Mason stopped laughing the moment the laptop opened.
He couldn’t see the screen from where he stood, but something in my expression must have warned him that the conversation had changed.
His hand lowered slowly from the champagne glass.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
Sophia remained on the staircase, one hand gripping the railing.
The reception continued around us, but the mood near the side table had shifted.
Guests were still talking.
Glasses still clinked.
Yet several people had begun watching us.
My phone contained a single message from Karen Silva.
Preserve everything.
Do not forward the originals.
I’m coordinating now.
I turned the laptop slightly toward Sophia.
“Come here,” I said.
Mason laughed again, but this time there was strain underneath it.
“Seriously, Preston? It’s your wedding night.
Whatever little argument she’s dragged you into can wait until morning.”
Sophia descended the stairs one step at a time.
Her mother looked between us.
“Sophia? What’s happening?”
Sophia stopped beside me.
For years, according to what she’d told me upstairs, that question had never been asked when it mattered.
Now everyone wanted an answer.
Mason tried to move closer to the laptop.
I closed it.
“Don’t touch it.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
For the first time all evening, he wasn’t looking at me like the harmless husband who shuffled paperwork.
He was measuring me.
Then he turned to Sophia.
“What did you tell him?”
Her shoulders stiffened.
I saw immediately how familiar that tone was to her.
Not loud.
Not wild.
Controlled.
The voice of a man accustomed to making threats sound like ordinary questions.
I stepped between them.
“You can talk to me.”
Mason’s face hardened.
“This is family business.”
“She’s my family.”
The room seemed to contract around those words.
Sophia’s mother rose from her chair.
“Mason, maybe we should go.”
He didn’t look at her.
“Nobody’s going anywhere.”
Then my phone rang.
Karen.
I answered and walked several feet away, keeping Mason in sight.
“I reviewed the summary you sent,” she said.
“If the originals match what you’ve described, we have more than a domestic intimidation issue.
