Morning bled into Cole’s study like a reluctant guest. The curtains were drawn, shadows clung to the corners, and the only light came from the dim glow of his desk lamp, falling across piles of papers, maps, and a half-drained glass of whiskey.
Cole sat behind the oak desk like a king on a crumbling throne, his jaw tight, his eyes sharp. Adrian’s sudden return had already unsettled him, but what gnawed at him more was her—that girl. The one at Matteo’s dinner. The one whose silence lingered like smoke.
He had seen her face for only a moment in the photograph his men had discreetly taken, but it was enough to stir something old in his chest. Something dangerous.
“Find her,” he had ordered. His voice was cold, stripped of patience. “Dig everything. Who she is. Where she comes from. I want
