Silence smothered the grand hall. It was so total that the howling gale outside seemed to vanish, replaced by the ragged sound of an old man drawing breath into lungs that had refused to surrender.

"F-Father...?" Lorenzo’s voice cracked. For the first time in his adult life, the terrifying Don of New York looked like a stunned child.

Giovanni did not look at his son. His burning, dark eyes were locked entirely on Mrs. Gable.

With agonizing, deliberate slowness, the old Don took one step forward. His slippers dragged across the marble, but his spine was straight. The aura of absolute, terrifying power that had once ruled five syndicates radiated from his frail frame like heat off an iron stove.

"You raise your hand to her again, Gable..." Giovanni croaked, his vocal cords straining against five years of disuse, "...and I will personally skin your fingers down to the knuckle."

Mrs. Gable collapsed to her knees, all the color draining from her lips, leaving her looking like a corpse. "M-Mr. Moretti... Don Giovanni... you... you're..."

"Awake?" Giovanni growled, each syllable gaining strength, resonance, and fury. "I have been awake for eighteen months, you parasitic vulture."

Lorenzo moved swiftly, his hands hovering beside his father, terrified the old man would collapse, yet terrified to break the miracle before him. "Father, sit down, please—"

"Quiet, Lorenzo!" Giovanni barked, lifting a trembling, veined hand. "You left this house under the command of rats while you played warlord in Manhattan!"

Giovanni pointed a shaking finger at Mrs. Gable.

"For two years, this woman turned off the heat in my quarters. For two years, she fed me cold gruel and curdled milk! Her maids spat in my chamber pot! When I soiled myself during a fever last winter, she threw a bucket of ice water over my chest and laughed with the kitchen girls while I shook until morning!"

Lorenzo’s face darkened from pale shock into something demonic. A terrifying, murderous stillness washed over him. He turned his head slowly toward Mrs. Gable, whose entire body was now convulsing in terror.

"Is this true?" Lorenzo whispered.

"No! No, Mr. Moretti, he's delirious! The dementia—the stroke—"

"She stole eighty thousand dollars from my private safe behind the library panel," Giovanni continued ruthlessly, walking another step forward until he stood directly over Nora. "She buys off the estate auditors, starves the lower staff, and sells the family wine to local bootleggers. And when this child..."

Giovanni looked down. His fierce, terrifying gaze melted into pure, unadulterated tenderness as he reached out a trembling hand and rested it gently on Nora’s shoulder.

"...when this pregnant girl came into my room three months ago, she didn't see an invalid to abuse. She saw a dying man. She bought that blanket with her own tips. She washed my sores with her own hands. She sang to me when the pain made me want to stop breathing. She gave me the will to claw my way out of that paralyzed hell."

Giovanni looked down at the broken crystal on the floor.

"Gable broke that cup herself twenty minutes ago in the pantry. I watched her drop it into the apron while this girl was carrying fifty-pound sacks of potatoes up the stairs on your orders."