It took fourteen months to untangle everything. I paid lawyers with a credit card while eating rice, watching the case move through courts in two countries. Shantelle eventually pleaded to a reduced charge and served eight months. Reggie was never caught. Of the $185,000 that had been taken, $140,000 was recovered. The remaining $45,000 was simply gone. I told myself that was the price of learning exactly who I could trust.

But there was another truth buried inside that border-room call. Before the handcuffs, Shantelle looked at me and said, “Mom told me you’d fix it. She said you always fix it.” Suddenly, everything made sense. My parents hadn’t merely defended my sister. They had promised her that stealing from me was safe because I was the daughter who always absorbed the damage and somehow fixed everything.