We finished our food in comfortable silence. The waiter cleared our plates, offered dessert. We declined. The wine was enough.
Eventually, the conversation drifted back to the inevitable.
"So," Amelia said, swirling the last of her wine. "What do you think happens next? With Dominion Hall?"
I leaned back in my chair, considering. "Charlie said he'd set up meetings. I'm guessing he'll walk you through their operations. Show you what they want you to see."
"Sanitized version," she said.
"Probably," I agreed. "But maybe not completely. You rattled him today. He knows you're not going to accept smoke and mirrors."
She tilted her head. "You think he's scared of me?"
"I think he's smart enough to know you're dangerous," I said. "In a good way."
Her mouth twitched. "Dangerous. I'll take it."
"What about you?" I asked. "What do you think you're going to find?"
She set her glass down, fingers tracing the stem. "Honestly? I don't know. Part of me thinks Dominion Hall is exactly what my sources say it is—shadow ops, money laundering, the works. But another part …"
She trailed off.
"What?" I pressed.
She sighed. "Another part thinks maybe they're not completely the bad guys. Maybe they're doing something that looks shady from the outside but makes sense when you're inside. I've seen that before. Operations that look dirty until you understand the context."
I nodded. "Yeah. Me, too."
"But there's still a story there," she said firmly. "Even if they're the good guys, there's a story. People deserve to know who's pulling strings behind the scenes."
I took a sip of bourbon, letting it burn down my throat. "What if there isn't?"
Her eyes narrowed. "What?"
"What if there's no story?" I said. "What if you dig, and you find … nothing. Just a family with money doing legal things in complicated ways. What then?"
She stared at me, and I could see the heat rising in her eyes.
"You think I'm chasing ghosts?" she asked, voice tight.
"I think you're chasing something," I said carefully. "I just don't know if it's what you think it is."
Her jaw tightened. "I don't fabricate stories, Levi. I follow the evidence. If the evidence says they're clean, I'll say they're clean.But I'm not walking away just because they throw money and charm at me."
"I'm not asking you to," I said.
She took a breath, visibly forcing herself to calm down. "Then what are you asking?"
"I'm just saying … maybe keep an open mind," I said. "That's all."
She was quiet for a moment, fingers tapping against the table. Then she nodded. "If there's no story—if I dig and find nothing that the public needs to know—I'll leave it be. I promise."
Something in my chest eased.
"I appreciate that," I said. "Truly."
She leaned forward, eyes sharp again. "But I'm not going easy on them. I'm going to ask every hard question I can think of. I'm going to push until something breaks or holds."
