The villa had never felt so heavy with silence.
After the ballroom c*****e, the Rossi household carried its grief like a cloak. Servants moved quietly, scrubbing blood from marble tiles, replacing shattered crystal, avoiding their master’s fury. Guards patrolled tighter than ever, eyes sharp, hands restless on the hilts of their weapons.
Adriana drifted through it like a ghost.
She told herself she should feel horror, anger, even pride in her father’s unyielding wrath. Instead, all she felt was fire—the echo of eyes locked on hers across the chaos, the way his presence had drowned out everything else. Damian Moretti.
That name alone should have been enough to make her tremble with hatred. But hatred and desire had entwined until she could no longer tell where one ended and the other be
