No second man.

No proper equipment.”

Mr.

Voss took a step back.

“Careful.”

“I fell.” Derek’s voice stayed even, but his face had gone pale.

“Shattered my ankle.

Tore my knee.

You drove me to urgent care, told them I got hurt moving furniture, and said you’d handle the bills if I didn’t make trouble.”

The room went silent.

Even the stew seemed to stop bubbling.

Mr.

Voss looked at me and gave a short laugh.

“That is not your concern.”

But it was.

Because suddenly the leg brace was not just part of Derek.

It was evidence.

Derek reached into the pocket of his sweatshirt and pulled out a cracked old phone.

The screen was spiderwebbed, held together at one corner with tape.

“I kept the voicemail,” he said.

Mr.

Voss’s face changed completely.

Not guilt.

Fear.

Derek tapped the screen.

A voice filled my kitchen.

Martin Voss’s voice.

Derek, it’s Martin.

Listen, don’t mention the Holton stairs to anyone.

I’ll cover the clinic and give you light duty when you’re back.

You start talking about scaffolds and code issues, everybody loses.

Be smart.

The recording ended.

No one moved.

Caleb looked up at me with wide eyes, old enough to understand that something terrible had been said, too young to know what to do with it.

Mr.

Voss pointed at Derek.

“You think that proves anything?”

“It proves you knew,” Derek said.

“It proves you’re a bitter man who couldn’t keep a job.”

“I couldn’t climb stairs for months,” Derek said, and his voice finally cracked.

“You stopped answering calls.

The bills went to collections.

I lost my room.

Then my truck.

Then everything.”

My throat tightened.

All day, I had worried he might steal from me.

But someone had stolen from him first.

Mr.

Voss turned to me, switching tactics with practiced ease.

“Marissa, I have been patient with your late payments.

I would hate for this situation to affect your housing.”

There it was.

The sentence every struggling tenant hears in one form or another.

Be quiet or be homeless too.

For once, fear did not make me smaller.

It made me furious.

“You hid my repair request,” I said.

He blinked.

“Excuse me?”

“My son has asthma.

I told you about the damp smell under the sink.

I told you the door wouldn’t lock.”

“That unit is perfectly habitable.”

Derek turned and opened the cabinet under the sink.

A sour, wet smell rose immediately.

He had removed the warped board earlier, revealing the dark stain behind it.

Not just dirt.

Not just old wood.

A spreading patch of mold and rot where the pipe had been leaking slowly for months.

Mr.

Voss looked away first.

Derek said, “I took pictures before I touched anything.”

He handed me his phone.

There they were.

The doorframe before the repair.

The stripped screws.

The water damage.

The hidden complaint.

The mold behind the cabinet.

Time-stamped photos from that afternoon.

For the first time since I had moved into that apartment, I had proof.

Mr.

Voss reached for the paper on the table.

I grabbed it first.

His eyes sharpened.

“You’re making a mistake.”

“No,” I said, surprised by how calm I sounded.

“I made the mistake months ago when I believed you were just busy.”

Mr.

Voss looked