The ballroom remained frozen.

No one moved.

No one dared breathe.

Victoria stared at Ethan as though she hadn't heard him correctly.

"...What did you just say?"

Ethan never looked at her.

Instead, he gently removed the heavy arrangement of flowers from his mother's trembling arms.

For the first time that evening, he noticed every detail he had missed.

The bruise on Diane's cheek.

The scrape across her wrist.

The tear stains she had desperately tried to wipe away.

His jaw tightened.

"Who did this?"

Diane quickly shook her head.

"It doesn't matter today."

"It matters to me."

Victoria stepped forward, forcing a smile.

"Ethan, she's making this dramatic. She tripped while helping the decorators."

Diane lowered her eyes.

She wasn't protecting herself.

She was protecting him.

She didn't want to ruin his wedding.

But another voice echoed across the ballroom.

"That's a lie."

Every head turned.

An elderly florist slowly walked toward them.

"I saw everything."

The guests watched in stunned silence.

"An hour before the ceremony, Mrs. Sterling cornered Diane in the service hallway."

Victoria's confident smile disappeared.

The florist continued.

"She accused Diane of embarrassing the Sterling family by existing."

Another employee nodded.

"So did I."

Then another.

"And me."

Within seconds, three caterers and two decorators stepped forward.

One after another...

They all told the same story.

Victoria had slapped Diane across the face.

She had called her "a useless servant."

She had ordered security to keep Ethan's own mother hidden from the bridal suite because she said Diane's clothes looked "too poor" for the wedding photographs.

Diane had begged everyone not to tell Ethan.

"I don't want him to lose the woman he loves."

The ballroom became unbearably quiet.

Ethan slowly turned toward Victoria.

"You hit my mother?"

Victoria swallowed.

"I... I barely touched her."

"Did you?"

She hesitated.

That hesitation answered everything.

Ethan removed his wedding ring before it had even become meaningful.

He placed it on the nearest table.

"We're done."