Vera

Power does not arrive with noise.

It comes quietly, like a shadow stretching longer at dusk, unnoticed until it covers everything.

Vera stood at the balcony of the Bellanti estate as the morning mist rolled over the Tuscan hills, pale sunlight catching on the wrought-iron rail beneath her hands. Below her, the estate moved with a controlled efficiency that had taken years—and blood—to perfect. Guards rotated shifts. Cars arrived and departed without spectacle. Servants moved like ...