The words were brittle and honest—but the clip had set a new grammar. People had seen their businessman laughing over a table while unknown men, unseen, arranged a transaction. No matter how fervently Dad insisted on ignorance, something in the room had been rearranged.
And then the mind-blow.
Right as murmurs started up again, the projector stuttered and flicked to black. Phones lit like stars in the audience; someone hissed. For a moment it looked like a technical glitch—until a second screen across the pavilion booted with fire: someone had hijacked the feed.
A new video played. It was live.
The image was from a phone camera perched just outside a motel door—the Starlit, my brain supplied—angle wide enough to capture a brief, frantic scene. It showed Dominic stepping out onto the we
