only the rot beneath the gilding.
The dinner had been a masterclass in performance. Course after course of fine French cuisine served on silver platters, accompanied by the polite, rhythmic clinking of crystal. Shiv watched Tejal closely. She was talking about "the continuity of tradition," her voice a smooth, practiced melody that usually lulled everyone into submission. She had no idea that the digital evidence of her greatest betrayal—the high-resolution scan of a photograph she thought she had destroyed twenty years ago—was already loaded onto the mansion’s internal media server.