When I stepped back into the house, the guarded estate that had never once felt like mine, the silence felt heavier than before, pressing in from all sides. The soldier at the gate had nodded when I walked through. He was the only person in the Falcone compound who had acknowledged my return.
It wasn't until I had just set my things down that my phone rang.
Dante.
For a second, I simply stared at the screen.
Then I answered.
"Adriana, come pick me up."
No greeting. No explanation.
Just an order.
And before I could respond, the line went dead.
To everyone else, I was Adriana Falcone, the blood-bound bride of the heir, the woman who sat at the right hand of power and smiled when the Family required it. In reality, I felt more like his on-call, unpaid maid, someone he summoned when it was convenient and dismissed just as easily when it wasn't.