Page 20 of Split Decision

It's not threatening. It doesn't need to be. It's a donor—one of the original ones, who helped fund the center's second wing and whose name appears on a plaque by the entrance. His voice is careful. Measured.

"I want you to know I support you personally," he says. "But I've had a few calls this week from people I respect. Questions about the governance structure. About your role during the review."

"My role hasn't changed," I say.

"Of course." A pause. "I just wanted to give you a heads-up. These things move faster than they should sometimes."

He hangs up before I can ask who called him. I sit there longer than I mean to, replaying the way his voice shifted at the end. People he respects are putting pressure on him. This was orchestrated by someone who knew to call him specifically. Someone who already knows about his ties to the youth center.

I open my laptop and pull up the center's donor list.

By Thursday, two more donors have called with variations of the same script. Someone who knew which donors to apply pressure to, and in what order, and how to frame the conversation so it sounds like concern rather than a campaign against me. Not with accusations. Never accusations that could be easily disproven. Just carefully crafted questions, delivered with the same careful language, from people they respect.

Questions that tend to lead to more specific questions about the donors themselves if they don’t takecare.

On Friday, I call Brandon.

"Has Marin mentioned the donor contacts?" I ask.

"She flagged it this morning, actually." He sounds unsurprised. "She says it's standard pressure-testing before an audit. Happens when someone wants to see which relationships hold."

"Someone is calling our donors, Brandon."

There’s a pause. “Yes, they are.”

"That's not random."

“No,” he agrees carefully. "It isn’t. Marin's working on tracking the origin. She thinks it might be connected to a PAC that had existing friction with Jackson."

Jackson.

Still.

Even from the bottom of the Atlantic.

"Tell her I'd like to see whatever she finds. Directly, when she has something concrete. Not filtered through the PAC angle—I want the origin."

"She's handling it, Andi. Marin’s good at this kind of thing." He tries to sound reassuring for my benefit, but there’s an edge to his tone that’s never beenthere before. It’s more protective than defensive, but the protection isn’t for me.

I close my laptop. "I’m sure she is."

I haven't decided yet whether that means it’s been handled.

CHAPTER SIX

LUKE

I've been sitting with Marin's recommendation for six days.

Not avoiding it. Not refusing it. Just sitting with it the way you sit with a decision that's going to cost you something, regardless of which way it falls. There's no version of this that doesn't have a price attached. That's the thing no one says out loud in these conversations—not Marin, not Brandon, not me. We talk about strategy and optics and parallel lines and what the Commission wants to see, and underneath it all is the one question none of us are naming.

What does it cost Andi if I do this?

I know the answer. I've known it since I read that statement and felt the weight of her name not being in it. She stands at the center of her own crisis without my name attached to hers, which protects my license and leaves her to carry the board's scrutiny alone. Marin calls it insulation. Brandon calls it temporary. I've been calling it nothing because I don't have a word for it that doesn't make me feel like a man choosing his career over the woman he loves.

Strategically, Marin isn't wrong. I know she isn't wrong. That's the part that keeps waking me up at four in the morning.

I call Brandon on Tuesday, which is the day he reliably picks up because it's the one day he doesn't have site visits.