The first sign that something was wrong wasn’t the noise.
It was the silence.
I was standing at the hotel-farm reception desk, talking to one of the guests about breakfast the next morning, when I felt that strange vacuum in the air—as if the entire place had held its breath right before an impact.
I looked up.
Daniel was there.
For a second, my body reacted before my mind. My hand went straight to my belly, automatic, instinctive. My heart raced, but unlike other times, it wasn’t panic.
It was alertness.
Marco appeared almost at the same time, coming from the side corridor, his entire body tense. He stepped in front of me without even realizing it—broad, solid, as if the whole ranch rested on his shoulders.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Marco said, his voice low, too controlled.
Danie
