Chapter 30 · Break the Rule

Chapter 30: Break the Rule

The chute spat me out onto cold steel, and I hit the console hard enough to taste blood.

"Move!" Luca's voice cracked through the dust behind me, and his hand closed on my collar before I even got my knees under me.

The hearing room was already lit — camera lights, three state reporters, my father standing at the podium with a warrant in his fist like it was a trophy. Behind him, a clerk had a pair of cuffs halfway out of a box.

"There she is." My father didn't even look surprised. "June Pell, by order of this office, you're detained for obstruction and—"

"Play it first." I shoved past Luca, slammed the cassette down on the live board, and jammed it into the deck before anyone could stop me. "Or are you scared of your own daughter's voice, Dad?"

His jaw went tight. "Turn that off."

"No." My hand was shaking on the fader, but I pushed it up anyway. The red ON AIR light burned over the booth door. Every reporter's pen stopped moving.

The tape hissed, then my father's own voice filled the room — clipped, flat, three years old.