First message
The champagne flute doesn't break.
It shatters.
One moment it's in my hand—crystal, expensive, the kind of glass Maximus’ decorator spent far too much money on—and the next it's fragments across the white tablecloth, champagne soaking into linen, a thin line of blood already welling up across my palm.
I don't feel the cut.
All I feel is the boy's hand on her arm.
Sterling. Some distant relation. Twenty years old. Blond. Patrician nose. The kind of insipid, soft-handed trust fund heir who's never wanted for anything in his entire privileged life. His hand is on her arm and he's leaning in and she's laughing. She's laughing at something he said.
"Adam?" Maximus’ voice. Concerned. Wary. He knows me too well to mistake stillness for calm. "Your hand—"
"Is fine."
It's not. The blood is dripping onto his mother's antique tablecloth. I don't care. I can't care about anything except the way his thumb is moving against her skin. Small circles. Intimate. Familiar.
Like he has the right.
"Adam." Maximus’ hand closes around my wrist. Gentle. Firm. A warning. "You're bleeding."
I look at him then. Really look. He’s watching me with those eyes—her eyes, he has her eyes—and there's something in his expression I can't read. Concern. Curiosity. The first whisper of suspicion.
"The glasses are too thin," I say. The words come out even. Controlled. I've spent thirty-eight years learning to sound calm when I want to tear something apart.