Alessia Mancini
A surprised laugh bubbled up from my chest, catching me off guard. It was so quintessentially Riley - fierce, protective, and just a little bit reckless. The sound of my own laughter felt strange in the heavy atmosphere of my office, like a bell ringing in a silent church.
"I'll see if I can set it up," I said, a wry smile tugging at the corner of my lips. But then reality crashed back in, and I felt the weight of my new world pressing down on me once more. "But Riley, you don't want to go down there. It's... it's not pleasant."
I suppressed a shudder as memories of the basement flashed through my mind - the damp, musty air, the echoing silence broken only by muffled groans, the flickering fluorescent lights that cast everything in a sickly pallor. It was a place where t
