“The tenants don’t care about the property.”

“They ruin everything we install.”

“I had to make tough decisions.”

“Tough decisions?” I said, my voice rising in anger.

“Mrs. Gable is eighty years old.”

“She has been living in apartment 3B since before my daughter was born.”

“You told her she had to leave by the end of the week or you would throw her furniture in the alley.”

“She has nowhere else to go.”

Arthur didn’t look at me.

He kept his eyes on Nathaniel, his chest heaving.

The elevator doors behind us chimed.

The sound was loud in the quiet lobby.

We all turned to look.

A tall man in a dark suit stepped out of the elevator.

He was carrying a sleek, silver laptop and a stack of printed folders.

“Mr. Graves,” the man said, walking toward us.

“We have the initial extraction from the Brindlewood server.”

He looked at Arthur, then at me and Ruby.

“It’s much worse than we thought,” the man added.

Arthur looked at the laptop in the man’s hands as if it were a loaded weapon.