The afternoon after Victoria’s return passed in a silence that had edges.

Elena stayed downstairs. Marcus moved through the house with the same absolute presence he had carried since the dominance intensified, but something underneath it had shifted. The master bedroom door stayed closed. Victoria did not come down. The ordinary sounds of someone unpacking and rearranging a room carried through the ceiling in irregular intervals—drawers, a closet, the brief run of a faucet—and each one landed in the kitchen like a reminder that the reckoning was no longer theoretical.

Marcus poured coffee he did not drink and stood at the counter with both hands wrapped around the mug. Elena...