The guards around the ballroom began to move.
Derek’s men reached beneath their jackets. Victor’s men did the same. The guests drew back, gowns whispering against marble, champagne trembling in glass stems.
Derek laughed once, sharp and ugly. “You think you can touch what belongs to me?”
Victor did not look away. “She does not belong to you.”
The room inhaled.
Derek turned to me, and the mask he wore for Chicago slipped just enough for everyone to glimpse the thing beneath.
“Lena,” he said softly, dangerously, “come here.”
My body almost obeyed.
That frightened me more than his anger.
For two years, Derek had trained my fear to answer faster than my mind. My foot shifted before I stopped it.
Victor saw that too.
“You don’t have to move,” he said.
Derek smiled, but his eyes burned. “This is between me and my fiancée.”
“No,” Victor said. “It stopped being private when you put bruises under couture and called it love.”
The ballroom erupted in whispers.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Derek’s face went still.
“What did you say?”
Victor reached into his jacket. Derek’s men tensed, but Victor only removed a small black device no bigger than a coin. He held it between two fingers.
I recognized it.