Vengeance would have had me pack the room.

Protection only needed enough honest witnesses that the recording and the metadata could not later be waved away as the delusion of a grieving, unstable daughter — which is precisely the story they would tell, because it is the story people like them always tell.

So I kept it small and true.

I brought the two people who deserved to know because they were being harmed or lied to, and I let the truth do the rest in front of whoever the word hospital had already gathered.

I did not need an audience.