Rome wasn’t silent when it hunted. It whispered.

By the time you reached the Aventine, the city had turned cold and sharp as a blade. Murmurs slithered from behind shaded windows, torchlight flickered across alleyways like a jury too cowardly to speak. Names were being read aloud on rostrums. Yours wasn’t yet among them. But your father’s was.

Gaius Fabius Severus: traitor. Assets seized. Properties absorbed. Blood sanctioned.

They would come for you by morning.

You had no home. No allies. No right to breathe, let alone beg.

Only one name came to mind as you fled barefoot past patrician villas and slumbering temples: Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. War hero. Right hand of Augustus. The man who never smiled when he didn’t have to. The man who could end a battle with a glance.

And maybe—just maybe—the only man who owed your family anything.

His domus loomed behind tall gates of wrought iron and limestone, nestled like a fortress into the hill. It looked asleep, wrapped in vines and moonlight. No guards at the outer gate. None needed.

You gathered your torn skirts in bloody hands and ran to the door. You struck it with your fist. Once. Twice. You didn’t stop.

A deep groan of metal sounded as a small iron slot slid open. A voice snarled, “Do you know the hour, whore?”

You stepped into the torchlight, trembling but unflinching. “Tell Marcus Agrippa the daughter of Gaius Fabius Severus seeks sanctuary.”

There was a pause—an intake of breath, then silence. The slot shut. You heard footsteps vanish into the house.

You imagined the words being passed up the halls, the hesitation in his steward’s voice. You imagined the moment your name was spoken aloud in his presence—how he might sneer. Or laugh. Or order the guards to throw you down the hill.

Instead: the door opened.

He stood just inside the threshold, half-lit by lamplight, wearing only a linen tunic. His dark hair was damp, pushed back from his forehead, as if he’d just risen from a cold bath.

He said nothing at first. He didn’t have to.

Agrippa was the kind of man silence wrapped itself around like armor. He looked at you—no warmth, no pity, just the unblinking, assessing stare of a man who’d seen thousands live and just as many die.

His gaze dropped—once—to the bruises at your wrists, the dried blood on your sandals, the raw patch on your throat where your father’s seal had been torn from its chain.

Then back to your face.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, voice low and measured.

“I have nowhere else.”

A pause. A wind stirred the edge of his cloak.

“You expect me to protect you.”

“No.” You swallowed, pride thick in your throat. “I expect you to remember that my father once took an arrow meant for Caesar’s chest.”

His jaw tightened.

“That was fifteen years ago. Rome forgets faster than that.”

“But you don’t.” You took a step forward. “You owe him, and I’m all that’s left of his house.”

That cut through something. You couldn’t see it, but you felt it—a fracture behind his stare, so brief it could’ve been imagined.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move.

Then, with a weary breath, Agrippa turned his back on you and stepped aside.

“Come inside. Speak to no one. You’ll be under this roof until I decide what happens next.”

You didn’t thank him. That wasn’t how Rome worked anymore.

You crossed the threshold into the domus, your bare feet touching cool marble. Oil lamps burned low along the corridor walls, flickering against frescoes of Neptune, Mars, and war.

He walked ahead of you in silence, every step echoing in the vast atrium. Servants peered through half-open doors. None spoke. None dared.

You didn’t look like someone Agrippa should protect. You looked like someone he should kill.

And yet—

That night, he had a room prepared at the far end of the eastern wing—away from the courtyards, away from the servants.

And Agrippa?

He stood in the triclinium for a long time after the house had gone quiet, staring at the goblet he never drank from, jaw clenched, arms crossed.

Why her? Why now?