Tiernan is unable to reach climax with the woman, named Becky, because he keeps envisioning Lila’s disapproving face. He reflects that Becky is a poor substitute for his wife and throws her out. He strongly suspects that Lila is deceiving him: He has observed her behaving shrewdly and even with cunning, though he’s often confused as to why she doesn’t seem to register what’s happening around her.

With Becky gone, Tiernan bursts into Lila’s room and confronts her, accusing her of spying and trying to provoke her into revealing how much she really understands. She remains aloof with him, and he makes sexualized threats, telling her not to open her door if he seeks her out at night. Lila slams the door in his face, and he realizes that she has installed a deadbolt; her defiance arouses him.

Lila grows lonelier, more anxious, and more physically worn down; she is barely sleeping. Her mother is away in Chicago, and Tiernan has forbidden Lila from joining her. Without the daily outings to her family home, Lila is extremely isolated. One day, Lila is surprised when Tierney, Tiernan’s twin sister, arrives. Tierney prepares food for Lila while cheerfully chatting; she mentions that she and Tiernan once hid in North Africa, which surprises and confuses Lila. Tierney also describes how she’s frustrated by the bodyguards assigned by Achilles to watch her.

Tierney states, “I’m only loyal to myself […] I’ll keep any secrets you have” (123). Lila is unsure whether to trust Tiernan’s sister, and she’s upset when Tierney catches sight of Lila’s phone, as no one is supposed to know that she has the phone and knows how to operate it. Before she leaves, Tierney notices that the phone isn’t connected to the internet and sets up the connection.

Alone with internet access, Lila is overwhelmed to discover numerous assistive technologies for deaf and hard-of-hearing people—smart gloves, vibration bracelets, transcription apps, and more. She realizes that her mother has deliberately kept her uninformed and isolated. Her rising anger feeds a new resolve: to reveal her true self and demand respect, lest she end up powerless and bitter like her mother.

Tiernan receives an update from Tierney after the latter’s visit with Lila; he’s pleased to hear that his wife ate a hearty meal. Tiernan has noticed Lila’s worrying weight loss, and he needs to keep her healthy to maintain the Camorra alliance for his war against the Rasputins. After deducing that Lila loves and trusts her former nanny, Imma, who still works for the Ferrante family, he asked Chiara to let him hire Imma. Chiara flatly refused, locked in a power struggle with Tiernan. Relieved that Tierney was able to coax Lila to eat, he orders his sister to focus on caring for his bride.

Later, he enters Lila’s bedroom and looks through her sketchbook, discovering a highly realistic portrait of Tate Blackthorn. Furious, he wonders if Tate is the father of Lila’s baby. He finds Lila reading on her cell phone and confronts her, taunting her about sleeping with a married man. When he demands to know if she slept with Tate, she spits in his face. He raises his fist but punches the wall instead.

Changing tactics, he invites her on an outing, exploiting her desire to leave the apartment. As they walk through the neighborhood surrounding his apartment, Tiernan muses on his decision to live in a rough neighborhood, as it “show[s] [their] strength by making it [their] stronghold” (135). They buy food at a local deli and then sit by the water overlooking Rikers Island. He offers conditional freedoms—the abilities to come and go, hire staff, pursue art, and study, as well as future trips to Ischia (an Italian island)—if she follows his rules. He becomes distracted and aroused when she licks some gelato from his hand. He yanks his hand away, and they return home in silence.

Tiernan confronts an Albanian mobster for dealing drugs on territory dominated by the Irish gang. He’s stabbed in the ensuing conflict, although he kills his opponent. Fintan picks him up, but Tiernan refuses to go to the hospital and chastises Fintan for drinking and accumulating gambling debts, warning him to stay sharp for the coming war with the Bratva. Fintan drives Tiernan home.

While he’s attempting to treat the wound in his bathroom, Lila appears. He tells her to leave, but she instead leads him to his bed, cleans the wound, and indicates through gestures that she will suture it. He watches as she stitches with calm, steady hands, confirming his suspicions about her intelligence. He accuses her again of deceiving him. Drifting off, he tells her she is his and that he will never let her go. In response, she deliberately pricks him harder with the needle. He smirks, knowing she understood.

Lila questions why she saved Tiernan. She reflects that while he’s a terrible person, he has never forced himself on her, and by their world’s standards, this makes him a decent husband. She acknowledges the physical desire she experiences when touching him. Her hatred for him is fading, replaced by the realization that her anger should be directed at her father and her rapist. Tiernan no longer feels like the enemy.

Three days after being stabbed, Tiernan meets with Luca, Achilles, Fintan, and Sam Brennan, a retired Boston investigator. Sam presents findings from the wedding’s surveillance footage: Fifteen men were unaccounted for when Lila was attacked, including Tate Blackthorn. He shows a blurry image of a tall, well-dressed man following Lila, but it’s not possible to identify who it is. Tiernan orders around-the-clock surveillance of every man on the list.

Luca questions Tiernan’s sudden urgency. Tiernan internally admits that he had neglected the investigation but now feels compelled to repay Lila for saving his life. Sam asks if the marriage is strategic or romantic, observing that Tiernan seems personally invested, and warns him that his own strategic marriage turned into love. Tiernan dismisses the possibility.

