The third clip: the cake platter. Preston grabbing Camille's braids. The slam. Frosting exploding across the linen. Sloan zooming in, laughing. Victoria sipping her champagne while her son held a young woman's face in a cake.
A woman in the audience covered her mouth. A man stood up from his chair and walked toward the exit before remembering the doors were locked.
The fourth clip: Preston yanking Camille's chair out, shoving her toward the guards. Sloan narrating: Natural selection at its finest. Victoria addressing the room: An unauthorized individual somehow gained access.
The footage stopped. The screens held on the final frame: Camille being walked toward the door, cream in her hair, blood on her forehead, two guards on either side.
Raymond let the silence do its work: five seconds, ten seconds—the longest ten seconds of Preston Harrington's life.
Then Raymond spoke. "The woman in that footage is Camille Fletcher." He paused. Let the last name land. "My daughter."
The ballroom erupted. Not in applause—in shock: gasps, whispered curses, chairs scraping as people turned to look at the Harrington table. Walter Reeves dropped his wine glass; it shattered on the floor, and no one bothered to pick it up.
Preston's face cycled through five emotions in three seconds: confusion, disbelief, recognition, fear, and something close to nausea. His mouth opened, but no words came out. For the first time all evening, Preston Harrington had nothing to say.
Victoria was faster. She stood up. Her composure was cracked, but not broken; forty years of boardroom politics had taught her how to perform calm under fire.
"Mr. Fletcher," she said. Her voice was steady, but her hands were not. "I'm sure there's been a misunderstanding. If we could speak privately—"
"There's nothing private about what you did," Raymond said. "You did it in front of three hundred people. You filmed it. You laughed. You called it fun." He turned to Preston. "And you? You put your hands on my daughter. You slammed her face into a plate. You did it for entertainment."
Preston stood up. "Mr. Fletcher, it was a joke! We didn't know she was—"
"She was what?" Raymond's voice cut like a scalpel. "She was my daughter? That's the part that bothers you? Not that you assaulted a woman? Not that you humiliated a human being? The only thing that scares you right now is that she's connected to someone with power."