The second I stepped into the house, I knew something was wrong.

It wasn’t the silence. It was the kind of silence — the kind that buzzed behind your ears, just before something goes to hell.

I heard the children laughing in the garden before I saw them. That sound usually softened me, reminded me why I kept doing all this, why I fought so hard to protect a kingdom soaked in blood. Alaska is my pride and joy. I’d do anything for my daughter.

But today, it hit differently.

Something isn’t right.

I saw you in the kitchen first, standing stiffly with your hand wrapped tight around your coffee mug. You gave me that look— the one that said, ‘Don’t lose your temper, but something’s off’.

Then I saw her.

The woman standing opposite you. Silk scarf. Overdone diamonds. She looked right through me, and I could almost hear the unspoken words crawling behind her fake smile.

I froze.

My eyes scanned the woman, the posture, the sharpness in her chin, and then they drifted to the boy in the garden.

The boy with the jet-black eyes and that unmistakable Roman nose. Holding my daughter’s hand. Laughing with her. Chasing her through the garden like they’d known each other their whole lives.

I blinked once. Cold fury bloomed in his chest.

“You didn’t tell me her kid was here,” I muttered under my breath as he stepped beside you.

You glanced up at me, confused. “Who is she?”

I clenched his jaw. I hadn’t heard that name in years. Hadn’t spoken it since the night he watched the last of the Romanos burn.

“She’s Niccolo Romano’s widow,” I said quietly, eyes still locked on the garden.

You froze.

Niccolo Romano. The man who once tried to take everything from me— the docks, the money, the bloodline. The man I had watched bleed out on concrete with a smile on my face, promising revenge with his last breath.

And now… his heir was playing tag with my daughter.

It wasn’t a coincidence.

Niccolo’s widow is here for a reason.