COTTON EXCHANGE.
Beneath it now hung a sleek black iron sign:
HARPER & ASSOCIATES.
Clean serif lettering. Intentional.
Her mother had insisted on that, too.
“Let the brick tell the story,” she’d said. “You just frame it.”
A narrow exterior stairwell climbed along the side of the building, local artwork lining the wall as you rose—oil landscapes of the Blue Ridge, a few bold abstracts Frannie pretended not to understand but secretly loved.
At the top, double glass doors opened into the loft.
Exposed beams. Brick walls. Warm wood floors. Glass partitions separating offices and conference space so nothing felt closed in. Stylish without being cold. Expensive without showing off. Sylva clients didn’t need marble floors.
They needed to feel steady.
Frannie looked up from behind the reception desk as Eleanor stepped inside.
“You’re trending,” she said flatly.
Eleanor set her bag down. “That is not a sentence I ever want to hear again.”
Deck came in behind her and shut the door harder than necessary.
“Bloody vultures,” he muttered.
Frannie shot him a look. “Language.”
“They ambushed her.”
“They filmed,” Eleanor corrected.
Frannie slid a tablet across the desk.
The livestream clip was already circulating.
Eleanor on the courthouse steps beneath a caption in screaming white letters:
IS SYLVA SAFE?
The view count was climbing in real time.
“They clipped Charleston, too,” Frannie added.
Eleanor didn’t ask which segment. It was always the same one.
There it was.
Deck leaned forward, palms braced on Eleanor’s desk. His Irish brogue had softened over the years in North Carolina, but it was still unmistakable.
“You saw it,” he said.
“I handled it.”
“Aye. Ye did.” The lines beside his mouth deepened. Then softer, quieter: “But ye felt it.”
