Chapter 31: Louder than Words

Dominic had been following the news obsessively from home despite his indefinite suspension, waiting for the next scandal to break.

Surely something would go wrong.

Instead, one major television channel was reporting:

VANCE-MERCER JOINT PROJECT COMPLETES FIRST TRANSITION MILESTONE

He changed the channel, only to find another headline that did nothing for his mood.

EMPLOYMENT REMAINS STABLE DESPITE PARTNERSHIP CHANGES

Dominic’s expression tightened.

Another press of the remote brought him to a network that had spent the past several days eagerly dissecting the fallout from his broken engagement. Apparently, even they were changing their tune.

MERCER GROUP KEEPS MAJOR BRIDGE PROJECT ON SCHEDULE

Dominic threw the remote onto the couch.

"Damn those two."

What irritated him most was that neither Alexander nor Giovanni had publicly answered him because, as it turned out, they hadn’t needed to.

Every accusation Dominic made about Alexander acting recklessly was met with projects that kept moving forward. Employees were still getting paid, schedules were being met, and the disastrous fallout everyone had predicted simply wasn’t happening.

To make matters worse, Andrei had already dismissed Dominic’s PR strategy as self-serving. His own brother, currently sitting in the CEO position that should have belonged to Dominic, apparently had no intention of helping him salvage the narrative.

Meanwhile, Alexander refused to give the media the wounded ex-fiancé they wanted, while Giovanni seemed perfectly content to let Mercer Group’s results speak for themselves.

Dominic had spent days making sure his side of the story was heard.

Yet somehow, the two men who weren’t saying a damned thing were speaking louder than he was.

At the Bridge

The people working on the bridge were beginning to notice the difference too.

Some of the older employees had spent enough years on major projects to watch executives, contractors, and project managers come and go. They knew which visits actually mattered and which ended the moment the photographs were taken.

Neither Alexander Vance nor Dominic Sebastian had ever been a regular presence at the bridge. There hadn’t been much reason for them to be. Projects of this size had managers and engineers precisely so CEOs didn’t need to spend their afternoons standing around construction sites pretending they knew more about concrete than the people pouring it.

Now, however, Alexander and Giovanni were showing up together for scheduled executive reviews.

They didn’t hover over the engineers or interfere with the Project Manager’s decisions. Mostly, they listened. If something delayed the project, they wanted to know what it was, who could fix it, and whether that person had the authority and resources to do so.

Anything requiring an executive decision went to them. Everything else remained with the people hired to handle it.

Then, once the review was finished, Alexander and Giovanni went back to their respective offices.

After several visits, however, something considerably less important began creeping into the routine.

Food.

It started when Giovanni arrived with more sandwiches than two executives could reasonably need and simply left the extras behind.

The following week, Alex showed up with drinks for everyone.

Neither man acknowledged the developing pattern, but the workers certainly noticed. Before long, some of them paid almost as much attention to what arrived with the CEOs as they did to the executives themselves.

The site reviews remained focused on work, of course. Problems were raised, and decisions were made, but afterward there might be sandwiches waiting on the table or enough cold drinks to make a hot afternoon slightly more tolerable.

It wasn’t anything worth issuing a press release over, which was perhaps exactly why people remembered it.

And while Dominic sat at home waiting for something to go wrong, work on the bridge continued moving forward.

Former Classmates

Around the same time, plans for their upcoming high school reunion began circulating among former classmates.

Naturally, it didn’t take long for someone to start digging up old photographs.

The first to attract attention was a Student Council photo showing Alexander and Giovanni standing side by side during the year they’d run against each other for Student Council President.

Someone apparently remembered that particular election very well.

Giovanni won.

A reply appeared almost immediately.

Alex demanded a recount.

He was joking!

That’s what Alex claimed.

Another former classmate chimed in.

He demanded it twice.

For dramatic effect.

That earned enough laughing reactions to keep the argument going until someone unearthed photographs from an old debate competition, at which point everyone promptly found something else to argue about.

Giovanni won Best Speaker. Dominic placed second. I placed third.

The third-place winner apparently felt compelled to add some historical context.

Dominic shook my hand afterward but refused to congratulate Giovanni. I still remember how awkward that was, especially since we were teammates.

