"NO!" Marco's voice tore through the dining room, white suit immaculate, black tie perfectly knotted, every inch of him arranged like a man who believed shouting could undo what had already been done. His fury was cold, controlled even in its violence — the particular rage of a man who had never once, in his entire life, been told no and meant to hear it. Isabella sat across from him, one hand pressed lightly to her cheek, red dress a stark, deliberate contrast against the pale marble. She said nothing. She had learned, over eighteen months, that silence unsettled Marco more than any argument could — that a woman who didn't flinch was somehow more frightening to him than one who screamed back. Her tears had already fallen and dried. What remained on her face now — the darkening bruise beneath her eye, the thin line of blood at her nostril — she made no attempt to hide. She wanted it seen. She wanted, for the first time in this house, for the damage to be visible instead of quietly absorbed. "You have no idea what you've done," Marco said, quieter now, which was somehow worse than the shouting. "I know exactly what I've done," Isabella said, and her voice, when it finally came, was steadier than his. Across the table, Vittoria Castellano watched her daughter-in-law with the particular contempt she reserved for anyone who threatened the family's careful architecture of secrets. Her champagne silk dress caught the low chandelier light; her diamonds, worth more than Isabella's childhood home, glittered coldly at her throat.