coins from their father’s jacket and crying when caught.

Grant at twenty-three, promising he would pay back the money he borrowed for a truck that never existed.

Grant at forty-two, showing up at Sunday dinner with a charming smile and a new disaster in his pocket.

She had spent years calling it weakness.

Nora’s wrist told her to call it something else.

A door behind customer service swung open.

Mason Pike came out of the office hallway with his manager keys bouncing against his belt.

He was tall, neat, and always carried himself like the floor belonged to him.

Mara recognized him because Nora had mentioned him often in the careful, neutral tone teenagers use when they do not want parents to hear fear.

Mason did not ask why Nora was hurt.

He looked at the locked register.

“Everybody step back,” he said.

“Training error.”

Mara felt the words land wrong.

Lila Moreno, the front-end manager, arrived moments later with a tablet in her hand.

Her braid was falling loose, and a pencil was tucked behind her ear.

Unlike Mason, she looked first at Nora.

“What happened to your wrist?”

Grant answered before Nora could.

“She got flustered.

Tried to pull away while helping me.”

“I wasn’t helping him,” Nora said.

Lila held up one palm toward Grant without taking her eyes from the girl.

“Nora, did you authorize this transaction?”

“No.”

“Did you enter your PIN?”

“No.

He used it.

He knew it.”

Mason let out a short, polished laugh.

“She probably entered it yesterday and forgot.

Trainees get overwhelmed.”

Nora’s face changed.

Not anger yet.

Recognition.

“You told me to reset it yesterday,” she said.

Mason’s laugh ended.

Mara turned toward him.

“What?”

Nora kept her eyes on Lila now, as if she understood who might listen.

“Yesterday after school, Mr.

Pike told me my PIN was too easy to guess.

He took me to the break room computer and made me change it.

He stood right behind me.”

Mason’s lips tightened.

“We coach employees on security all the time.”

“With you standing behind a minor while she creates a private register PIN?” Lila asked.

“It was busy.

I was helping.”

“No,” Nora said.

“You told me not to write it down and not to tell my mom because she worries too much.”

The words hung there.

Mara’s anger wanted a simple direction.

Grant had hurt Nora.

Grant had brought the prepaid cards.

Grant had lied with his mouth still hot from the lie.

But Mason’s stillness, the way he watched Lila’s tablet, made the shape of the danger larger.

Lila approached the terminal and tapped through the locked screen.

Mason moved with her.

“I can clear the hold from here.”

Lila’s hand came down over the keypad.

“You will not touch this register.”

He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.

“Lila, don’t turn a training hold into theater.”

“The register already turned it into an audit.”

The beeping continued.

Lila entered her own credentials.

The red warning opened into a transaction map.

Mara could not understand every field, but she saw Nora’s employee number at the top, the six prepaid card numbers beneath it, the manual override attempt, and a line labeled reversal wallet.

Lila read the line twice.

Then she looked at Mason.

“What