(Isabella’s POV)
The car was silent on the way back to the Citadel, but it was a loud, heavy silence, filled with the echo of Vittorio Bianchi’s final words.
You have forgotten about my ghost. And he is coming for her.
The words wrapped around my heart like a band of ice. Her. He meant me. The triumphant, powerful feeling I had felt after the Commission meeting was gone, replaced by a cold, creeping fear. The war was no longer about empires or justice. It was about me. I was the target.
I risked a glance at Alessandro. He was staring straight ahead, his handsome face carved from stone. But it was a different kind of anger than I had seen before. This was not the cold fury of a king planning his next move. This was the raw, primal rage of a man whose most precious person had been threat
