“Aria?” Dante finally muttered. “What the hell is this?” His voice cracked halfway through the sentence. The room didn’t respond.

They were waiting, for me. I smiled from Matteo’s right side like I had always belonged there.

“You called me forgettable,” I said softly. “I took that personally.”

Gianna gasped as if she’d seen a ghost. “This is a setup. A joke. A—”

“Silence,” Matteo growled, voice sharp as a blade. “You are standing in the house of your betters.”

Gianna recoiled. Her pearls shifted with her, but she didn’t speak again.

Alessia, normally the first to spit poison, turned pale. Her lips were parted, but no insult came. Her gaze jumped between me and Matteo like she was trying to piece together a reality that had already been decided. For once, she was quiet. That was worth everything.

Dante spun toward Vittorio then, fury rising.

“You knew? This entire time?” His voice wasn’t just angry—it was betrayed.

Vittorio stood behind the others, looking older than I remembered. “I was following orders,” he said. “Protecting her was the plan from the start.”

Dante shook his head slowly. “She was my wife.”

I turned slightly, not fully, just enough to see him from the corner of my eye.

Matteo’s voice cut in like steel. “She was never yours. Only borrowed. Now returned.”

Later, I left the dining hall to breathe. The confrontation had done what it needed to. They had seen me. Heard me. Been reminded that I was no one’s shadow.

The hallway outside was cool and quiet. I stopped near the restrooms, hands brushing the marble wall to steady myself.

That’s when I heard him. Shoes clicking fast. A pause. Then his voice.

“Aria.” I turned, slow, composed. He stood there alone—no entourage, no Valentina, no mask of indifference. Just Dante.

He cornered me there, words soft but urgent. “I came to apologize,” he said. “I didn’t know who you were.” His voice was almost broken. His pride, splintered.

“You didn’t have to,” I said. “You didn’t care who I was.”

He stepped closer, expression raw. “You were my wife, Aria.”

I leaned in then, just enough to let my voice cut. “And now I’m your warning.” He reached for me—too late. I stepped back, laughing coldly. “Don’t touch what you threw away.”

“I was cruel,” he said. “I was stupid. But I swear, Aria, if I’d known—”

“You’d what?” I asked, voice sharp now. “Treated me like a person? You needed bloodlines to teach you decency?” He flinched. Good. It meant I was hitting where it hurt. It meant this time, he was listening.

He glanced at the wall, as if trying to pull himself together. “Valentina meant nothing,” he muttered. “She was… what I thought I needed. Someone who looked the part. Someone the family approved of.”

My chest tightened, but I didn’t let it show. “And I looked like a charity case,” I said. “So you humiliated me. Publicly. Repeatedly.”

He stepped closer again. Too close.

“I was wrong. I see that now. I lost the best thing I ever had.” His voice cracked on the last word. For a moment, the boy I met in the Morelli gardens peeked through. The one who could’ve become someone better, if power hadn’t made him cruel.

“You don’t get to rewrite what you did,” I said. “You don’t get to feel better because you finally feel small.”

He tried to speak again, but I raised a hand. “You want forgiveness?”

He nodded.

“Then start by forgiving yourself. I’ve already done the hard part. I survived you.”