Chapter 4: The Gala of Glass and Lies
I resurrected a dress I’d purchased a decade ago and never quite had the courage or occasion to wear—a deep, bruised-burgundy, floor-length gown. It was structurally simple, lacking sequins or lace, ensuring it didn’t announce itself aggressively, but it fit like armor. I had it dry-cleaned and pressed until the silk gleamed. I applied my own makeup, a process that took an agonizing forty-five minutes because my hands kept spasming with adrenaline.
Eli wore his tailored school blazer and a striped silk tie that made him look, as Blythe had once affectionately joked, like a tiny, ruthless barrister.
Sawyer had flown up to Ottawa a day early, claiming he needed to oversee the floral setups and manage VIP client relations. During the long drive to the airport, and the subsequent flight, Eli sat beside me in the back of the town car, utterly silent. At one point, he casually unzipped his bag, pulled out his tablet, and reviewed a spreadsheet, his face an unreadable mask of concentration.
“Are you nervous?” I asked softly, the city lights streaking past the window.
“No,” he replied, not looking up from the screen.
God help me, I believed him.
The gala was already a cacophony of wealth and pretense when we finally arrived. The Fairmont’s ballroom glittered with the specific, suffocating kind of excess that Sawyer worshipped. Crystal centerpieces everywhere, throwing fractured light. Floral arrangements cascading down the pillars that easily cost the equivalent of a mid-sized sedan. A string quartet was tucked near the grand entrance, furiously bowing away at Vivaldi while absolutely nobody listened to them.
Scanning the sea of tuxedos and silk, I recognized perhaps a dozen faces. The partners. The golfing buddies. The wives I had made hollow small talk with for over a decade. I was, as I had always been at these corporate pageants, merely a decorative companion. A prop to signify Sawyer’s stability.
That was the very first thing I intended to burn to the ground.
Sawyer spotted us from across the massive room. I watched, immensely satisfied, as all the blood rapidly drained from his perfectly tanned face. He abruptly excused himself from a cluster of laughing venture capitalists, navigated the crowded floor with panicked speed, and clamped his hand viselike onto my elbow, leaning in so close I could smell the expensive gin on his breath.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed through a forced, photogenic smile.
“I told you I’d be back in town Sunday,” I replied, my voice light, airy, and dripping with fabricated innocence.
“You didn’t explicitly say not to come,” I added pleasantly. “And Eli really wanted to see where you do all your… hard work.”
Eli slowly tilted his head back, looking up at his father with an expression of pure, terrifying neutrality. “Hi, Dad.”
Sawyer’s fingers dug deeper into my elbow, hitting the nerve. His eyes darted frantically between my serene face and Eli’s blank one. I could practically see the gears grinding behind his eyes—a rapid recalibration of risk assessment. Finally, his political survival instincts kicked in, and he forced a wider smile.
“Well… since you’re already here,” he muttered, steering us aggressively toward a table near the back and snapping his fingers at a passing server for stiff drinks.
He did not introduce us to Belle.
She was standing twenty feet away, near the grand stage, chatting with another executive’s wife. They were both holding flutes of vintage champagne. Both of them were hyper-aware of exactly where Sawyer was at all times. Belle wore a slinky, champagne-colored gown that clung to her youth. But it was the necklace that caught my eye. The heavy diamond pendant resting at her throat was a piece I had never seen on any credit card statement. It was the specific kind of extravagant jewelry a man buys when his guilt is running a few miles behind his lust.
I let the evening breathe. I played my part. I delicately ate the roasted duck. I made empty, polite conversation with the hedge fund manager to my left. And all the while, I watched Sawyer work the room. I watched him drift, gradually and naturally, back toward Belle’s orbit, exactly the way a compass needle inevitably swings north.
By nine o’clock, the alcohol was flowing freely, and caution had evaporated. They were standing together near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the canal. And then it happened. His hand instinctively reached out, coming to rest intimately at the base of her spine. It was the exact same possessive posture from Blythe’s rain-streaked photo. He hadn’t done it maliciously. He hadn’t planned to humiliate me. He had simply, in his arrogance, forgotten to remember that his wife and son were in the room.
Underneath the heavy linen tablecloth, Eli’s small hand found mine. He squeezed my knuckles once—quick, hard, and terrifyingly deliberate.
Then, my nine-year-old son let go, pushed his chair back, and stood up to begin the execution.
