Chapter Sixteen – The Romano Heritage

The gates of the Romano estate opened with the slow, deliberate groan of iron that had not been moved in years. The car rolled through the gravel path bordered by cypress trees, their shadows long and thin, like sentinels of memory. Isabella sat in the back seat, silent, her hands resting in her lap. The closer she came to the house, the more the air thickened with the scent of home — cedar, tobacco, and something colder, older, like marble that had absorbed too many secrets.

The Romano house was not a home. It was a fortress, a cathedral built for men who measured power in silence and fear. She had grown up under those ceilings, learning to speak only when her words could wound or heal with equal precision. Then she had left — trading her birthright for love, her name for a husband’s ring. Now she returned not as a daughter, not as a wife, but as something else entirely.

When she stepped out of the car, the household froze. The staff that had known her since childhood lined up along