Smoke curled through the empty streets like a ghost chasing shadows, seeping into every cracked corner of the city. The cold wind carried whispers—half-truths and full lies—about the De Luca heir and the Romano vixen who vanished, swallowed by flames that consumed the old opera house, leaving nothing but ash and ruin. The city mourned, feared, and gossiped—but no one knew the hell Alessia and Lorenzo were trapped inside now.
Alessia’s eyelids fluttered open, heavy as lead. Darkness pressed down on her like a suffocating blanket. The cold bit through her thin dress, crawling under her skin, rattling her bones. Her wrists burned fiercely where cold steel shackled her to the stone wall behind her. Every breath tasted of dust and despair.
Pain pulsed in her head—the memory of Lorenzo’s confe
