The night after the attack, the Palazzo Ferretti was a mausoleum of whispered fears. Alessia’s dress was stained with blood—her own and the dead man’s—and the weight of betrayal pressed heavy against her chest. She moved like a ghost through the corridors, her mind a fractured mirror reflecting every lie she’d ever believed.
Lorenzo waited in the dim study, the flickering fire casting shadows on his face. His eyes were red-rimmed, haunted. When Alessia entered, he didn’t speak. Instead, he offered a glass of whiskey, a silent truce in a war neither wanted to lose.
She accepted it, her fingers trembling around the glass. The bitter burn was nothing compared to the fire inside her.
“Who sent him?” she finally asked, voice low, razor-sharp.
Lorenzo’s jaw clenched. “I don’t know. But someo
