

"You do. In the end, you have to face the possibility that all this is in your head and your sister-in-law is actually just a girl in love with your brother."

He gave her a punch on the shoulder before saying goodbye and walking off towards the gate. Alone, Giovanna stared at the house. Her mother stood on the balcony, speaking to the housekeeper. Conscious that she was blatantly staring, Giovanna observed her mother. She needed to play smarter. The party would be a good start for that. She would make peace with her sister-in-law and give them the space they needed to make a mistake.