The doors slammed shut behind him.
The silence that followed was worse than the noise.
Brooke stood very still in the center of the ballroom, surrounded by three hundred witnesses. Her mother was somewhere in the crowd, Ethan knew—he could practically feel Eleanor Sterling's fury radiating from the back of the room. But the older woman hadn't moved. Hadn't intervened. In this world, you let the wounded animal die alone.
"Miss Sterling." The man in the suit—Detective Harris, according to the badge on his chest—turned toward her. "We'd like to ask you some questions. Voluntarily, for now."
"Am I under arrest?"
"Not yet."
The distinction was not lost on anyone.
Brooke's chin lifted. "I want my lawyer."
"Of course."
As Detective Harris led her away, Brooke passed within inches of Ethan. She paused. Turned her head.
"You could have stopped this," she said softly. "You knew. You knew about the accounts. You knew what I was doing."
Ethan met her eyes. "I didn't know about the accounts until tonight."
"But you suspected." Her voice was barely a whisper now. "You suspected something. And you waited. You wanted to watch me fall."
"Maybe," Ethan said. "Or maybe I just wanted to see if you'd ever stop lying."
Brooke's expression fractured—just for a moment, just around the edges. Then the mask slid back into place.
"I never loved you," she said.
"I know."
Detective Harris touched her elbow. "This way, Miss Sterling."
She walked away without looking back.
Isabella appeared at Ethan's side. She had been so quiet he'd almost forgotten she was there.
"That was... something," she said.