That brought the absent member of Giovanni’s debate team into the conversation.

Giovanni shook everyone’s hand after competitions, whether he won or lost.

Someone came to Dominic’s defense.

Dominic usually did too.

A moment later, another reply appeared.

As long as he won.

That one received far too many laughing reactions.

By then, the reunion chat had developed enough momentum that graduation photographs were inevitable. One showed Giovanni at the podium delivering the valedictory address before hundreds of students and their families.

Remember when everyone joked that the Sebastian family’s auditorium donation guaranteed Dominic valedictorian?

Turns out grades still mattered.

Someone immediately objected.

To be fair, Giovanni earned it anyway.

No one argued with that.

Then another photograph appeared.

Dominic stood among the graduating class in his black toga, a loyalty award pinned proudly to his chest. Around him, rows of students had risen from their seats.

Dominic hadn’t.

At the front of the auditorium, Giovanni Mercer had just finished his valedictory address and was receiving a standing ovation.

For several seconds, nobody replied.

Then someone reacted with a single laughing emoji.

Another followed.

Nobody needed to explain the photograph.

The conversation might have continued in much the same way if another former classmate hadn’t brought up someone who wasn’t in any of the photographs.

Does anyone remember Mr. Arturo?

Several people did.

Mr. Arturo had been part of the school’s maintenance staff for years, the sort of familiar presence students became so accustomed to seeing that most probably hadn’t realized how often they encountered him. He was usually somewhere around campus fixing something, checking the grounds, or making sure whatever students had managed to break that week was put back together before they could do it again.

One former classmate remembered something else.

Mr. Arturo and Giovanni stayed in touch for years after graduation.

That surprised a few people.

Seriously?

Yeah. There’s actually a story behind that.

Apparently, while they were still students, Mr. Arturo had once stopped coming to work without much explanation. At first, nobody thought much of it. People got sick, took leave, or simply had days when they couldn’t come in.

Giovanni noticed.

Not because anyone had asked him to check, but because Mr. Arturo wasn’t in any of the places where Giovanni had grown accustomed to seeing him.

He asked one of the staff where Mr. Arturo was; the former classmate explained. Nobody seemed to know, so Giovanni went to his house after school.

By himself?

As far as I remember, yes.

Mr. Arturo lived alone and had no immediate family nearby. By the time Giovanni reached his home, the older man had already spent most of the day sick in bed without anyone realizing he needed help.

Giovanni informed the school, and assistance was arranged soon afterward.

That should have been the end of it.

Apparently, it wasn’t.

For the next few days, Giovanni kept stopping by after class.

Someone responded:

I remember that!

Another message followed.

Didn’t his mom send food?

Yeah. Soup, mostly.

The first classmate confirmed it.

Soup or porridge from Mrs. Mercer’s kitchen, depending on the day. Other times, Giovanni brought fruit from their backyard. He’d drop everything off after class and check whether Mr. Arturo needed anything.

Someone reacted with a heart.

Another former student added:

Mr. Arturo used to talk about him all the time after that.

They really stayed friends?

For years.

The conversation quieted for a moment.

Nothing particularly dramatic about a high school student noticing that someone who was usually around had suddenly disappeared. Giovanni hadn’t saved the school or done anything worthy of an award. He had simply noticed that a man most students barely thought about was missing, cared enough to find out why, and kept checking on him even after the immediate problem was handled.

For Mr. Arturo, apparently, that had been enough to remember.

Years later, whenever former students encountered him, he still spoke fondly of the Mercer boy who had once arrived at his home carrying soup from Ysabella’s kitchen.

Someone eventually typed:

Okay, that’s actually sweet.

Another replied:

Don’t tell Mercer. He had a reputation to maintain.

That earned several laughing reactions.

Too late. Mr. Arturo told everyone who’d listen.

The reunion chat eventually moved on, as group chats always did, drifting from unfortunate yearbook photographs to what had become of everyone since graduation.

But the old stories remained.

Dominic could give interviews and repeat his version of events as often as he wanted, but he couldn’t control what other people remembered.

And the more they remembered, the less they needed him telling them what to think.