Roman backed away from the mahogany, his swagger gone all at once, looking from the detectives to the investors — and the investors, every one of them, turned their faces away from him, would not meet his eyes, the way a room turns from a thing it is ashamed to have believed.

“Simone.

Simone, please,” he said, and his voice cracked as the steel closed around his wrists.

“We can talk about this.

Think about everything we built together.” I looked down, once, at my own wrist, where a faint purple had come up beneath the skin overnight — the last small evidence of the man he became whenever he was certain no one could see him.

Then I looked back up at him.