The Williams' house had never felt this loud.
It wasn't the kind of noise that came from music or laughter. It was the heavy kind—the kind that pressed into the walls and left the air feeling thick.
From her bedroom upstairs, Amara could hear her uncle's voice rising again.
"I told you this would happen!" he shouted. "You think you can stand against men like Kane and not get hit? They will drag your name through the mud until you drown in it!"
Her father's voice answered, firm but tired.
"And what do you want me to do?" Senator Richard Williams replied. "Step down? Give him the victory he wants? Is that your solution?"
Amara sat on the edge of her bed, one ankle wrapped in a soft bandage, her phone in her hand. The bandaged foot throbbed now and then, but it wasn't as painful as the sound of her family being pulled apart downstairs.
She stared at the news article still open on her screen.
The headline flashed at her:
"SENATOR WILLIAMS LINKED TO SUSPICIOUS CONTRACT – IS THE 'CLEAN' IMAGE A LIE?"
She had read it three times already.
Her mother's voice joined the argument now, softer but strained.
"Both of you, calm down," Mrs. Williams said. "Shouting won't solve anything."
"It's easy for you to say," the uncle snapped. "It's not your name in the headline."
"It is my name too," the senator said quietly. "And my wife's. And my daughter's. Our faces are beside that article just as much as yours."
There was a heavy silence after that.
Amara dropped her phone beside her and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
She hated this.
Hated the way the media could post one thing and turn it into a storm. Hated the way strangers online, who had never met her father, now called him a thief or a hero depending on their mood.
A light knock sounded at her door.
"Come in," she called.
The door opened and her mother stepped in, her expression tired but trying to stay gentle.
"Hey," Mrs. Williams said. "How's the ankle?"
"Still attached to my body," Amara replied. "So I guess that's good."
Her mother smiled weakly and came to sit beside her.
"You should be resting," she said, touching Amara's bandaged foot. "You almost got hit by a car. As if we didn't have enough drama already."
"It wasn't that bad," Amara said, then paused. "Okay, maybe it was a little bad. But I'm fine."
Her mother studied her face for a moment.
"You saw the news," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Everyone has seen the news," Amara replied quietly. "It's everywhere."
She sat up again, leaning back against the headboard.
"Is it true?" she asked. "The contract stuff. The company they mentioned. The extra money that went somewhere else."
Her mother looked down at her hands.
"Politics is never completely clean, Amara," she said slowly. "Sometimes people make choices they think are practical at the time. Sometimes those same choices look ugly when someone pulls them out years later and puts them under a spotlight."
"That's not an answer," Amara said.
Her mother's shoulders sagged.
"Your father is not a perfect man," she said. "But he is not a monster. He did not steal to make himself richer. Nothing he did back then was for greed."
"Then what was it for?" Amara asked.
"For survival," her mother answered. "For gaining power in a system that was already dirty before he walked into it. He tried to be better than most. But 'better' doesn't always mean 'clean' in this world."
Amara was quiet.
Downstairs, her uncle started speaking again, lower this time, but she could still catch bits.
"…they're digging, Richard… this is just the beginning… they'll come for everything…"
Her mother stood up.
"Your father will talk to you later," she said. "For now, stay off your feet and don't read every comment you see online. It will only hurt you."
"I'm not a child, Mom," Amara said.
Her mother's eyes softened.
"I know," she replied. "That's why I want to protect you from things even adults struggle to handle."
She leaned over, kissed Amara's forehead, then walked out and closed the door behind her.
The room went quiet again.
Amara picked up her phone.
New notifications had popped up. Messages from friends. Some asking if she was okay. Others sending links to the article with "Have you seen this???"
She turned the phone face down on the bed and stared at the wall.
A name floated into her mind.
Daniel.
The idiot who almost hit her with his car. The stranger who stepped in to fix his mistake. The one person who didn't belong to this world of headlines and microphones and campaigns.
For a moment, she wanted to text him again, just to escape from all of this.
Then she shook the thought away.
He was just some guy.
Downstairs, the storm continued.
Her uncle's voice dropped to a cold, upset tone.
"I'm telling you, Richard, someone is feeding this to the media. This isn't random. This is targeted."
"You think I don't know that?" Senator Williams replied. "I know exactly who wants my name dragged like this. But I can't prove it. Not yet."
"What will you do?" the uncle demanded.
"What I have always done," the senator said. "Stand where I am. Answer questions. Face this head-on."
"And if more comes?" the uncle pressed.
There was a short silence.
"Then we deal with it when it arrives," the senator replied.
Amara closed her eyes.
She had grown up watching her father stand behind podiums, speaking with confidence. She had watched him smile in photos, shake hands, promise change.
She believed him.
But belief felt a lot more complicated when ugly files and numbers were thrown in your face.
A message alert buzzed from her phone.
She ignored it for a moment.
It buzzed again.
With a sigh, she picked it up and checked the screen.
A new text.
From Daniel.
"How's the wounded ankle and the political hurricane?"
Despite everything, a small smile pulled at her lips.
She stared at the message for a long second, then began to type.