The Valente estate was a fortress tonight, more armed camp than home. Tension crackled in the air like static before a thunderstorm. Men hustled across the wide, manicured lawn, boots leaving muddy tracks on the frozen grass, rifles slung loose but ready, hauling battered crates of ammo as if this chaos was just routine. Orders snapped through the cold, clipped and urgent, every syllable punctuated by the sharp bark of authority. You could feel the bite of winter seeping through every layer of clothing, but nobody flinched—except, of course, for Alessia Valente. She stood at the heart of it all, a still point in a spinning storm, and looked like she could set the whole place ablaze with a single glare.
Where others shrank from the heat of conflict, Alessia seemed to draw it in, let it for
