Chapter 7 - Silas Tries to Turn the Room
Silas lifted both hands.
Not surrender.
Performance.
“Vincent, think.”
Vincent stared at him.
“I am.”
“No. You’re grieving again.”
The word struck the room.
Grieving.
The same word Silas had used for months to explain away every question, every suspicion, every closed door.
Silas pointed toward Lydia.
“You just put your hands on an innocent waitress in front of a room full of people.”
Vincent’s eyes flickered.
Silas saw it and pressed harder.
“You want police in this? Lawyers? Cameras? Fine. Then this becomes about you too.”
Lydia stepped back instinctively.
She knew what he was doing.
Taking one true thing and wrapping it around a bigger lie.
Vincent had hurt her.
That was true.
But Silas wanted to use her pain as a shield for himself.
Marco spoke before Vincent could.
“Yes. Vincent will answer for what he did to Lydia.”
The room shifted.
Vincent turned sharply.
Marco did not flinch.
“So will you.”
Silas’s expression cracked.
Marco looked at Lydia.
“Miss Hart, you were assaulted tonight. That does not vanish because you carried evidence.”
Vincent looked at Lydia then.
Really looked.
At the red marks near her collar.
At her shaking hands.
At the tears she was trying not to let become weakness.
Something like shame moved across his face.
He stepped back once.
Then lowered his head.
“I was wrong.”
Lydia stared at him.
The most feared man in the room had apologized so quietly half the guests almost missed it.
She did not forgive him.
Not then.
Maybe not ever.
But the apology mattered because it did not ask her to protect him.
Silas scoffed.
“This is touching.”
Vincent’s eyes lifted.
“Search him.”
Silas went still.
Two of Vincent’s men moved, but Marco raised a hand.
“No.”
Vincent looked at him.
Marco’s voice was firm.
“Not your men. Police.”
The word cut through the room.
Police.
Guests whispered.
Silas laughed.
“You’re calling police into a Romano room?”
Marco answered, “Isabella already did.”
He opened the next section of the folder.
There was a case number.
A sealed cooperation request.
A financial crimes division contact.
Isabella had not trusted Vincent to go legal on his own.
So she had started before she died.
Marco continued.
“The authorities were notified when the necklace trigger activated.”
Silas looked toward the exits.
Too quickly.
Vincent saw it.
So did everyone.
At the far side of the restaurant, two plainclothes detectives entered.
Silas’s calm finally failed.
He backed up.
Lydia’s voice came softly.
“She said you’d run.”
Silas looked at her with hatred.
May you like
That hatred was the clearest confession he had given all night.
👉 Silas tried to make Vincent’s violence the only story, but Isabella had already sent the evidence to detectives before anyone could bury it.
