186. RomanHe doesn’t go back to the villa.

Not yet.

The house still smells like something warm and spiced from earlier, something that doesn’t belong to him, something he can’t name, and he knows if he stays, if he lets himself sit in that quiet too long, he’ll break the careful composure he’s built all day.

So he drives.

The city blurs past him, lights streaking across the windshield, New York doing what it always does: moving on, indifferent, relentless. His hands are steady on the ...