Isadore didn't look at Ali. He looked at the crowd.
"I was on the terrace," he said, his voice carrying a deliberate weight. "My view of the pool deck was... unobstructed."
He pointed a gloved finger at Catarina.
"I saw her put two hands on Miss Lancaster's back and shove."
Catarina's knees gave out. She collapsed into her mother's arms, wailing.
"No! He's lying!" Mrs. Collins screamed. "He's lying to protect her!"
Isadore slowly turned his head to look at Mrs. Collins. It was like watching a lion turn its attention to a yapping dog.
"Are you questioning my eyesight, Mrs. Collins?" he asked softly. "Or my integrity?"
The room went cold. Questioning Isadore Walker's integrity in D.C. was a death sentence for one's social and financial life. He was the Shadow Regent. He held the secrets of half the Senate in his safe.
Mrs. Collins clamped her mouth shut, trembling.
Isadore gestured to the shadows behind him. A man stepped forward. He wore a rumpled suit and wire-rimmed glasses.
Bertram Schmidt. The Federal Prosecutor.
A collective gasp went through the room. Why was the Federal Prosecutor at a debutante ball?
"Mr. Walker invited me for a drink," Schmidt said, adjusting his glasses. "We were discussing... policy. He directed my attention to the pool just moments before the incident."
Two witnesses. One was the most powerful power broker in the city, the other was the law itself.
"Given the depth of the pool and the weight of the victim's dress," Schmidt continued, his tone dry and clinical, "this constitutes attempted murder. Or at the very least, aggravated assault with intent to cause great bodily harm."
"Arrest her," Schmidt said to the security team.
"Daddy!" Catarina screamed as the guards moved in. "Daddy, do something!"
Her father, Mr. Collins, stood frozen in the crowd, looking at Isadore. He knew better than to intervene. He looked away.
As Catarina was dragged out, kicking and screaming obscenities, the ballroom felt strangely empty.
Isadore finally moved. He walked over to Ali.
He stood close. Too close for a stranger. She could smell the tobacco smoke clinging to him.
He began to peel off his black leather gloves. Finger by finger. The movement was slow, deliberate, almost hypnotic.
"Your hand," he said.
Ali looked down at her right hand. It was stinging. Her palm was red from the force of the slap.
"It's fine," she said.
"It's red," he corrected.
He held out his gloves.
"Next time," he said, his voice dropping an octave so only Ali could hear, "wear these. You shouldn't bruise your skin on trash."
Ali's breath hitched.
This was... intimate. Possessive.
The debutantes nearby were staring with their mouths open. Isadore Walker, the Ice King, was offering his gloves to the girl who just fell in a pool?
Ali took the gloves. The leather was still warm from his hands.
"Thank you, Mr. Walker," she said.
His eyes narrowed slightly at the formal address.
"Isadore," he corrected.
Senator Ellwood bustled over, sweating profusely. "Mr. Walker, thank you for... clarifying things. Though, surely, arrest is a bit harsh? It's just a girls' spat..."
Isadore turned on him.
"Ellwood," he said, his voice like a whip crack. "Your daughter was nearly drowned. And you are worried about the optics?"
Ellwood flinched. "I... no, of course not. I just..."
"You are a disappointment," Isadore said. He didn't shout, but the words echoed.
He turned back to Ali, and for a moment, she saw the man from her vision. The man who had burned the world for her.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Ali clutched his gloves. "I am now."
He nodded, once. "Good."
He didn't leave. He stood beside her, a dark monolith, creating a barrier between her and the rest of the world.
