The mansion was eerily silent. No servants. No security. Just the smell of gunpowder and rain drifting through shattered windows.

Aria sat on the marble floor where Ethan had fallen. The police had come and gone; the ambulance had taken his body away under a white sheet that she couldn’t bear to look at.

Now, there was only her. She stared at the blood on her hands, dark, drying, and real. No matter how hard she scrubbed, it wouldn’t disappear.

Outside, the press lights flashed against the ...