Georgina, for once, didn’t make a joke.
Naomi studied Bea like someone deciding how much truth she could survive. “It’s confronting the first time you hear about it.”
“Confronting is a meeting invite,” Bea muttered. “This is…I don’t know if I disappear slowly, or all at once.”
It wasn’t that the law gave him something; it was that it took itfrom her.
“When you’re raised outside this system, ownership doesn’t sound protective,” Lillian murmured. “It sounds final.”
“It is,” Isabel said, matter-of-fact. “That’s the design.”
Bea stood. The movement surprised even her. Her body had already decided to withdraw. She crossed four steps toward the hallway, then halted, turning partway back. “Why do you say that like it’s normal?”
“You’re imagining a bad man in the system,” Naomi said, voice echoing in the tiled room.
“And you’re telling me there has never been one?” Bea shot back.
“Are you imagining Rafael is going to be that one?” Isabel challenged.
“I don’t know.” Bea sighed. Nobody walked down an aisle thinking they were choosing wrong. The law expected her to trust every version of him he might become. “I don’t know how anyone’s supposed to know that.”
“What you need to figure out is if this is a dealbreaker for you,” Naomi advised.
Lillian’s eyes darted back down to the ring on their coffee table.
“I don’t know,” Bea said.
“You don’tknow?” Naomi picked up her phone, brought it to her face. “Did you stop loving him?”
“Of course not. I think about him constantly. Sometimes I feel him right before I hear from him. I just—this isinsane.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t any of you warn me?”
There it was. She couldn’t school the hurt that cracked through her voice. Lillian covered Bea’s hand with hers. That small kindness hit too hard, and she blinked back sudden tears.
“Because you would have run,” Naomi said ruthlessly.
“And it wasn’t our place,” added Isabel.
“So you let me walk into it blind to protect your culture?”
“No, Bey,” Georgie said. “To protect your relationship.”
Bea stared at the faces of women she trusted. Something in her hardened. She sniffed. “I have to go.”
The email arrived mid-afternoon, wedged between a meeting summary and a coffee order form.
RE: Agricultural Development Fund Review Resolution
Following audit proceedings, Mr. Gavin Trenor has resigned from his position, citing health reasons. The Ministry thanks Monaghan & Stowe for its cooperation.
Bea read it twice, blinked, then forwarded it to Jaxon Dao with one line:Did we do that?Her phone rang thirty seconds later.
“Apparently we did,” he said. “Congratulations. We’re lethal now.”
All they had done was follow the paper trail. It ended with six girls’ stipends quietly diverted and Trenor’s easy certainty that those families didn’t matter much, anyway.
Bea stared at her monitor. “It’s not funny. I thought they’d fix it. Adjust the payments. Not…this.”
“It’s how these things go,” Jaxon explained. She could hear keyboard clicks in the background, like he was running numbers even while talking. “He’ll ‘step back for health reasons,’ take a few months off, maybe resurface somewhere less important. Quiet exile.”