Liam Russo POV
"I am her husband," I told the nurse, my voice leaving no room for argument.
The nurse swallowed hard, her eyes darting to the heavy gold signet ring on my right hand.
"Stop making a scene, Liam," Elena warned, stepping closer.
"You are embarrassing yourself."
I turned my head just enough to meet her gaze from the corner of my eye.
"You are an irrelevant outsider," I said, the words falling like blocks of ice onto the polished floor. "Keep your mouth shut in my presence."
Elena sneered, her features tightening into a mask of resentment.
"You are addicted to playing this role because you cannot handle the fact that you lost me."
Julian stepped out from behind Elena, holding his hands up in a gesture of fake surrender.
"Come on, Liam," Julian said, his voice dripping with false sympathy.
"That altar thing was just a youthful joke."
He shrugged, a flimsy attempt to look harmless.
"I apologize if it hurt your feelings, but you need to let it go."
I turned my body fully toward him, a cold stillness settling over me at the sound of his voice.
"A youthful joke," I repeated, the syllables tasting like ash.
I took a slow step forward, the sound of my shoes on the tile sharp and distinct in the quiet room.
"You treated a sacred union as a gambling bet."
I kept walking until I was inches away, forcing him to look up at me.
"You stomped on my shoes, destroyed my property, and humiliated me before the Family."
Julian's smirk vanished. He scrambled backward, using Elena's shoulder as a shield.
Elena immediately threw her arms out to protect him.
"He made a mistake, Liam!" she yelled, her chest heaving.
"Why are you holding onto a grudge?"
I let my silence answer her, watching the air leave her lungs as she seemed to shrink under my gaze.
"Did you truly believe I would remain a loyal dog begging for your scraps?" I asked.
Elena shook her head rapidly, her eyes refusing to absorb the truth standing in front of her.
"You hired a pregnant woman because no one else could possibly understand you the way I do," she insisted, her voice cracking.
I turned my back on her and walked over to Sienna. My thumb, which had been pressing into the small of her back, instinctively tightened, the bone of my knuckle digging into the fabric of her dress. She laid her own hand over mine, and the tension in my grip eased.
"My wife understands the darkest parts of my soul better than you ever could," I said, looking into Sienna's calm eyes.
The nurse cleared her throat, the small sound cutting through the thick silence.
"I need the patriarch's signature here, please," she said, holding out a pen with a hand that shook slightly.
Elena pushed past Julian and craned her neck to look at the paperwork.
Her eyes landed on the spouse section of the intake form.
My name, Liam Russo, was printed there in bold, undeniable black ink.
Elena stared at the crisp black letters on the medical file, her face twisting. She lunged across the waiting room, screaming that I was using syndicate power to forge records, to maintain a lie.
