I took a slow, deliberate step forward, closing the space between us until I was near enough to see the dilated pupils of his eyes.

“No, Daniel,” I whispered, making sure my voice was the only thing he could hear over the rising chaos of the ballroom.

“You never had any idea who you married.”

Carlo Moretti, however, was an old-school street fighter in a tailored suit. He wasn’t going down without a theatrical attempt at damage control.

“This is an outrage! An invasion of privacy! A private family dispute blown out of proportion by a hysterical woman!” Carlo roared, using volume to compensate for his rapidly vanishing authority.

He grabbed Elena by the arm and marched back toward the ballroom, dragging Daniel and me in his wake.