The Heiress of Shadows

st-or what passed for breakfast in a world she no longer recognized-she

to shout. Ornate rugs, towering oil portraits of grim ancestors, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined w

rt of the east wing. The air here felt cooler, h

movement ca

down a side hallway, carrying what looked like sealed folders. She didn't stop to b

d seen in an hour. None of them looked her

hing about Dario th

old couldn't be all marble and elegance. It had to have layers beneath-secret roo

she found

they required ladders, and soft golden light that bathed the leather spines in a wa

de Law, The Silk Road and Its Echoes, Dynasties of the Mediterranean. It wasn't just a

o idle man

ategist's mind

ame she'd been pulled into. Dario wasn't a tyrant or a br

nd ledgers-dated, annotated, with the Levanis family crest burned into t

cou

uldn't b

She turned fast-too fast-and nearly

e woman in the

e carved by worry. She wasn't a maid. Not with that to

m the lady of this house.

the woman's eyes. Then the fainte

you?" Val

e," the woman said.

Greek nam

afraid of him,"

uld

d closer. "Eve

t. Then said, "Fear and respect often wear

consider

hat today. But know this-this house remembers everything. The walls, the staff,

t ask to

d how you choose to move wil

d disappeared back through the tall doors, leaving Valer

re, unmoving, for

remembers

for a leather-bound book on Levanis maritime ventures in the 1800s. Something cau

out and opened

date. A word circled i

he paper int

ily didn't want her to see. Something tied to the ma

e hallway, she felt it not

't going

t going t

going

tter than they ever expected. Because Casa Moretti wasn't just

etti was her fa