Emily shuddered, and Nora cringed inwardly at Mr. Salas making things worse, but he wasn’t wrong. Nora had seen the return address on that envelope. Will Sterling (another betrayal: his last name wasn’t even Pasternak! Instead, he had a name like a doctor on General Hospital, which Nora found extremely insulting) lived far south enough that coming up to this part of the city regularly would be a massive hassle, particularly given what he’d said about the way he worked. So he’d either neglect it or hire people to maintain it, which would mean more traffic in and out, more disruption.

Disruption was not the business of this building. Or at least it hadn’t been, not until lately.

“Can we stop this, Nora?” asked Mrs. Salas. “Do something about the bylaws?”

Nora swallowed, feeling shamed. If she’d been better about all this, she would’ve studied the bylaws right after Nonna had died. She would have paid more attention to the fact that they basically hadn’t been updated since the year Nonna had led the effort to take the building condo. She would’ve done whatever cleanup and updates were necessary while Donny was still alive, to make sure she prevented anything like this from happening.

But she hadn’t been better, at least not about this. She’d been figuring out her move and her work; she’d been dealing with paperwork from Nonna’s estate; she’d been grieving.

She cleared her throat. “We can’t, not really. When you all went in on this together, you made sure every decision about the building had to be made unanimously.”

Nora had always loved this part of the building’s story—a commitment they’d made to each other all these years ago, a seal on this found family they’d made together. Now, though—with Will Sterling out there, making plans—Nora had to admit that it was, as Nonna might have put it, very inconvenient!

“And so now we’d need Donny’s nephew,” said Mrs. Salas, shaking her head.

For a few seconds, the room was quiet, and Nora’s heart clenched. They’d all been so shocked to find it out—all this time, Donny had someone, and he’d never said a word. That, she knew, felt like a betrayal all its own.

“Terrible of him to do this,” said Jonah, his voice rough, and it wasn’t until he spoke again that she realized he wasn’t making the accusation against his longtime friend. “Turning that place into a hotel room.”

Emily sniffled, and Marian patted her hand again.

Mrs. Salas said, “How could he do this to Donny?”