Lila said nothing. Her silence was defiance carved in ice.
"WHO?" he roared.
The sound cracked through the foyer like a whip. Every body below flinched
Lila's voice came low, steady, lethal. "I did."
"Bullshit." He lunged, seizing her wrist in a grip that turned her skin white around his fingers. She flinched—an involuntary, practiced recoil that sliced me deeper than any scream could have. "You don't have a key."
"I picked the lock," she said. "With a bobby pin. Funny… you never had to teach me that."
His face twisted, ugly with rage and disbelief. "You ungrateful little—"
"Careful," she interrupted, voice soft but razor-sharp. "Finish that sentence. Say it loud. Let everyone hear exactly what I am to you."
The crowd had become a single breathing organism—tense, horrified, phones trembling in outstretched hands. Someone near the stairs started forward; a friend grabbed his sleeve and hissed, "Don't, you'll make it worse."
