Part 3 — The Performance

By six-thirty, the dining hall of our suburban estate glowed with candlelight. The catering staff moved with silent, synchronized precision, pouring champagne into crystal flutes and passing trays of caviar tartlets among the early arrivals.

I stood near the grand piano in a floor-length black silk gown. The wide right sleeve hid the fiberglass cast and the sling beneath it. I’d done my makeup with careful, left-handed patience — covering the dark circles, painting my lips a sharp red.

Marcus stood in the center of the room, ringed by his senior partners, a glass of twenty-year-old scotch in hand, gesturing grandly as he bragged about his latest acquisitions.

“Yes, the market’s volatile,” he boomed over the soft jazz, “but it’s all about leverage and control. Control the narrative, and you control the outcome.”

His mother, a severe woman dripping in diamonds, crossed to me, her eyes scanning my gown with cold disapproval. “Clara, why are you standing so rigidly?

And why are you keeping your right hand buried in your skirts? It looks unnatural.”