~Alina’s POV~
The silence in the car was suffocating. Even after we lost the black SUV with that sharp right turn, weaving through side streets until its shadow finally disappeared, Guilia and I exhaled as if we had been holding our breaths underwater.
But now, as the city blurred past the windows, a different tension settled in.
“Which road are you passing?” Guilia asked, narrowing her eyes. “Does this road lead back home?”
I didn’t answer.
Not because I didn’t hear her.
But because I didn’t know how to explain.
I didn’t know how to explain that I’m visiting the slum my husband grew up in.
In the depth of my mind, beneath the layers of everything I should be doing, there was only one thought.
Valentino grew up on this street.
Queens Road.
A place he mentioned so offhandedly, as
