The screen is paused on security footage.
Mall footage.
I can see myself in the frame, and even before he hits play, I know with sick certainty what I'm about to watch.
He presses play.
The footage shows me and Enzo entering the mall, walking through stores, laughing together in the bookstore, and my heart is already sinking because I know where this is going, I know what comes next.
The camera angle switches.
Now it's the clothing store. Now it's me holding up the scarf. Now it's Enzo standing close, saying something I can't hear. Now it's me walking toward the dressing rooms and Enzo following.
The timestamp runs.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Fifteen minutes.
Vittorio comes, sometime later I go out and when I emerge my hair is messed up and my lips are swollen. When Enzo leave a few minutes after his shirt is wrinkled and anyone with eyes can see exactly what we were doing in there.
The footage ends.
The silence in the room is deafening.
"That mall was supposed to be closed," Salvatore says, his voice cold and measured. "Closed to the public for your security, Isabella. But apparently someone forgot to turn off the security cameras. And that footage was automatically uploaded to the cloud storage system the mall uses. And this morning, one of my people who has access to that system saw it."
My stomach drops to my feet.
"So you can imagine my surprise," Salvatore continues, "when I was reviewing security protocols for my future daughter-in-law and discovered that she was fucking her bodyguard in a dressing room just days before her wedding."
The vulgarity of it makes me flinch.
"Watch your fucking mouth," Matteo says quietly, and there's warning in his voice.
"I'll watch my mouth when you explain to me how this happened." Salvatore's voice rises slightly. "How you let your sister carry on an affair right under your nose. How you assigned the one man who clearly couldn't be trusted to keep his hands to himself as her personal guard. How you made a mockery of this alliance and this arrangement."
"I didn't know," Matteo says flatly.
"You didn't know." Salvatore's laugh is bitter. "You expect me to believe that? You expect me to believe you had no idea your sister was spreading her legs for?—"
"Finish that sentence and I'll put a bullet in your head." Matteo's voice is deadly calm.
Salvatore stops immediately.
The tension in the room ratchets up to dangerous levels.
Vittorio speaks for the first time, his voice tight with barely controlled anger. "Where is he? Where is Bianchi?"
"Gone," Matteo says. "I fired him. He's not welcome in this house or this family anymore."
"You fired him? I didn’t expect you’d be so soft, Matteo. In our world something like this should end up with a bullet." Vittorio takes a step forward. "He dishonored her. He dishonored this arrangement. He needs to answer for that."
"Don’t mock me if you don’t want to be the one ending with a bullet, Vittorio. He's gone," Matteo repeats. "That's all you need to know."
"We had an agreement," Salvatore says, and his voice has gone cold again, calculated. "A marriage. An alliance. Built on the understanding that Isabella was—" He stops, choosing his words carefully. "Suitable."
