Chapter 19 - Three Plates, Then Five
Hannah’s apartment smelled like garlic, roasted chicken, and something Noah insisted was “almost burned but still legal.”
I arrived in jeans.
Eli opened the door and stared at me.
“You own jeans?”
“Apparently.”
“No tie?”
“Your sister threatened me.”
“Sounds right.”
Dinner was loud.
Not estate loud, where twenty people filled a room and nobody said anything that mattered.
Family loud.
Noah talked over Eli. Eli corrected Noah. Hannah told them both to chew before arguing. I learned that Noah hated peas, Eli loved baseball, and Hannah had been accepted into an evening business program through a scholarship she had found herself.
“You didn’t tell me,” I said.
“You would’ve sent a building named after me.”
“I’m growing.”
“Slowly.”
After dinner, Hannah packed leftovers into two containers.
I recognized the motion immediately.
For a second, I was back in the marble hallway with food scattered around my shoes.
She caught me looking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“These are for Mrs. Alvarez downstairs. Her arthritis is bad this week.”
I smiled.
“Need another container?”
She pointed to a cabinet. “Top shelf.”
I reached for it.
That simple instruction felt better than any thank-you speech could have.
Later, while the boys argued over a movie, Hannah and I stood by the kitchen window.
“Do you miss being CEO?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want it back?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s new.”
“Very.”
Lucy had offered me a future role focused on long-term strategy and governance once the investigations ended. No corner office. No daily command. I had not decided.
Hannah looked toward the living room.
“I used to think rich people had fewer choices because they already had what they wanted.”
“And now?”
“Now I think you just have more expensive ways to make bad ones.”
I laughed.
Then her phone buzzed.
She read the message and went still.
“What?”
“It’s Denise.”
The criminal case against Martin Vale and Evan Rusk had produced a settlement proposal. Restitution money would go to affected tenants across all nine properties.
But there was one condition from the prosecutors’ office.
They wanted me to testify publicly about the authorization system that had allowed Martin’s program to pass under my signature.
The testimony could expose me to civil lawsuits for years.
Hannah looked at me.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”
I looked at the boys laughing on the couch.
May you like
“Yes.”
The next morning, my lawyers told me exactly how much that answer might cost.