In a flashback to 20 years earlier in Siberia, eight-year-old Tiernan and Tierney are working at a Russian labor camp. Alex Rasputin invites them to play marbles using bullet cases. The twins know that playing is forbidden and punishable by death, but Tierney laments their harsh existence. She has never played a game or felt loved by anyone but Tiernan and has already lost a toe to frostbite. They’re being brutally trained by Igor so that they can one day be used to kill their own father. Tiernan relents, and they join Alex briefly.

They lose track of time and are caught by Igor. As punishment, Igor forces Alex to play Russian roulette with the twins using a revolver loaded with three bullets. He’s furious because he can tell that his son has grown attached to the twins. Alex aims at Tierney first, then Tiernan; the chamber is empty both times. Igor remarks that Tiernan is Koshchei the Deathless (a figure from Slavic mythology), noting that this is the 11th time the boy has escaped death from illnesses, accidents, and even poison. He predicts that Tiernan will one day kill them all.

While Lila showers, Tiernan looks through her sketchbook hoping to find a drawing of her attacker. Instead, he finds dozens of pages of handwritten sheet music. He recognizes some classical pieces but is intrigued by unfamiliar compositions. Using an app, he plays them and discovers that they’re original works, which he finds to be expressive, dramatic, and masterful. He concludes that Lila composed them herself.

Tiernan now insists on nightly dinners and allows Lila to leave the apartment with guards, often accompanied by Tierney. Lila spends hours online, “researching gadgets for the impaired of hearing” (162). One day, Tiernan abruptly announces that he’s taking Lila to her OB-GYN appointment; he says that her mother, who was originally supposed to accompany her, has cancelled. Lila is frightened and hesitant to go with him. Tiernan announces that he knows about her phone and has seen the list of assistive technologies she has compiled. He tells her that if she cooperates, he will give her access to money to purchase these items—but if she resists, he will destroy the phone.

At the clinic, the female doctor is unavailable; Lila is scheduled to be seen by a male doctor, which leaves her terrified of being touched by a strange man. Tiernan intimidates the receptionist into finding a female doctor. While changing in the exam room, Lila texts her mother, who offers a weak excuse. When Tiernan returns and finds that Lila has put on the hospital gown backward, he suppresses a laugh and gently helps her fix it, creating a moment of intense physical awareness between them.

The doctor recommends a transvaginal ultrasound. Tiernan initially refuses, but Lila consents. When she panics during the uncomfortable procedure, Tiernan holds her hand and speaks softly to calm her. The doctor finds a heartbeat and determines that the pregnancy is 13 weeks along, which matches up to the timeline of when Lila was raped. Tiernan overrides the doctor, insisting that Lila is only six weeks pregnant; Lila realizes that he’s protecting them both by ensuring that it appears that Lila only got pregnant after they were married. However, Lila becomes frustrated when Tiernan tells the doctor that they don’t need to know the sex of the fetus and insists that she will have a home birth. She becomes even angrier when a flirtatious receptionist gives Tiernan her phone number and he accepts it.

Tiernan tells Lila that he’s baiting her on purpose, trying to force her to drop the ruse of being unaware of what’s happening around her. That night, while looking at her reflection, Lila feels a surge of joy about the baby, seeing the child as an ally and someone worth living for.

To punish Tiernan, Lila visits her mother, intending to stay in Long Island and miss the nightly dinner that he insists on. After staying at her family home until late at night, Lila makes her way back, accompanied by Chiara. Chiara says that she’s trying to negotiate Lila out of the marriage and proposes that Angelo Bandini (a Chicago mobster) will marry Lila afterward. To Chiara’s surprise, Lila expresses that she doesn’t want a different husband. She confronts her mother about hiding assistive technologies and the internet from her. Chiara insists that it was for her own good and that Lila will marry Angelo if she can arrange it.

When Lila returns to the apartment, she finds Tiernan on her bed with Brandy, the receptionist from the clinic. They’re both fully clothed, and Lila isn’t sure what’s happening. Her sketch of Tate Blackthorn is torn to pieces on the floor. Enraged, Lila speaks for the first time in Tiernan’s presence and then storms out. He pursues her, explaining that she has proven his theory. He has deduced that she’s deaf, explaining how he tested her by deliberately dropping objects around the apartment and noting her speech patterns. He and Tierney both speak sign language.

They converse in ASL. Tiernan dismisses Brandy, revealing that she was merely a ploy to provoke Lila to speak. Lila pulls Tiernan’s gun on Brandy, who flees, and then points it at Tiernan before eventually lowering it. After a standoff, Tiernan says that he will consider banning other women from the apartment if she answers his questions. Lila explains her history: She was born deaf and misdiagnosed as being on the autism spectrum at age two. The error was discovered when she was six. By then, Chiara had decided to hide Lila’s cognitive abilities to protect her from an arranged marriage to a mobster. Lila admits that her dream is to hear and dance to music.

Tiernan offers to help her access an abortion, but Lila refuses. He tells her that she should move into his bed, as he never brings other women there, and reveals that there’s a $6 million bounty on anyone who even looks in her direction. He forbids her from missing dinner again.

Immediately after Lila’s revelation, Tiernan marvels at her intelligence, talent, and beauty, admitting that if he had a heart, he would be in serious trouble. He’s strongly attracted to Lila and wants to have sex with her. He resolves to stop having sex with other women so as to build Lila’s trust. He hints at an unspecified complication but is determined to manage the situation.