“Then you will have no objection to opening it in front of witnesses.”
The man froze.
That answer was louder than anything he could have said.
Grace looked at me.
I knew that expression.
I had seen it when we were children and she realized someone had lied to her.
The brightness disappeared first.
Then came the frightening concentration that had eventually carried her into law school.
She turned toward the blond man.
“You asked me when I was leaving.”
He said nothing.
“You asked whether my sister and I had driven here.”
Still nothing.
“You asked whether I was going directly home afterward.”
The cruelty Luca had shown her had wounded her.
But now she understood something worse: the men who had seemed kind had been measuring her usefulness.
One of Grace’s classmates stepped forward.
“He asked me the same questions last month.”
The blond man rounded on him.
“Be careful.”
The threat came out before he could stop it.
The classmate recoiled.
Luca’s eyes sharpened.
“There you are.”
The blond man looked toward the entrance.
One of Luca’s men was already standing there.
Nobody had touched him.
Nobody needed to.
The ballroom had become its own cage.
I scrolled backward through my photographs.
Now that I knew what I was looking for, patterns emerged.
The blond man near Grace’s bag.
One companion watching the doors.
Another speaking to someone near the coat check.
Then an image I had taken almost accidentally: the blond man accepting the cream-colored envelope from his companion near an ice sculpture fifteen minutes earlier.
“I have another one.”
Everyone turned toward me.
I showed Grace first.
Her lips parted.
Then I showed Luca.
His face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
“That matters,” he said.
The blond man lunged toward my camera.
He never reached me.
Luca stepped between us with startling speed and caught him by the wrist.
There was no dramatic fight.
No shouting.
Just a sudden stop.
Luca leaned closer.
“You have made several poor decisions tonight.”
The man tried to pull free.
Luca released him immediately, almost contemptuously.
Hotel security finally began moving through the crowd toward us, summoned by someone who had recovered enough courage to act.
The blond man pointed at Luca.
