Chapter 8: What Mia Had Kept
Mia sat at our kitchen table with both hands wrapped around a mug of coffee she hadn't touched and told me she was sorry before she said anything else.
"I should have told you last night," she said.
"But everything was moving so fast and I didn't know if it mattered and then when I got home and saw what Sloane was posting, I knew I had to come."
"Tell me now," I said.
She took out her phone.
"I was on my break when they first sat down.
I was in the back booth near the hallway — they couldn't see me, but I could hear them clearly." She opened a voice memo app.
"I record things sometimes.
When the restaurant is busy and I'm trying to remember a specials list or a complicated order.
My phone was already recording when they started talking."
She pressed play.
Sloane's voice came through the speaker, bright and certain: *Which one is she?
The big one?
Perfect.
Evan, I want the bet on record before we start.*
Evan: *Five hundred.
I'll Venmo you when she cries.*
Sloane: *She won't cry.
She'll get angry and then Martin will have to apologize to us.
It's better that way.*
A third voice — one of the others at the table: *Sloane, what if someone films it back?*
Sloane: *Then I get more followers.
There's no version of this where I lose.*
Mia stopped the recording.
The kitchen was very quiet.
"They planned it," I said.
Not a question.
"Before you even came to the table," Mia said.
"I heard them talking about you specifically.
Someone had pointed you out when you were setting up the section.
They chose you on purpose."
I looked at Daniel.
He was leaning against the counter with his arms folded, and the expression on his face was the one I recognized from the Harbor Room door the night before — not anger, but something quieter and far more deliberate.
"Mia," he said carefully, "are you willing to provide that recording to my legal team?"
"That's why I came," she said.
He nodded once and took out his phone.
Mia looked at me.
"Grace, I'm sorry I didn't say something sooner.
When Martin told you to go to the kitchen, I should have—"
"You're here now," I said.
"That's what matters."
She finally picked up the mug and drank.
Daniel stepped into the hallway to make the call.
I could hear his voice, low and even, reading out Mia's full name for whoever was on the other end.
Outside the kitchen window, the morning was grey and ordinary — a neighbor walking a dog, a delivery truck idling at the corner — and none of it looked like the night before.
My phone lit up on the table.
A text from an unknown number.
*This is Sloane Mercer.
I need to speak with you privately.
Please don't involve lawyers.
I made a mistake and I want to fix it before this gets worse.*
May you like
I read it twice.
Then I set the phone face-down and waited for Daniel to come back.
