“I’m not good at speeches,” he said, and his cousins snorted like they’d heard him lie before. “But I want to say something simple. Sophia makes every room feel more real. Every conversation more honest. Every day less like a performance.”
My chest tightened.
“And if anyone thinks she belongs in the back row,” he added, his gaze sweeping the table with quiet steel, “they’ve misunderstood the entire point of being family.”
No one argued. Not even my mother.
For the first time, I felt the table under my hands and believed I had a permanent seat there.
Part 8
The first formal challenge didn’t come from reporters or strangers.
It came in an envelope.
One morning in February, a letter from an ethics committee arrived at my office. Not an accusation, exactly, but an inquiry—polite, thorough, laced with the implication that my relationship might be a conflict of interest.
My supervisor called me in, face grim. “It was inevitable,” he said. “They’d be negligent not to ask.”
“I know,” I replied, throat tight.