Chapter 157

Giovanni

The door creaked open, the scent of ash and leather wafting into the grand marble foyer like a warning. I stepped inside, boots echoing with cold authority across the polished floor. Silence wrapped around the place like a shroud.

Everything seemed calm, far too delicate in a way that I did not like, in a way that I did not understand nor comprehend.

Something was wrong.

Not the kind of wrong that came with betrayal or blood, but the kind that came with softness. Weakness. I could smell it. Feel it in the stillness. The air no longer trembled beneath my presence the way it should. Everything around seemed to be far too calm for my liking.

My jaw clenched as I strode forward, past the portrait-lined corridor, my fingers brushing the edge of the mahogany frame of Marissa’s hidden photo behind the canvas, Delilah’s mother. Even in death, she lingered in the shadows of this house. A mistake I should have corrected years ago.

The woman