That night, I lay upon the four-poster bed with my back to the heavy oak door, the room swallowed in darkness. The brass lock turned with a soft, deliberate click. Footsteps crossed the imported marble—light, measured, yet carrying that familiar weight of intrusion I had learned to recognize in my bones.
"This place needs attending to."
Giorgio's voice cut through the silence.
I did not respond. The scent of him—sandalwood and old money, the cologne his mother had chosen for him since boyhood—once brought me comfort. Now it triggered something primal, a rejection that lived beneath conscious thought. I closed my eyes and feigned the stillness of sleep.
That arrangement between our families remained intact, like a blood oath stamped again and again without my hand ever touching the pen. I had once believed in it with the fervor of the devout. Because of that faith, I had crafted a thousand excuses for every absence, every distant look, every conversation that ended when I entered a room. Until betrayal no longer required evidence. Until it simply was.
"Elena."
He spoke my name low, as though the walls themselves might carry tales to the Commission.
"You've been strange lately."
I turned onto my back and opened my eyes, fixing them on the coffered ceiling where shadows gathered like conspirators. "You're only noticing now?"
Silence stretched between us. Then his footsteps moved toward the fireplace, and I heard the soft thud of his jacket being cast across the leather chair. "Are you still dwelling on what happened the other day? Silvia explained everything."
A sound escaped me—not quite laughter, too hollow for that.
"The ceremony preparations are in their final stage," he continued, his voice taking on the formal cadence he used in sit-downs. "The Dons take this alliance seriously. As do I."
Seriously.
The word hung in the air like gunsmoke after a shot.
Like a transaction awaiting its final signature. Like territory being divided on a map.
"Can you look at me when I'm speaking to you?" Impatience sharpened his tone now, the veneer cracking.
"There's no need," I replied.
That struck something in him. He moved closer, and his shadow fell across the bed like a sentence being pronounced. "What exactly are you trying to say, Elena?"
I let the question hang.