EMMA
The estate didn’t return to normal after Damien left.
It pretended to.
Engines still rumbled somewhere beyond the courtyard. Doors still opened and closed. Snow still fell, soft and deceptively peaceful, frosting rooftops and lining the iron rails like nothing had changed.
But everything had.
I felt it the moment I stepped back inside.
The warmth hit me first—fireplaces crackling, low amber lights glowing along the stone corridors—but it didn’t chase away the chill lodged deep in my bones. Conversations died the second I entered a room. Not abruptly. Not obviously. Just… faded. Like someone turning down a volume knob.
Eyes tracked me.
Not curious.
Protective.
Men who had joked with me hours earlier now stood straighter, jaws tight, shoulders squared. A biker near the entranc
