"That your already disgraced son — your already scandal-ridden, already reputation-destroying son — tried to rape a girl."
The word dropped onto the table like a bloody knife.
Thud.
Anderson shivered.
Not some subtle little twitch and controlled flinch. But rather a full-body, bone-deep shudder that started in his shoulders, raced down his spine, and made the silverware beside his plate rattle against the porcelain like it was terrified too.
The scar — that long, ugly vertical line splitting his face from forehead to chin, still pink black, raw, and raised despite the best surgeons Legacy money could buy — seemed to pulse with vicious memory.
He remembered.
How could he not?
The freezing cold. The blade that wasn't metal. The dagger forged from something darker than darkness itself, edged in ice that burned worse than fire.
