The townhouse still didn't feel like home. Its marble floors echoed too loudly, its high ceilings seemed to swallow warmth, and the shadows in its corners always felt too long. Since Massimo's death, the silence had pressed down like a weight on Elena, reminding her every moment of how empty the house had become.
She hadn't wanted to bring anyone back into these walls, but she couldn't live entirely alone either. Not with the black car lingering outside at odd hours, not with drawers and windows shifting when she hadn't touched them.
That was why Rosa was here.
Rosa Moretti had been one of the housekeepers when Elena was a child—back when laughter still threaded through the rooms, when her mother hosted teas in the garden and her father's study smelled of ink and cigars instead of secrets. Rosa had left years ago for quieter work in the countryside, but when Elena returned to Verona, she'd written to her. Rosa hadn't hesitated to come back, insisting Elena shouldn't face the townhouse alone.
She wasn't just a housekeeper anymore. She was a companion, a reminder of steadier times, someone Elena could trust when trust had become rare.
That morning, Rosa hummed softly in the kitchen as she prepared breakfast, trying to fill the cavernous silence. Elena sat at the dining table, her hands cupped around a porcelain coffee cup that had long since gone cold. She was staring at the steamless surface when the knock came.
It wasn't a neighbor's polite tap or a servant's hurried rap. It was deliberate. Three slow, measured knocks that reverberated through the heavy wooden door.
Elena's spine stiffened. She rose at once.
Rosa appeared at the kitchen doorway, drying her hands on a towel. "I'll get it, signorina."
Elena shook her head. "No, Rosa. Let me."
The older woman frowned but didn't argue.
Elena crossed the tiled hall, each step echoing as if the house itself held its breath. She opened the door.
A man stood on the steps in a perfectly tailored black suit. His gloved hand held a thick ivory envelope. His face was obscured by the brim of a dark hat and a plain black half-mask—something theatrical, absurd even in daylight, yet unmistakably intimidating.
He said nothing. He simply extended the envelope.
Elena's hesitation lasted a heartbeat before she accepted it. The paper was heavy, expensive. The crimson wax seal bore the unmistakable D'Angelo crest: the rampant lion.
"Who sent this?" she asked.
The messenger inclined his head once, silent as stone, then turned and walked down the steps to a waiting car. The engine purred, sleek and predatory, before disappearing into the labyrinth of Verona's streets.
Elena looked down at the envelope. Her palms had gone damp. She broke the seal with a fingernail.
The parchment inside was written in elegant, slanted script.
"The D'Angelo family requests the honor of your presence at our annual Masquerade.
Attendance is expected. Midnight at the Palazzo.
— D'Angelo."
There was no signature. None was needed.
Elena read it twice, slower the second time, weighing every word.
"Expected," she whispered. The word tasted like iron. Not invited. Not welcomed. Expected.
Behind her, Rosa's voice wavered. "What is it?"
Elena folded the letter carefully, slipping it back into the envelope. "A ball. Their masquerade."
Rosa's face hardened. "Then don't go. Nothing good comes of stepping into the lion's den."
Elena wanted to agree. She wanted to burn the letter in the fireplace and bolt the doors. But deep down she knew what refusal would mean. The D'Angelos didn't request—they commanded. And weakness, in Verona, was an invitation to be crushed.
"I don't have a choice," she said quietly.
Rosa moved closer, gripping her arm with surprising strength. "Child, listen to me. These people—your father owed them, yes, but that doesn't mean you must walk into their traps. They'll see you as prey."
Elena's chest rose and fell with slow, deliberate breaths. She looked past Rosa to the gilded mirror hanging in the hall. Her reflection stared back: pale, dark-eyed, defiant despite the tremor in her hands.
"Then I'll go," Elena said. Her voice was low but steady. "And if they see prey, let them. They'll learn I bite back."
Her heart thundered with fear, but beneath it flickered something else—defiance, and perhaps even curiosity.
The masquerade was a trap. But it might also be the key.
________________________
The hours that followed stretched long and heavy. The envelope sat on Elena's desk, the red seal cracked open, the letter inside burning in her mind. Every time she glanced at it, the word expected seemed to glare back at her.
Rosa, restless with worry, busied herself in the kitchen, her footsteps a nervous rhythm on the stone floor. Elena spent most of the day wandering the townhouse, aimless, her fingers trailing across cold bannisters and dust-coated books.
By evening, the air itself seemed to change. The sky outside the tall windows bled into violet, then into black. Verona's streets hummed faintly with distant carriages and engines, the muffled life of a city that had already chosen its rulers.
And Elena knew she had no choice left but to prepare.
She went to her mother's old wardrobe in the upstairs chambers. The carved wood creaked as she opened it, releasing a faint scent of lavender and time. Silk and lace in muted colors hung there, carefully preserved though long unworn. Her mother had always believed that appearances were not vanity, but armor.
"The world will try to measure your worth before you even speak," her mother's voice whispered from memory. "Let them choke on their assumptions."
Elena's hand hovered over gowns—deep burgundy, forest green, muted silver. She settled on one her mother had once worn to a winter gala: black silk, its neckline modest but its tailoring sharp, designed to command respect rather than invite touch. When she held it against her body, the mirror reflected not fragility but severity. Exactly what she needed.
