The De Luca mansion was a gilded prison, no matter how much it glittered with wealth or power. It might have been his fortress, but it was my cage. The golden walls and polished floors did nothing to mask the suffocating coldness that surrounded me, wrapping around me tighter with every passing day. It was his world, not mine.
Every step I took through the halls felt heavier than the last, like the mansion itself was pressing down on me. The weight of silence was unbearable—the silence that hid the screams in my head, the screams that screamed for vengeance. Every corner of this house reminded me of what Rafael had taken from me. My parents. My fiancé. My life before this hell.
I had never imagined I’d be in this position. Never believed that the man who killed my father, who slaughtered
