Fortunately, Phantom was not here to judge him. So he surreptitiously checked the app he'd used to track her phone. If she had left the building, Victor made a dark plan to hunt her down and drag her back here. He would threaten her with whatever it took. This was his final revenge, and he was determined to see it through.

But apparently, there was no need to make such plans. According to the phone's app, she was still in the bathroom. Just a few hundred feet away from where Victor and her father sat now.

He glanced at Darrell Kingston. Dawn’s father was also on his phone, texting with his eyes intent on the screen.

Perhaps he thought if he ignored Victor long enough, he would simply go away. But there wasn't a chance in hell. He would stay here as Dawn's plus one, and he would clap loudest of all when Darrell received his award. He wouldn't leave this ceremony until a huge shadow had been cast over Darrell's so-called lifetime achievement.

But then, Dawn’s father surprised him by suddenly setting his phone aside and addressing Victor out loud. "You know, she told me that if her whole MFA degree weren't riding on her making that thesis presentation of hers, nothing would've made her miss my big night. But here she is. At my award ceremony, not getting the MFA she's been working on for seven years."

Darrell shook his head at Victor, as smug smirk forming on his lips for some reason. "Looks like you royally fucked my daughter."

"No, you are the one who did that," Victor answered, keeping his signs cold and precise. "The moment you decided to use her to take down Red Diamond."

Dawn's father made a considering sound in the back of his throat. "Maybe you're right about that."

He glanced in the direction of the event space's doors, then back at Victor. "So, you suckered my daughter into marriage. How did you pull that one off?”

Darrell answered his own question before Victor could. “I'm assuming you threatened me. Maybe Byron too. And her mom. You probably even threw in that best friend she had in college. Pretty much everybody and anybody she loves. Isn't that how that fucking monster who raised you taught you to operate?"

How dare he talk about his father. Victor had to fight within himself not to leap across the table and beat Darrell into a bloody pulp. Knowing Dawn's father, he would use it as an excuse to make yet another crime lord arrest at his own Lifetime Achievement award ceremony.

So instead of fighting with him, Victor informed her father, "Whatever she has lost, whatever punishment she has received for what she did, it is well deserved. You should count yourself fortunate that for some reason, she doesn't blame you for the heavy price she has had to pay for playing the part you assigned her."