The morning after I saw Alessia, I woke with a heaviness in my chest that no amount of coffee could lift. I sat at the kitchen table with my cup untouched, staring at the soft steam rising from it. Julian had already left for a meeting, and the silence of the house left me alone with the echoes of yesterday.

I knew I could not keep this only to myself. Claudia and Simone had carried pieces of this war as much as I had. They had seen Alessia’s cruelty up close, had held me through the storms, ...