The villa was unnervingly quiet when they returned.

The rain had stopped, leaving the world wrapped in damp silence. The convoy rolled through the iron gates, engines rumbling like distant thunder before cutting off one by one.

Dante stepped out first, his jaw tight, his shirt stained faintly with smoke and blood. He looked like a man carved out of war — lethal, untouchable, and utterly unreadable.

Isabella followed, her legs trembling from exhaustion. She’d seen blood before, but never like that — never so close.

The smell of gunpowder still clung to her skin, and beneath it, the faint trace of Dante’s touch from the night before haunted her...