Slowly, I lifted my eyes to Damon.

He was already shifting in his seat, his gaze cutting toward the two security men by the wall.

I could see him deciding it, in real time — that the moment I became a problem, he would have me removed, the poor unhinged mother, mad with grief, and no one would think twice, and the cremation would go ahead on schedule.

And here is the thing I understood in that half-second, the thing that turned my fear into something harder: his whole defense, if it ever came to one, was already sitting right there in the room, and it was me.