From a velvet box in the same wardrobe, she lifted a mask: obsidian, feathered at the edges, its delicate filigree cut into sharp lines that traced like shadows across her face. It was beautiful, yes, but also austere. A shield.
In her room, Rosa fussed with the gown's fastenings, her wrinkled fingers nimble despite their tremor. "You look like your mother," she murmured, voice heavy with memory. Then, with a frown: "But I don't like sending you to them, not dressed like prey for wolves."
Elena caught her gaze in the mirror. "Wolves don't always devour, Rosa. Sometimes they circle to see who dares stand their ground."
Rosa sighed, shaking her head. "And sometimes they tear apart the proudest lioness."
Elena ignored the chill in her words. She focused instead on the reflection staring back at her: her dark hair swept into a simple chignon, her lips painted wine-red, her mask waiting beside her on the vanity. She looked like herself—and yet not.
She looked like someone who could walk into Dante D'Angelo's lair without flinching.
When she finally pinned the mask in place, the transformation was complete.
The woman in the mirror was no longer only Elena Massimo's grieving daughter. She was an adversary, cloaked in silk and secrets.
Her pulse fluttered beneath her calm expression, but she steadied it with a thought: Fear is their weapon. Defiance will be mine.
Rosa touched her arm lightly before she left the room. "Promise me, Elena. Whatever game they play tonight, don't lose yourself in it."
Elena managed a faint smile, though her chest felt heavy. "I won't," she whispered. "Not even to him."
But as she descended the marble staircase, cloak draped over her shoulders, a single thought clawed at her resolve—Dante had already unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.
The masquerade would test more than just her strength. It would test her will.
___________________________
The carriage wheels whispered over cobblestones as Verona slipped past Elena's window. Streetlamps glowed like tired sentinels, their light bending across wet stone, catching in puddles left by a brief evening rain. Shadows clung to narrow alleys, and at every turn, Elena felt eyes on her.
The black car.
It wasn't behind her at every corner, but often enough that when the carriage swayed left, her gaze would flick instinctively to the rear window. More than once, she caught a flash of polished steel, the gleam of headlights that vanished just as quickly. She clenched her gloved hands in her lap, refusing to let fear become visible—even to herself.
The city grew quieter as the carriage climbed toward the hills, where the palaces of Verona's oldest families stood like silent gods over the streets below. Here, iron gates were taller than men, and stone walls whispered of centuries of power.
And then, at last, the Palazzo D'Angelo.
It rose from the earth like a fortress masquerading as art. The façade was bathed in golden light, every balcony draped with crimson banners stitched with the family crest: a wolf's head crowned in thorns. Torches burned along the entrance path, their flames snapping against the night air, while carriages and sleek automobiles lined the gravel drive.
Guests in masks and jewels poured through the tall gates. Some laughed too loudly, their voices high with champagne, while others whispered in low, dangerous tones, as though every exchange were a transaction. The guards at the gate watched without smiling, their eyes cold, their postures rigid—wolves in tailored black suits.
When Elena's carriage stopped, the driver opened the door, bowing slightly as though he, too, felt the gravity of the place.
Elena stepped down, her black gown brushing against the stones, her mask casting sharp shadows across her face. The night air was heavy with the mingled scent of roses and smoke.
For an instant, she hesitated.
The gates loomed before her, promising not entry but entrapment.
Then she squared her shoulders. Walk like you belong here, she told herself. Even if they're waiting to devour you.
Inside, the palazzo was transformed.
The grand hall stretched upward into a cathedral of chandeliers, each dripping with crystals that refracted golden light across marble floors. A string quartet played from the balcony, their music a lilting waltz that wrapped the crowd in velvet sound. Masks shimmered everywhere—feathers, pearls, grotesque visages carved in gold.
It was beautiful. And it was terrifying.
Everywhere Elena looked, eyes lingered too long. Men in dark masks and women in gowns like molten jewels drifted through the hall, their laughter brittle, their smiles hiding teeth. Some regarded her with curiosity, others with something sharper, the way merchants might inspect a rare gem.
She walked slowly, deliberately, her heels clicking against marble in a rhythm that echoed through the hall.
Behind the masks, the whispers began.
"That's her…"
"Massimo's girl."
"…foolish to come here."
"…he's watching her already."
Elena kept her chin lifted, though the whispers scraped against her composure. Each word confirmed what she already knew: she was not here as a guest. She was here as prey.
At the far end of the hall, a grand staircase curved downward like the spine of some great beast. From its top, a figure descended, unhurried, cloaked in the kind of confidence that belonged to men born into command.
Dante D'Angelo.
Though his face was half-hidden behind a black mask, there was no mistaking him. The crowd seemed to bend around his presence, conversations softening, laughter dimming. Even masked, he was unmistakably the center of gravity.
Elena's pulse betrayed her. A single, sharp beat that tightened her chest.
And then his gaze found hers.
He did not smile. He did not nod. But his pause at the last step, the way his eyes lingered—long enough to let her know she had been seen—was acknowledgment enough.
The waltz shifted into something slower, darker. The room seemed to breathe in unison with the strings.
Elena adjusted her mask, lifted her chin higher, and stepped deeper into the ballroom.
If this was a theater, she would play her part.
But inside, she knew: she had just stepped fully into the wolf's den.