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“Hear hear!” someone calls out.

I nod in the direction of the voice. “Tonight, I’m honored to introduce the next step in that mission.” I turn slightly toward the screen behind me. “If you’ll direct your attention to the video, you’ll see what your support is helping us build.”

The lights dim. The screen glows.

The video begins with music soft enough to seem sincere. A sunrise over the city. A wheelchair moving down a bright hallway. Hands clasping. A man learning to walk with parallel bars. A woman laughing with a physical therapist. Children in the background because every charitable video needs children to seem authentic.

Then the title appears.

VexleyARC Center

Then the deep voice of the actor we hired to narrate.

“The Vexley Ambulatory Rehabilitation Center—VexleyARC—will offer a vessel of hope for those navigating life after injury, illness, and loss.”

The ark homophone was the brainchild of our marketing firm. On-screen, the words appear over digital renderings of a glass-and-stone building.

A vessel through the storm. A sanctuary for healing. A bridge from survival to independence.

Noah’s Ark.

A sacred vessel carrying life through flood and destruction.

Yeah. We paid that firm way too much money for this nonsense.

The building will be beautiful. Functional, too. It will be filled with rehabilitation suites, therapy rooms, a hydrotherapy wing, consultation offices, administrative floors, and all the things required to make the foundation’s mission look real.

Some of it may even help people.

A legitimate business through which dirty money can be laundered. A charitable arm clean enough to move funds without raising too many questions. And of course, donation plaques. One with fucking Quenton Stanley’s name on it.

Another place where bad things can happen beneath a polished name.

Things can disappear in buildings like this. People too.

I think of the old club building Samson calls his castle. The things hidden there. The things that will never see the light of day. The hidden doors marked only by our family’s key motif.

This is what the Vexleys do best. We build beautiful places to hide ugly truths.

The video ends with the foundation crest fading into the VexleyARC logo.

The room erupts in applause.

I step back to the microphone.

“Thank you,” I say when the noise settles. “We’re proud to begin this next chapter, and we’re grateful to every person in this room who makes that possible. Tonight, I invite you not only to give, but to invest in the belief that no one should be left behind simply because they have fallen.”

More applause. Stronger this time.

People rise from a few tables, and then more follow until everyone in the room is standing.

I search for Ella again.

There she is.

Standing, looking at me. Beaming.

She looks proud. Proud to be here. Proud of me, maybe. Of the lie I’ve just sold with a straight face.