Adrian’s POV
The morning was too still.
The Blackwood estate was never quiet. Even in its calmest hours, there was always the subtle hum of life—footsteps in the halls, muted conversations, the scrape of weapons being cleaned, guards shifting between posts. A place like this never truly slept.
But the quiet that hung over breakfast wasn’t the usual order I demanded. No, this silence had an edge, one sharpened by deceit.
Sophie.
She sat across from me, her back straight, her hair loose over her shoulders as though she had nothing to hide. The cut of sunlight through the tall windows caught on her cheekbones, softening her in a way that shouldn’t have mattered to me. Yet all I saw were the lies tightening around her throat.
She thought she was clever.
She thought she could slip past m
