The morning after the fire and the fury should have been a reprieve, but it wasn't. The mansion was hushed, its wounds bandaged in haste—shards of glass swept away, curtains replaced, walls scrubbed clean though the scent of smoke still clung to the air like a bruise that refused to fade. For Aria, the silence wasn't peace; it was tension stretched so tight she could hear it hum in her bones. Lorenzo had left her bed only hours before, his body still warm when the sun bled across the windows, but his absence was a weight she couldn't shake. He'd gone to a meeting with the inner circle, the men whose loyalty was supposed to be carved in blood. And yet, as she walked the halls with her fingers brushing against the banisters, she felt eyes on her—watchful, suspicious, measuring.
The whispers started small. Servants huddled in corners, cutting off their conversations when she entered the room. Guards exchanged looks behind mirrored sunglasses, their shoulders stiff, their hands always a little too close to their weapons. Even the councilmen who had once sneered at her presence now seemed strangely polite, their smiles taut, their gazes sharp. Paranoia threaded through her veins, each glance and silence another reminder: someone had opened the gates for the men who tried to kill her. Someone had whispered her name into enemy ears, and now she lived with the constant certainty that betrayal breathed inside these walls.
When Lorenzo returned to her side that afternoon, his jaw was tight, his fists still clenched long after the meeting had ended. He didn't sit, didn't relax. He paced, every line of his body drawn taut with rage. "There's a traitor," he said at last, his voice sharp as a blade. "One of my men. Someone who eats at my table, who swore their blood to me." He turned to her then, his eyes like molten steel. "I will find him. And when I do…" His silence was worse than words; it was the kind of silence filled with the promise of violence.
Aria swallowed, her throat tight. She wanted to comfort him, to soothe the fire threatening to consume him, but her own doubts gnawed at her. She remembered the note slipped into her hand at the outing, the message in her jewelry box, the photograph that had appeared without warning. She remembered the way eyes lingered on her in gatherings, as if waiting for her to make a misstep. Could it be possible—could someone be framing her? She didn't dare say it aloud, not yet.
Days passed, each one thicker with suspicion. Lorenzo's men began to watch each other as much as they watched the doors. Conversations cut short, meetings ran late into the night. And Aria, caught in the middle of this world, began to feel the walls closing in. She walked past the study one evening and heard voices low and sharp. "…her influence grows," one man muttered. "…too much power for a wife," another snapped back. She pressed a hand against her stomach to keep it from twisting. Were they speaking of her as a threat—or as the scapegoat?
It was almost midnight when she found it. She'd gone to Lorenzo's office looking for him, drawn by the sound of papers rustling, the faint crackle of firelight under the door. But the room was empty when she entered, the desk piled high with documents, maps, reports. And then, half-buried beneath an open ledger, she saw it. A folded letter, sealed but already slit open, the wax broken in haste. She pulled it free, hands trembling as she unfolded the page.
Her breath froze.
It was her handwriting.
The curves of her script, unmistakable, the loops and slants she had practiced since she was a girl. Words inked across the page detailed confidential information—meeting times, guard rotations, plans Lorenzo had spoken of only behind closed doors. Words that, if true, could only have come from someone in his bed. Someone in his confidence. Someone like her.
Her knees buckled, and she sank into the chair, the letter shaking in her hands. "No," she whispered, her throat raw. She hadn't written this. She knew she hadn't. And yet, the proof stared back at her in ink and curves only her own hand could create. She pressed her palm over her mouth, fighting a sob. If Lorenzo saw this, if he believed it—no vow, no fire, no passion between them would save her.
The door creaked open behind her.
"Aria?"
His voice.
Her blood turned to ice as she clutched the letter, the flames from the hearth licking shadows across the floor. She turned slowly, meeting his gaze, her heart hammering so violently she thought it might give her away before her lips even moved. And for the first time since she had become his wife, she wasn't sure if Lorenzo De Luca would see her as his bride… or his betrayer.