Maybe one of the mechanics.

Maybe Savannah’s team before they ever arrived.

Within twenty minutes a deputy was standing in the office asking for invoices, records, and access to the computers.

Denny kept trying to pull me into it.

He told the deputy I was disgruntled.

Said I probably tampered with service logs.

Said I wanted his job.

It would have been laughable if my name hadn’t actually been on those fake records.

Savannah’s lawyer shut that down fast.

He had payroll reports, timestamp discrepancies, camera footage from one Row property proving work had never been performed on a date Buck’s Garage billed for it, and my actual punch records showing I had been inside the shop on multiple days I was supposedly servicing properties an hour away.

For the first time since I’d worked there, I watched Denny run out of road.

He was escorted into the office while the deputy started taking statements.

I stood in the middle of the garage feeling strangely unsteady.

The same place I’d dragged myself into every morning suddenly felt unfamiliar, like a stage set after the lights come up.

Savannah approached me quietly.

“You don’t have to answer now,” she said.

“But the offer is real.

Salary, housing on the north tract if you want it, benefits, school transportation for your son, and full authority to document every problem you find.

I need someone who can tell me the truth even when it’s ugly.”

I looked at her.

“Why would you trust me with all that after one roadside repair?”

She was silent for a moment.

Then she said, “Because my father built everything we have by pretending character mattered more than image.

After he died, I learned how many polished men around me could smile while they stole.

Out in that rain, you never once tried to impress me.

You never looked at my truck and saw a payday.

You looked at a problem and fixed it.

People like that are rarer than land.”

I didn’t know what to say.

So I told the truth.

“I don’t have office clothes,” I said.

To my surprise, she laughed.

“Good,” she said.

“Neither do the irrigation lines.”

That was the moment I believed her.

A week later, Liam and I moved into a small farmhouse on Savannah’s north tract.

It wasn’t a mansion.

It was an old white place with a wraparound porch, a stubborn front door, and a kitchen bigger than our entire trailer.

Liam ran from room to room like he’d discovered a castle.

When he saw there was a swing hanging from an oak tree in the yard, he looked at me with pure shock.

“We live here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, though it still didn’t feel real.

“For real?”

“For real.”

The work itself was harder than anything I’d done before.

Savannah hadn’t exaggerated the damage.

Some buildings were one storm away from collapse.

Water systems had been patched with junk parts.

Electrical panels were dangerously wired.

One tenant family had spent a winter using space heaters because the heating repairs billed to Buck’s Garage had never actually happened.

Every day I found something new to be angry about.

Every day I wrote it down.

Savannah kept her promise.

She gave me authority, and more importantly, she backed