Serafina’s POV
Morning in Italy does not ask for permission before it arrives. It slips in through tall windows and lays itself across polished floors and quiet tables as if the world has never known scandal, never known blood, never known men who build towers from other people’s bones. I was sitting at the long dining table when the light reached my hands, and I remember noticing how calm they looked wrapped around a porcelain cup, as if they belonged to someone whose life was made of gentle things instead of careful destruction.
The coffee steamed softly in front of me, and I stirred it without hurry, watching the thin swirl of cream fold into the dark liquid.
Matteo sat across from me with one ankle resting on his knee, scrolling through his phone with the same steady expression he
