RAMON
I closed the door behind me, the weight of the file in my hand matching the heaviness in my heart. I followed Phoebe’s mother, her grandmother and great grandfather, Bryan, and her husband, into their personal living room. Their faces were tense, grief and fear mixed in their eyes.
Damien hovered beside them. None of us spoke at first.
I set the thick folder on the table again. The pages rattled softly.
“Here,” I said. “Everything I have.”
Phoebe’s mother opened it. Then Bryan began rifling through the pages, contracts, transfers, signatures.
Bryan looked up from the contract papers, his voice low and tense. “This… Any dent on Richard here means the end. Everything we built.”
I nodded, barely able to meet his eyes. “I know.”
He didn’t say anything for a second. The weight of his stare was heavy. He looked like someone who’d just discovered a crack in the foundation of his own house.
Damien stood off to the side with his arms crossed, jaw set. “We asked how he di
