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“Yeah,” Adrián said. “I had to give a statement earlier that we haven’t sold any bags of sugar in the last ten days to any customers.” Adrián looked from Becky to Will, his expression solemn.

Sweat pooled on the back of Will’s neck. Beside him, he felt Becky tense.

“Well, we haven’t,” Becky said with an edge that dared anyone to contradict her.

“I know,” Adrián said. “And I refused to hand over my records because they didn’t have a court order. But after they left, I had a look through them.”

Adrián paused, as if considering what he was going to say next. The tension was so thick Will couldn’t breathe.

“I found… a small discrepancy in the records for the sugar,” Adrián said.

And there it was.

“That’s my fault,” Becky jumped in. “I think I forgot to mark off the last time my uncle came in. He bought some sugar for his bees, and–”

“Wait, that’s not–” Will fumbled. He’d be damned if Becky was going to take the fall for what he’d been doing.

“It’s not something I’m blaming either of you for,” Adrián said, cutting them both off. “I’m just letting you know that the records I keep are done in pencil. I corrected the error, and now everything’s square. We haven’t sold or lost any sugar bags recently.”

“Oh,” Becky said, recovering quicker than Will. “That’s smart, using pencil.”

Adrián gave a shrug. “I'm a Puerto Rican man with his own business. I’ve had more than my share of men on power trips. I know some about how to protect myself and others.”

Will looked from Adrián to Becky.

“You’re not gonna… tell them about the sugar?” Will shouldn’t have said it, but he had to.

Adrián met Will’s eyes. He had dark, steady eyes. Nice eyes. “The way I see it, those bastards almost flooded my store, and have nearly destroyed my business with all this construction. If I could, hypothetically, donate two bags of sugar to stop them, that’s a small price to pay.”

“I didn’t know you were… against the construction,” Will said softly. But he and Adrián had never had a conversation that wasn’t about work. Most days Adrián wasn’t even on the floor much, busy doing the business side of things.

Adrián laughed with a bitter edge. “One of the shops they want to stick in that strip mall they’re trying to build is a chain grocery store. The predatory type that would undercut my prices. ¡Qué cabrónes!”

“Oh,” Will said.

“Yeah. So don’t sweat it.” Adrián leaned in, smacking Will softly on the shoulder. “This meeting was more for us getting our story straight. We don’t know nothin’, we haven’t seen nothin’, and we didn’t sell no sugar to no one.”

“Right,” Becky said. “I’m with you, Boss.”

Two sets of eyes turned on Will expectantly.

A feeling swelled in the bottom of Will’s rib cage, both heart crushing and feather light at the same time.

“Yeah,” Will said, ignoring the way his voice almost cracked, “I’m with you.”

###

The next three days were agony.

The story of the vandalism ran in the newspaper and on the local news. Security was brought in to stand night guard at the construction site alongside the fencing. The ruined machines were towed out, and a lot of angry men in suits threw tantrums in the grocery store parking lot. On more than one occasion, Will saw them throw empty cans at the Mexican workers in the sweltering heat.

Will wanted to go out and do something about it, but couldn’t. So far Will hadn’t been arrested, and he wanted to keep it that way. Itori couldn’t afford to lose Will, not now.

With all the security, Will didn’t go to Mercale the first two nights, and was practically vibrating with desperation through the following work day. He knew he should wait longer to see Itori, should let the heat die down.

But Itori didn’t have that kind of time. Already, the men in suits were draining the water, even without the excavators. They were using the sheer willpower of the day laborers to dig trenches. When Will had walked home last night, the orange grove had been dryer.

Drained.