It was the security footage from earlier in the evening — the footage Rafael had secured, the footage that showed, in high definition, exactly what Preston had done to me, and exactly how the room full of his friends had stood and watched, and how his mother had raised her champagne glass while it happened.

It played, and the ballroom watched, and no one said a single word, because there is nothing to say in the presence of a thing that plain.

Dominic’s jaw tightened as it played.

That was all.

He did not move, and he did not speak, and none of my brothers laid a single hand on Preston Calloway that night, though every one of them was more than capable of it and every one of them, I have no doubt, wanted to.

And that restraint, that visible, disciplined restraint, was the whole point, and the thing I was proudest of.