The voice sliced through the morning calm like a blade through silk.
"It's not yet time to welcome you home, my dear." The voice said again.
Alessia froze. The mist curled around her ankles, cool and damp, but it was the chill in her blood that rooted her in place.
She knew that voice. Smooth but yet very commanding and wrapped in elegance, sharp enough to wound.
Madam Lauretta Alessandro Morano stepped out from the veil of olive trees like a ghost materialized from memory.
Her coat was black, her gloves pristine, her silver hair pinned with surgical precision.
The matriarch of the Morano family—Luca's mother, the Council's whisperer—looked every inch the queen of old sins.
"Mother," Luca said, his voice taut. It wasn't surprise that colored it, but something harder—resentment, guilt, and restraint fighting for dominance.
"Madam lauretta," Alessia whispered. Her hand instinctively found Luca's.
