The mansion was never truly quiet, though silence seemed to be its most natural state. Behind every polished corridor, every gilded door, there was movement—guards shifting, maids hurrying, business conducted in whispers that carried weight heavier than gunmetal. Aria had learned to recognize those sounds, to separate the harmless from the dangerous. The faint clatter of dishes? Harmless. The measured tread of polished shoes at midnight? Dangerous. Every hour sharpened her awareness, taught her to read the house as though it were a book written in secrets.
But nothing prepared her for the sound that drifted through the grand entrance hall that afternoon: a laugh, low and honeyed, a sound that belonged not to these walls but to champagne-soaked parties and whispered promises in the dark. A laugh that carried confidence, allure, and something sharper underneath.
Aria paused on the landing, her hand gripping the banister as she peered down at the source. The woman standing in the marble foyer looked like she had stepped out of a glossy magazine. She wore a dress that clung to her body like liquid silk, emerald green that shimmered against her golden skin, her dark hair spilling over one shoulder in a cascade of effortless glamour. Diamonds glittered at her ears, and when she tilted her head, they caught the light like stars bending to her will.
"Lorenzo," the woman purred, her smile curving in a way that spoke of history, of familiarity, of intimacy. She didn't have to reach for his attention; it was already hers, as though it had once belonged to her and might still.
Lorenzo descended the steps of the foyer to meet her, every movement as smooth and deliberate as ever. His suit was immaculate, his expression carved from indifference, but there was a tension in the way his eyes flickered—sharp, assessing, restrained. He didn't embrace her, didn't smile, but he also didn't push her away. That alone was enough to set Aria's stomach twisting.
From the landing above, Aria could not stop staring. She felt as though the air had thickened, pressing against her chest until it was hard to breathe. Who was she? The question beat in her skull, relentless. The woman's presence filled the space effortlessly, as though the mansion had been built with her in mind. And the way she looked at Lorenzo—with a mixture of amusement and entitlement—spoke of something Aria could not match: the past.
Aria descended slowly, each step measured, the click of her heels on the marble announcing her presence. The woman's eyes flicked upward, scanning her with the kind of glance that could undress and dismiss at once.
"And who is this?" the woman asked, her tone lilting, but her gaze sharp as a blade.
Lorenzo didn't flinch. His voice was even, cool. "My wife."
The word sliced through the air. For a moment, Aria felt a strange, fleeting power in it, as though being named in such a way was a shield. But the woman only arched a brow, her lips curving into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"Your wife," she repeated, tasting the syllables as though they were foreign on her tongue. Her eyes swept over Aria again, slower this time, dissecting. "How quaint."
Heat flared in Aria's chest, anger rising swift and sharp. She lifted her chin, refusing to shrink under the woman's gaze. "And you are?" she asked coolly, though her voice carried the tremor of challenge.
The woman's smile deepened, predatory now. "An old friend," she said, the words dripping with insinuation. "Isn't that right, Lorenzo?"
Lorenzo's eyes narrowed slightly, his expression unreadable. "Old being the key word."
It should have been a dismissal, a clean cut. But the flicker in his gaze—the brief shadow of something unspoken—betrayed more than his words allowed. And Aria saw it. She saw it, and it lodged in her like a thorn.
The rest of the afternoon blurred into a tense performance. The woman—whose name Aria later learned was Isabella—moved through the mansion as though it were her stage, laughing softly at memories she dropped like breadcrumbs, glancing at Lorenzo with the kind of knowing that came from nights Aria could never touch. At times, Lorenzo's indifference seemed unshakable, his coldness almost cruel in its precision. But at other times, a muscle in his jaw tightened, his eyes darkened with something she could not name. And Aria, standing at his side, felt herself shrinking and burning all at once.
At dinner, the rivalry crystallized into something undeniable. Isabella sat across from them at the long oak table, her presence consuming the space as servants poured wine and laid silver. She spoke freely, confidently, each word laced with familiarity, as though she were testing how far she could push.
"Do you remember Paris?" Isabella asked, her smile curving as she swirled her wine. "That night on the balcony of the Hôtel de Crillon? You said the city was yours."
Lorenzo's expression remained carved from stone, but his fingers tightened briefly around his glass. "I don't recall."
"Oh, I think you do," Isabella murmured, her eyes gleaming.
Aria's fork clinked softly against her plate, her grip too tight. She wanted to demand answers, to cut through the game being played before her, but she bit her tongue. To speak now would be to expose the raw wound blooming in her chest, and she refused to give Isabella that satisfaction. Instead, she sat taller, forcing her expression into something cool, controlled.
Yet beneath the surface, the jealousy roared, hot and relentless. She had known from the start that she was a pawn, a piece in Lorenzo's world moved by debts and power. But watching Isabella made the truth clearer, sharper, impossible to ignore: she wasn't chosen. She was claimed. And claims could be revoked, discarded, replaced.
By the time Isabella rose to leave, brushing a kiss against Lorenzo's cheek with deliberate slowness, Aria's nails had left crescents in her palms.
"It was… enlightening to meet you," Isabella said to Aria at the door, her voice dripping with mockery disguised as politeness. "I do hope you enjoy your time here. However long it lasts."
Her laughter lingered long after she swept out, her perfume clinging to the air like smoke.
When the doors closed, silence pressed in, heavy and suffocating. Lorenzo turned away, already striding back toward his study without a glance in Aria's direction. As though nothing had happened. As though Isabella had not peeled open old wounds and left them bleeding on the marble floor.
Aria stood frozen in the foyer, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. She wanted to chase after him, to demand what Isabella had been to him, what she still was. She wanted to scream, to throw her defiance into the space between them until he could no longer ignore it. But her voice caught in her throat, swallowed by the echo of Isabella's mocking smile.
And in that moment, clarity struck her with brutal precision: she wasn't his partner. She wasn't even his equal.
She was a pawn on a board she barely understood.
And pawns could be sacrificed.