(Aria)
Vincenzo had shown Aria around for nearly an hour, and I had watched every damn second of it from the upper corridor.
She didn’t know I was there.
She didn’t know her every step pulled something raw and restless inside me I had spent years burying.
And she definitely didn’t know that every time Vincenzo angled his body slightly toward hers—as if to shield her—I had to fight the urge to go down there and remind him who she used to belong to.
From the shadows, I saw her slip her fingers across the gilded frames of the old portraits, pausing longer at the ones depicting violent histories no one her age should have ever been exposed to.
Her eyes softened.
Then hardened.
Then softened again.
She was remembering.
She was trying not to remember.
I recognized that look too well.
