He didn't walk; he ran. He reached the table out of breath. He looked at Camille—cream-covered, bleeding, sitting upright like a soldier who refused to fall. His eyes burned.
"That's enough," Gerald said, his voice shaking. "That is enough."
Preston smirked. "And who exactly are you to tell a Harrington what's enough?"
"I'm calling Raymond," Gerald said. He pulled out his phone. His fingers were unsteady. He dialed: one ring, two rings, three. "Raymond, it's Gerald." His voice cracked. "You need to come now. Right now. They've hurt Camille. They've... just come, please."
He hung up and turned to look at the security camera mounted in the upper corner of the ballroom. The small red light blinked steadily. It had been recording since the first guest walked through the door: every word, every laugh, every second of what Preston Harrington had just done.
Gerald looked back at Camille. She was still sitting upright, still refusing to cry, frosting in her hair, blood drying at her temple, the towel Nina had given her clutched in both hands like a lifeline. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to say, "Your father is coming, and when he gets here, everything changes." But he didn't. He just stood beside her chair—close enough that she could feel someone was there; close enough that Preston would have to go through him to touch her again. It was the least he could do, and he knew it wasn't enough.
Victoria Harrington set her champagne glass down. The crystal made a sharp clink against the table. She folded her hands in her lap and looked at Camille the way a landlord looks at a tenant who is three months behind on rent.
"I think we've had enough entertainment for one evening," she said. Her voice carried the kind of authority that comes not from volume, but from generations of never being questioned. She turned to Preston. "Get her out."
Preston didn't need to be told twice. He snapped his fingers at the two security guards stationed near the kitchen entrance. They were private contractors hired by the Harrington family as a condition of attending the gala, not Fletcher Global employees: Harrington muscle in Fletcher Global's house.
"Gentlemen," Preston called. "We have a situation. This woman is causing a disturbance. Remove her from the premises."
The guards looked at each other, then at Gerald, who was still standing beside Camille's chair.
Gerald stepped forward. "These men don't have authority here. This is a Fletcher Global event. I'm the director of—"
"You're the director of nothing that matters right now," Victoria cut him off without raising her voice. "The Harrington Group is your largest pending partner: $550 million. I suggest you think very carefully about whose side you'd like to be on tonight."