“The betrayal,” General Salazar said, from across the room, in that same quiet that was so much heavier than shouting, “happened the moment you turned an infant into a pawn for your pride.

Everything after that is only consequence.”

Marisela watched Beaufort Ashworth through all of it, because he was the one member of that family she had never been able to fully read, and she wanted to understand, now, what he was made of.

She had half expected him to close ranks.

That was what powerful old men did, in her experience — they protected the family name above all, swept the ugliness into a back room, paid whoever needed paying, and called it loyalty.

Beaufort could have done that.