PROOF IS LIVE! KINDLE! PAPERBACK!

In Vinny DeCarlo’s world, no one is honored while they are alive.

Recognition changes behavior. Praise distorts motive. So the Legacy Accolades Archive waits until death, then records only what can be proven.

Vinny trusts the system.

Then his father dies.

Vincent DeCarlo Sr.
Verified Contributions: 12.

Clean. Reasonable. Final.

Until Vinny opens a storage unit and finds a card catalog containing six hundred names—people his father helped before their lives became measurable.

People who almost quit.

People who almost disappeared.

People who needed one more conversation. One more chance. Ten more minutes.

The Archive counted what those people eventually accomplished.

It just never counted the man who helped them get there.

Now Vinny has to confront a flaw in a system he still believes in:

What if the record is accurate—and still misses the truth?

PROOF is a speculative novella about fathers and sons, legacy, invisible labor, and the people whose greatest contribution may be helping someone else survive long enough to make one of their own.

Some lives leave proof.
Others leave people.