The ride back from Vienna was cloaked in silence, heavy and charged like the breath before a storm. Valentina held the photograph between her fingers, studying the faces etched into the worn image.....her father, Adrian’s father, and the unknown man with a serpent’s smirk and a Council crest barely visible on his cuff.
The note lingered in her mind like a poison: “The betrayal began long before you were born.”
That one sentence fractured everything she thought she knew.
“Are you alright?” Adrian asked softly, his hands steady on the steering wheel.
Valentina looked out the window. Snow dusted the fields. Austria blurred into memory behind them. “No. But I don’t think I’ve been alright since I stepped back into this world.”
Adrian said nothing. He didn’t offer comfort. He didn’t lie.
