The interior of the town car was a tomb.
Every time the streetlights flickered across Adriano's face, Elara saw the muscle in his jaw ticking. He hadn't spoken since they left the Moretti estate. He hadn't even looked at her. He sat with his arms crossed, a king sitting on a throne of glass, while Elara felt like she was bleeding out on the leather seat beside him.
"Say it," she whispered, her voice cracking the oppressive silence.
Adriano didn't move. "Say what, Elara?"
"Say you enjoyed it. Watching them laugh at me. Watching Luca call me a murderer while you sipped your drink like I was nothing more than a stain on your suit."
Adriano turned his head then. His eyes were bloodshot, the whiskey and the rage finally catching up to him. "You are the stain, Elara. You're the reason the Marcello name is being dragged through the dirt. Did you expect me to shield you? I don't protect people who kill the things I love."
The car jerked to a stop at the mansion. Before the driver could even step out, Adriano shoved the door open and stormed inside. Elara scrambled after him, her heels clicking frantically against the marble, her breath hitching in her chest.
"I loved her too!" she screamed at his back as they reached the grand foyer.
Adriano spun around so fast she nearly collided with him. He grabbed her upper arms, his fingers digging into her skin through the silk of her dress. He didn't just look at her—he looked through her, searching for a ghost that wasn't there.
"Don't you dare," he hissed, his voice trembling with a violent, jagged grief. "Don't you dare claim a piece of her. You don't get to mourn the woman you put in the ground. You don't get to cry for the life you stole so you could sit in her house and wear her jewelry."
His gaze dropped to the necklace she wore—a delicate gold locket that had been Sofia's favorite. His face contorted in a mask of pure agony.
"Take it off," he commanded.
"No," Elara sobbed, her heart fracturing. "It's all I have left of her—"
"I said take it off!"
He didn't wait. He reached out and snatched the gold chain, yanking it with such force that it snapped. The sharp metal bit into the back of Elara's neck, leaving a stinging red line, but she barely felt it compared to the look in his eyes. He stared at the broken gold in his palm as if it were Sofia's beating heart.
"You want to know why I married you?" He stepped closer, pinning her against the cold stone of the wall. He was so close she could smell the bourbon and the salt of his skin. "It wasn't for the alliance. It wasn't for my father."
He leaned down, his lips brushing against her ear, his voice a ghost of a whisper that made her knees weak with a traitorous, agonizing longing.
"I married you so I could watch you wither. I wanted you close so I could remind you, every single hour of every single day, that the world is a dark, disgusting place because you are in it and she isn't."
He pulled back, his hand coming up to touch her cheek—for a second, it felt like a caress, but then his thumb pressed into her skin, forcing her to look into his obsidian eyes.
"Every time I look at your face, I see her death. Every time I hear your voice, I hear the scream she made before the car hit. You are my living nightmare, Elara. And I'm going to make sure you never wake up from it."
He released her so abruptly she stumbled, hitting the floor with a dull thud. He didn't reach down to help her. He didn't even look back as he turned and walked toward the East Wing, the broken necklace clutched in his fist like a trophy.
Elara sat on the cold marble, her fingers trembling against the red mark on her neck. She looked at the dark hallway where he had disappeared, and despite the cruelty, despite the snapped gold and the bruised skin, a single, devastating thought echoed in her mind:
I still love him.
And that was the greatest torture of all.