Afterward, Maya approached me with tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t move when he hit you,” she said.
I remembered the ballroom, the silence, and every face frozen between fear and disbelief.
“You moved when you could,” I told her.
“Then you brought the phone.”
Outside the building, evening light reflected from the glass towers Adrian had once treated as monuments to himself.
ValeTech’s name still stood above the entrance, but his portrait was gone from the lobby.
I touched the faint scar inside my lower lip.
For years, Adrian had told me to know my place.
He believed my place was behind him, smiling while he took the microphone.
He was wrong.
My place was wherever I could stand in my own name, tell the truth without lowering my voice, and leave the room without asking his permission.
