“Because I recognized one of the supervisors. His father worked for me. I thought I could tell him to leave those people alone.”

“Did he listen?”

“No. He said the world had moved on.”

Daniel considered the man before him: old, guilty, and still accustomed to solving problems by making private demands.

“You can’t fix this with another order,” Daniel said. “You have to tell the truth where everyone can hear it.”

Marcel nodded slowly. “Then I will.”

Chapter Eight A: The Night Before the Vote

After Marcel left the garage, the workers remained around the folding table. Nobody seemed eager to be the first to stand. Their hearing was less than twelve hours away, and the room had taken on the uneasy stillness of a backstage corridor before a performance. Imani was reading her statement for the fifth time. Rafael kept checking messages from the babysitter. Nessa had rolled up her kitchen sketches, unrolled them, and rolled them again.

“What if they ask me why I paid the fee?” Imani said.

“Tell them why,” June replied.

“It sounds stupid when I say it aloud.”

“It sounds like you wanted a job. There’s nothing stupid about that.”

A young worker named Margo announced that she wouldn’t be attending. Her supervisor had called and offered her a paid Saturday shift, the first guaranteed paid shift she’d been offered. If she missed it, she feared she’d never get another. Daniel thought about telling her that her testimony was important, then recognized how easily he could turn her problem into a test of courage that cost him nothing.

“Go to work,” Imani said before Daniel could speak. “We already have your statement, and you can tell us later what happens.”

Margo looked relieved and ashamed at once. Rafael moved his chair closer to her. “If they change the schedule again, text me. I’ll help you get home.”

At nine, the labor center’s representative, Anika Price, arrived with a legal pad and two colleagues. She explained the difference between the redevelopment board’s power to approve a concession and the labor agency’s authority to investigate wage complaints. The hearing might delay the contract, she warned, but it could not settle every worker’s claim. Some questions would require months of documentation and individual follow-up.

“I don’t want you walking in there thinking one good speech fixes everything,” Anika said. “It doesn’t. What it can do is make it harder for the city to pretend it was never warned.”

Imani’s shoulders lowered slightly. “I can do that.”

Anika asked who would speak. Imani, Rafael, Nessa, Ada, Lorna, and Daniel raised their hands. Tomas hesitated. He feared speaking publicly because his brother worked for a different waterfront contractor, and a rumor could spread quickly enough to affect both their jobs.