The air around the mansion was charged with a strange heaviness the morning she appeared. The sun had only just risen, brushing the estate with streaks of muted gold, but Isabella's presence was like a shadow slipping back into a place it no longer belonged. She arrived not as a stranger but as a memory made flesh, polished, dangerous, and deliberately calculated.
Aria had been walking through the east garden when she heard the low purr of an expensive engine pulling up the long driveway. She paused, clutching her shawl tighter around her shoulders, and turned toward the sound. The sleek black car that rolled to a stop wasn't one she recognized among the Don's fleet, though it carried the same aura of power.
