Emilia’s transformation is happening quietly, but powerfully. This chapter marks a turning point, not just in how she views herself, but how she sees the world she’s been pulled into. She’s no longer the girl sitting in the corner, waiting for things to happen to her. She’s starting to question, to notice, to feel the weight of her own name. And that’s dangerous in Lucien’s world.
The silence in the Wolfe estate had changed.It wasn’t the peaceful quiet Emilia had grown used to, the kind laced with soft jazz from the parlor or the hum of distant voices in the kitchen. No, this silence had a shape to it. Heavy. Watchful. Like something coiled in the walls, waiting.She noticed it first when she entered the hallway that morning and caught two housekeepers murmuring near the staircase. They didn’t even try to hide it, just stopped mid-sentence and looked past her like she was a ghost. Or a grenade.“Do you need something?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.They both shook their heads and walked away too quickly.The day went on like that. Glances. Awkward pauses. Locked doors that used to be open. Even lulu, who had never liked her but used to at least pretend, refused to meet her eyes when she brought Emilia’s lunch to the sunroom.Only Mateo greeted her with warmth.He passed her in the hallway with a nod and a quiet, “Señora,” offering a small, reassu
The desert air was a slow suffocation, too still, too quiet. Raul Navarro stood beside the idling SUV, eyes scanning the expanse of dust and shadow. The rendezvous point was an abandoned fuel station, fifty miles south of the last paved road, swallowed by sand and time. The kind of place people didn’t stumble upon. Which meant someone chose it for exactly that reason.The sun had long since bled out behind the horizon, leaving rusted signage and cracked asphalt in monochrome shadow. His men moved in a loose perimeter, alert but calm, weapons drawn but low. Not posturing. Just ready.This wasn’t a battlefield yet.Raul lit a cigarette with a flick of his lighter. The brief flare carved sharp lines into his face, tired lines. He looked every bit the cartel don in his tailored charcoal suit, but the dust clinging to his cuffs and boots betrayed the truth. No one came out here clean.He hated being summoned.Worse, he hated not knowing who had done the summoning. The Vulture. A name wrappe
The evening air in the estate felt heavier than usual.Emilia stood by the window, watching the last brushstrokes of sunlight fade behind the stone walls. Even here, where Lucien said she was safest, shadows seemed to creep faster than they should. She had grown used to the silence, the isolation. It didn’t bother her anymore. Not really. She had simply learned to exist within it.But tonight… something had changed.Footsteps. His.The lock clicked open. The door creaked softly, and Lucien stepped inside.He didn’t speak at first. He closed the door behind him with a quiet finality, as if shutting out the weight of the world. His tie hung loose around his neck, the sharp lines of his suit wrinkled, as though he’d been pulling at them all day.His shoulders looked heavier than usual.“Lucien?” Emilia’s voice cut through the silence. She turned to face him, her heartbeat already quickening, not from fear, but from the sharp, restless energy radiating off him.He dragged a hand through hi
The drive to Lucien Moretti’s estate was too quiet.Raul Navarro didn’t like quiet. Not the kind that came with watching trees pass by like ghosts through bulletproof glass. Not the kind that made the back of his neck itch.He adjusted his cuffs. A gold chain glinted beneath his shirt sleeve. Clean. Sharp. Southern charm wrapped in cartel violence. He didn’t wear body armor. Didn’t need to. If Lucien wanted him dead, no Kevlar was going to stop it.The gates opened before the car fully stopped. That alone told him something, Moretti wasn’t in the mood to wait.He stepped out onto the gravel driveway, flanked by two of his own men, both silent, both armed. The sun hit hard here, but not as hard as it did back south. In his own territory, the heat came with life, sweat, grit, laughter, blood. Here, it was silent. Controlled. Like everything was waiting for permission to breathe.A Moretti man led him inside without a word.They didn’t need to talk. Raul had been here before. The halls st
The halls whispered like always, quiet servants, polished marble, shadows that moved just a second too late. Emilia remembered days she used to just like the servants, moving like shadows, and serving men’s who looked like they can pounce on you at any moment. Emilia had grown used to listening with more than just her ears. It was the silences that gave people away. The pause when someone recognized her, the shift in posture, the way eyes darted to others before answering.She was on her usual route again, her silent game of spy. But she felt as if they should be doing more if there is a mole on the inside but Julio and Lucien are doing more and they cannot trust anyone else. She turned the corner into the kitchen wing, expecting the usual rhythm of pots clanging, knives chopping, kitchen staff murmuring behind cupped hands.Instead, everything slowed.The scent of baking bread didn’t quite cover the tension that thickened the air. A few kitchen hands went stiff at the sight of her,
The estate had never felt so silent.The mole stood at the far end of the corridor, half shadowed by the archway between the east and west wings. Hands tucked into the deep pockets of pressed slacks, posture lazy, unthreatening.But the mole’s eyes, those never stopped moving.They had watched Julio enter Lucien’s quarters that morning and hadn’t seen him leave until hours after midnight. That in itself wasn’t unusual. Julio and Lucien were practically like brothers. But Emilia had been inside too. And the three of them, locked away for that long? That wasn’t business as usual. That was dangerous.Something had shifted.The mole’s jaw tensed. They scanned the corridor again, empty. Nothing but flickering candlelight and faint echoes of a world pretending it hadn’t just bled.The mole moved, silent as breath, down the corridor toward one of the storage rooms near the service stairwell. The old wine cellars were rarely used now, perfect for quick messages and quiet conversations.They st