“Not out of pity. Because she mattered.”

Alden’s composure cracked wide open. “Calder, you are making a scene. You don’t understand the history—”

“I understand enough,” Calder said, shutting him down.

The silence that followed was heavy enough to reshape the room. My father looked between Calder, Liora, and the watching crowd. The control he’d wielded for decades was slipping through his fingers in real time.

Then, blinded by panic and ego, he made his second mistake of the evening. He turned away from the bride and groom and walked straight toward me.

Chapter 5 — The Surrender of Ghosts

Alden marched between the tables, Griffin trailing a step behind like a panicked shadow. Both men had plastered polite smiles back onto their faces. That was always the most dangerous version of them.