“It affects Camille,” Weston repeated, leaning on the word like it was leverage. “If I go under, she goes under. You want to protect her? Write the check.” I let the fire pop once in the quiet. Then I walked to the side table and picked up the folder Everett had helped me assemble over six weeks. “Here’s the thing about a leaking system, Weston,” I said. “You can’t fix it by paying for the water on the floor. You have to find where it’s coming in.” I set the folder on the coffee table between us. “You’ve been telling this family for a year that an investment was about to come good. It already came. It came in March. You lost it. And you’ve been borrowing against my daughter’s name to hide the hole ever since.”

His relaxed face finally failed him. “That’s private,” he said. “That’s speculation.” “It’s her signature on a line of credit she doesn’t remember opening,” I answered. “It’s a second mortgage on the condo she thinks you own outright. It’s the reason she started reaching for dinner checks, because you told her the cards were ‘having issues.'” I opened the folder to the page Everett had flagged. “I’m a mechanic, Weston. I spend my life finding the exact part that’s failing before the whole machine seizes. You stood on my boat and called me a plumber like it was an insult. But a plumber is exactly what your life needed, and you married into one and never noticed.”