Chapter 40 – Danger Close, Hearts Closer

• “Is this… where we’re staying?” Alina asked, her voice a hush, the kind of whisper one used in places heavy with ghosts.
• Luciano nodded silently beside her as the wrought-iron gates creaked open. The villa sat nestled between cliffs and olive groves, surrounded by miles of silence and the wind-swept hills of Sicily. Old stone walls stretched up from the earth like bones of a sleeping giant. Once a summer home, now forgotten. Feral vines clung to the arches like time had refused to let go.
• “This was my mother’s,” he said finally. “No one’s lived here in over a decade.”