Chapter 48

Viona's POV

The night after I arrived at my villa, the air hummed with possibility.

There was no school the next day. No pressing obligations. No father or uncles patrolling my behavior. No overbearing guards to shadow my steps. Just the soft whir of the city calling me out like a whispered promise of freedom.

For the first time in my life, I was alone - completely and thrillingly alone - in a world I had only read about or seen through the window of a moving car.

My fingers ...