Rory
I was still shaken from the hallway when the noise started near the ballroom's entrance, loud enough to cut clean through the string quartet's carefully curated ambiance, and I turned to find Knox Calloway strolling in like he'd been personally invited, which, given the way security immediately converged on him, he very clearly hadn't.
"Relax," he said to the two men in dark suits attempting to intercept him, holding both hands up in a gesture of mock surrender that didn't slow his stride at all. "I'm not here to steal the silverware. Just here to congratulate an old friend on his family's generosity." He scanned the room with theatrical interest, landing on Dray across the crowd with a grin that had considerably more teeth in it than warmth. "There he is."
The room's noise dipped,
