The crystal champagne glass slipped out of his hand and shattered on the boards at his feet, and the sound of it cracked across the suddenly quiet room.

“Sabrina—” His voice came out strangled, amplified, helpless.

“What are you— what are you doing standing next to him?”

My father did not answer him.

He did not so much as look at him.

And before Gavin could gather another word, a man stepped to the main microphone at the side of the stage — the chairman of Crestview’s risk committee, a steady, iron-voiced man named Douglas Sterling — opened a thick black binder, and began to speak.

Chapter 15 — The Announcement