The drive back to the estate was a silent, black void. I didn’t remember giving any orders, yet Marco drove with a preternatural stillness, his eyes fixed on the road, never once glancing at me in the rearview mirror. He was wise not to. The man he would have seen there was not his Don. It was a hollowed-out effigy, a vessel filled with nothing but ice and a singular, burning purpose.
I had left Alessia’s body in the cold, sterile care of Sister Agnes, with the promise that I would send a private service, one befitting a queen. The nun had looked at me with those knowing, pitying eyes, and simply said, "Give her peace, Dante. It's the only thing you have left to offer."
Peace. The word was a foreign language. There would be no peace. Not for me. And certainly not for Isabella.
When the
