She woke up and the house was different.
Not visibly — same ceilings, same light, same sound of Rosa in the kitchen below. But the particular quality of the air had changed. The tension that had lived in the walls since the night she arrived — low and constant, the hum of something that could become dangerous at any moment — was quieter.
Not gone.
Quieter.
She lay still and noticed it.
Then she got up and went downstairs.
Valentino was in the garden.
Not standing — sitting. Actually sitting, in the old stone chair by the roses that she had never seen him use before. He had coffee and his phone was face down on the arm of the chair and he was looking at the garden with the particular quality of a man who was not thinking about anything specific.
She stopped in the doorway and looked
