"No," Sarah answered. "I can tell them he came to my property, called for Wyatt, threatened me, and kept talking after people with weapons started breaking my diner. I heard those things myself."
"You were upset about the damage to your property."
"Of course I was."
"You wanted someone held responsible."
"I still do," she said. "That's why I'm being careful about saying what I know."
Meeks paused, apparently considering whether the exchange had helped him. Then he moved to a different subject. Sarah answered the remaining questions without losing her composure, although she could feel sweat gathering beneath her collar by the time the judge excused her.
She walked back through the courtroom and sat beside Noel. He took her hand for a moment, squeezed it, and released it without speaking. The gesture reminded her of Martin waiting beside her when she learned to drive a tow truck, ready to intervene if needed but unwilling to do the work for her.
Other witnesses gave their accounts over the following days. A business owner named Lena Chavez described payments she said had been demanded under threat of disruption to her transport company. A former bookkeeper explained financial records she had kept after refusing to certify transactions that did not make sense. Investigators explained what could be established from lawfully obtained communications and where the records left gaps.
Sarah was struck by how many people had carried pieces of the same story without knowing it. Lena had believed her payments were a private humiliation no one else would understand. The bookkeeper had thought her concerns might cost her career if she expressed them too loudly. Evan had feared disappointing men who had given him a sense of belonging, and Wyatt had spent years calling complicity loyalty because the alternative threatened his identity.
No single witness had been the hero of the case. Sarah found that comforting. The story told by the evidence belonged to all of them, including people who had never stood within a hundred miles of her diner.
Wyatt testified on the sixth day. He arrived with Miriam Sloan and sat down slowly, wearing a plain jacket that failed to conceal his size but changed how he occupied the room. When Feld asked him about his role in the charter, he described it without boasting. He admitted that he had enforced rules, participated in intimidation, and accepted explanations for criminal conduct that he would not accept from anyone standing across the counter at the Junction.
Meeks questioned him about the benefits he might receive from cooperation. Wyatt acknowledged that he hoped his truthful assistance would be considered at sentencing. He also acknowledged that he had broken laws and harmed people before the attempt on his life. The defense asked whether he was testifying because he hated Graham.
Wyatt looked at his brother. Graham stared back, face carefully empty. Sarah saw a lifetime of shared history pass between them in a silence that was almost unbearable to witness.