He came to me the next morning with the hangover of a man who had swallowed his own conscience and couldn't digest it.
I was in the gallery hallway, standing in front of one of Claudia's prized paintings…oil on canvas, a woman in a white dress walking into the sea.
Fitting.
I didn't look at him when he stopped behind me.
"Say something," he muttered.
I didn't.
Because the silence between us was already louder than anything he could say.
His jaw flexed. I could hear it before I turned.
"You're not going to act like last night didn't happen?"
I finally looked at him.
Cold. Steady.
"Last night happened," I said.
He looked relieved for half a second.
Until I added, "You happened."
He flinched. "Don't twist this."
"Twist what?" I asked. "The part where you pinned me down and used my body to punish yourself? Or the part where you walked out like you were the one bleeding?"
His face darkened. "You didn't stop me."
"No," I said softly. "I went still. Like I've been trained to do. Like prey does when it knows fighting only makes the tearing worse."
"You didn't say no."
I stepped closer.
"Would it have mattered if I did?"
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
"You were drunk," I said. "But not blind. You knew what you were doing. You knew I didn't kiss you back. You knew I didn't want it. But you needed someone to punish…and I was the only one still standing in front of you."
He looked away.
"Don't act like you didn't feel it," I whispered. "The dead weight of a woman lying still beneath you. The silence. The cold."
"Don't do this," he snapped. "You stood there like you wanted it."
"No," I said. "I stood there like I had no way out."
He stepped forward, hands shaking. "You think I meant to hurt you?"
"I don't think you cared if you did."
His eyes snapped to mine. For the first time, he looked scared.
Of himself.
"You wore that dress…"
"And you wore your guilt like cologne. Are we trading excuses now?"
His voice dropped, low and hoarse. "I'm not a monster."
"No," I whispered. "You're worse."
"Why?"
"Because you'll never call it what it was."
I turned and walked away before he could say it.
Because I couldn't survive hearing him rewrite my pain into something romantic.
Not today.
Not again.
He found me again in the music room.
I was seated at the piano.
Not playing.
Just sitting.
Staring at the ivory keys like they might finally show me what silence is supposed to sound like.
He stood in the doorway.
Disheveled. Pale. Jaw locked like he'd spent the last two hours trying to find a version of the truth he could live with.
And failed.
"I was drunk," he said.
I didn't look at him. "I know."
"I didn't plan it."
"You never do," I whispered. "That's the problem."
He walked in slowly, each step like it might break something.
"I don't remember parts of it."
"I remember all of it."
Silence.
Then…
"You didn't say no," he said again, quieter this time, like if he repeated it gently, it might carry less shame.
My fingers curled over the piano bench.
"You think I owed you a fight?"
He opened his mouth, but I didn't let him speak.
"You think if I screamed, if I shoved you away, if I scratched you and cried…then it would've counted?" I turned to face him, finally. "You think consent is the absence of protest?"
His eyes burned into mine.
"You didn't push me away," he muttered, one last time.
"No," I said, rising to my feet. "I laid still. Like I did when Viola's cousin tried the same thing when I was seventeen. When I ran to Chiara and she told me to stop making trouble. When I bled and nobody asked where it came from."
He blinked. "What?"
"You weren't the first man who thought silence was a yes," I said. "You were just the only one who had the audacity to call it marriage."
He staggered.
One step back.
Then another.
"Anastasia…"
"No." I walked past him. "You don't get to say my name like it means something to you now."
He reached for my arm.
I pulled away.
This time with force.
With purpose.
"You didn't just hurt me last night," I said, voice low. "You reminded me of every man who ever taught me that my body was the price for peace."
"I didn't mean…"
"You never do."
And I left him there.
Alone.
In a room full of things that only made noise when they were touched gently.
I didn't go back to my room.
I didn't go to the gardens, or the sunroom, or the places where I once carved out slivers of peace in a house that had always been more mausoleum than home.
I went to the old servants' staircase.
Narrow. Quiet. Forgotten.
And I sat on the bottom step and just breathed.
Long.
Even.
Flat.
Because if I didn't control it, I would scream.
Not because I was broken…
But because I wasn't allowed to be.
Because women like me are expected to shatter beautifully and sweep up their own pieces without making a sound.
I'd done it once already.
Not this time.
This time, I let the silence wrap around me like a weapon.
And when Claudia found me there…yes, her…she didn't gasp or rush or ask what was wrong.
She just sat beside me.
Not close.
Not far.
Just near enough.
"You look like I did the night I realized my husband wasn't going to love me the way I needed," she said softly, folding her hands in her lap.
I didn't respond.
She didn't ask.
And that was the first mercy I'd been given in weeks.
She reached into her coat pocket and handed me something.
A small gold key.
"For the south wing," she said. "Use it when you're ready. He won't find you there."
I took it.
She stood to leave.
And just before she walked away…
She said, "You don't need to scream to be heard. But you do need to stop whispering when it's killing you."
He tried to speak to me again two days later.
In the hall.
Outside the gallery.
In front of Claudia.
He reached for my wrist.
I didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Just looked at him with a blankness so deliberate it shook him.
"You won't even look at me?" he asked, voice raw.
I did look.
Through him.
Then I turned away.
Because sometimes silence isn't surrender.
Sometimes it's the sharpest cut of all.
That night, I moved into the south wing.
No goodbye.
No warning.
Just empty drawers and a shut door behind me.
The bed there wasn't warm.
But it was mine.
And for the first time in weeks, I slept.
Not because I was safe.
But because he finally had no way to reach me without a key.
And I had no intention of giving it back.