Marcos took another step toward the presidential table, chest heaving, jaw clenched.He had rehearsed this moment too many times in his head.
He expected fury.He expected shouting, drawn swords, guards lunging at him.He expected Katherine to cry, the hall to split in two, his sacrifice to finally find a stage worthy of it.
He expected a story.
But Adrián Valmont kept talking to Leo.
"…if he insists on trying to get into the club again, we'll have to raise his fee," Adrián remarked, swirling the ice in his glass with a distracted motion. "Talent without discipline is just expensive noise."
Leo smiled, leaning slightly toward him.
"And the new girls from the northern university?"
"Interesting," Adrián replied. "Especially the exchange student. Impeccable record… it would be a waste if she ended up in the public sector."
The chamber music floated on, untouched.The conversations hadn't stopped.No one seemed to notice Marcos.
"Valmont! Look at me!" he roared, his voice breaking halfway through the shout.
Silence fell.
Not because Adrián reacted.
Katherine stood up.
The engagement was far too important to allow a spectacle.
She did it with the naturalness of someone who knows the space belongs to her. She adjusted her dress and walked toward Marcos with slow, measured steps.
Not like a fiancée.Not like a victim.But like the owner of the house who has spotted an unacceptable stain.
"Marcos… what do you think you're doing?" she said, stopping a meter away from him.
Her gaze swept over the scars, the disheveled clothes, the ragged breathing. There was no fear. Only a cold assessment.
"You're not welcome here," she added. "Not after what you did. This is a private ceremony."
"You don't know who he is!" Marcos spat, pointing at Adrián. "He's buying you! Buying you like merchandise! You deserve more than that!"
A murmur rippled through the hall.
The Sterlings finally reacted.
Fernando Sterling went pale immediately.Margaret Sterling lowered her gaze with a rigidity that bordered on pain, as if trying to disappear.Thomas and Julian, Katherine's brothers, exchanged quick looks, aware that every word Marcos spoke was another nail in their own social coffin.
"My deepest apologies," Fernando murmured, inclining his head slightly toward Henri Valmont. "He does not represent… he does not represent our position in any way."
Henri did not respond.He watched in silence, fingers interlaced, like someone seeing a sound investment confirmed.
Elise Valmont sighed with elegant disappointment.
"How exhausting," she whispered. "They always think love is a valid argument."
Clara Valmont tilted her head, studying Marcos with almost scientific curiosity.
"So this is the famous kidnapper bodyguard?" she asked softly. "I thought he'd be… more impressive."
Katherine looked at him again.
"This has nothing to do with you," she said. "The affairs of the Sterling family do not concern you."
She took another step, invading his space.
"Get out."
The word cut through the hall… and through Marcos. He lowered his head, confused. He didn't understand where he had failed. It had always worked before: possession, intensity, the scene.
Why not this time?
Katherine was flawless.Back straight. Chin firm. Face serene.
She looked at him the way one looks at a minor problem: annoying, inevitable… already solved.
There was no love.No relief.Only deep fatigue… and something darker. Disgust—something Marcos did not want to accept, or could not.
"Leave," Katherine whispered, just for him. "Before security has to remind you where you are."
Marcos swallowed.
He searched for a dignified exit. One last gesture that might give him back control.
"Let them try," he said, raising his voice slightly. "Let's see if they have the guts."
Guts were unnecessary.
More than a hundred red dots blossomed across his chest, his neck, his forehead.Lasers. Precise. Silent.
They didn't come from one place, but from everywhere.
The men of the Valmont family wore no uniforms, but they didn't need them. Relaxed postures. Steady hands. Weapons ready. None of them looked nervous.
At the front, motionless, stood the head of security: a retired Delta Force veteran, carrying the calm of someone who had killed far more dangerous men for reasons far less personal.
"Lower your voice," he said. "Or you won't walk out of here."
Marcos finally understood the difference between defiance and suicide.
And he lowered his gaze.
The humiliation was complete.
Before the ceremony began, Adrián had remembered something he considered almost a narrative law: at events like this, there was always a hero ready to ruin the scene.
That was why he had given clear instructions.
Whether the man chose to leave on his own feet or riddled with holes would be a decision entirely his own.
Adrián had no intention of participating in clichés.
Then he looked up.
He didn't look at Marcos.
He looked at Katherine.
"Katherine," he said with flawless calm, "your guest seems to have lost his way. Would you like him escorted out… or would you prefer to explain to him yourself why the Sterlings no longer accept emotional handouts?"
Katherine stiffened for an instant. For a fleeting moment, she feared Adrián might be annoyed.
She adjusted her silk glove with a slow, measured gesture. Took one breath.
"Marcos," she said. "Thank you for the scene. It's been… clarifying."
She stepped forward just enough.
"I don't want to see you again. I appreciate what you did back then, and as payment, I'll let this offense pass. Now leave."
The guards advanced without waiting further.
At one end of the hall, Minister Edmund von Albrecht felt cold sweat run down his back.He had been the one who signed the release. A minor favor. Some gains. A mistake.
Now all he could do was pray that the Valmonts wouldn't decide to review old files.
Because if Adrián found out… settling in that city would be impossible.
After Marcos's removal, the hall regained its composure with almost surgical efficiency. The musicians resumed their instruments without exchanging glances, and the murmur of the elite flowed again, as if the incident had been nothing more than a protocol error already corrected.
Adrián stood.
He offered his hand to Katherine, and together they advanced toward the dais where the bishop awaited. The light of the chandeliers seemed to converge on them, tracing a halo of order and supremacy almost offensive to those watching from the periphery.
Katherine felt the cold of Adrián's gloved hand closing over her skin. And for the first time, she didn't dislike it. It wasn't tenderness—it was stability. Adrián wasn't an emotional refuge, but a wall. The boundary that kept men like Marcos out of her world.
"Before those gathered here," intoned the bishop, "do you accept this engagement as the beginning of a union destined to strengthen not only your houses, but the very future of our society?"
"I accept," said Adrián.
He offered no love. He established possession.
"I accept," Katherine replied, with a clarity that closed all doubt.
"Then," concluded the bishop, "you may seal this pact."
Adrián leaned in with measured precision. Katherine closed her eyes, not out of romance, but inertia. The kiss was neither sweet nor ceremonial. It was firm. Dense. Steel meeting silk. A gesture that absorbed the fate of the Sterlings and subordinated it—without violence—to the will of the Valmonts.
It was not a happy ending.
It was a contractual closure.
In a corner of the hall, partially hidden behind a gilded column, Astrid watched with a champagne glass clenched tight in her fingers. Her breathing was uneven. The pinkish glow in her pupils—residue of Li Shen's poison and of something more intimate, more dangerous—throbbed with growing intensity.
Seeing Katherine occupy that place was a physical affront. Every second of the kiss drove itself under her skin.
That place is mine.She's only a signature. I am his real woman.
Henri Valmont's glance—brief but sufficient—stopped her. The message was clear: a scene there would not only be unforgivable, it would be useless.
Astrid drained the champagne in a single swallow. The glass protested under the pressure of her fingers.
When Adrián pulled away from Katherine and applause erupted, he kept a firm hand at her waist. His eyes swept the hall for barely an instant, until they met Astrid's fevered gaze.
There was no apology.No consolation.
Only a slight inclination of the head.
The exact acknowledgment granted to something valuable…so long as it remembers its place.