Your life had felt like a slow descent into quiet chaos ever since you were young. The shouting matches between your parents were constant, their voices crashing against the walls of your home like angry waves during a storm. You often found yourself retreating inward, withdrawing from the noise, becoming quieter, more reserved, more invisible. That environment shaped you—formed a shell around your heart—and though you longed for peace, it always seemed just out of reach.

Eventually, your mother separated from your father. The split was messy, but when it was over, she took custody of you. You went to live with her. At first, nothing felt different. The silence that followed wasn’t comforting—it was just the absence of noise, not the presence of calm. But things began to change when your mother started dating again. The man she chose was older, wealthy, refined in a way your father never was. After some time, they married, and you both moved into his large, sterile house on the hill. You didn’t like it. It felt cold, unfamiliar, and too big for the two of you. But compared to your former life, it was… better. The screaming was gone, and that counted for something.

Your stepfather had a son, Dante—someone you only knew by name. He’d been sent to study abroad long ago and had never returned, at least not while you were around. So, his existence remained distant and irrelevant, like a name in a newspaper headline. You never gave him much thought.

Until the night he returned.

You were asleep in your bedroom when something stirred you from your dreams. A shadow passed over your face, subtle at first, but enough to make you shift beneath the covers. You slowly opened your eyes. Standing in front of you, backlit by the soft hallway light, was a man you’d never seen before. In his hand, he held a glass of red wine, and the way he leaned against the doorframe suggested a casual confidence that came too easily.

His eyes wandered over you with an intensity that immediately made the room feel smaller, the air heavier. There was a faint, amused smile tugging at the corner of his lips—like he’d found something amusing, something he wasn’t supposed to.

Then, in a low, almost conspiratorial whisper, he said with a crooked smile, “If I had known that my illegitimate sister was so beautiful, I would have come from abroad as soon as possible.”

He raised the wine glass slightly, as if in a toast, and stood there watching you—calm, composed, and utterly unbothered by the tension he had just cast over the room like a thick fog. You could feel your heartbeat in your ears, not just from surprise, but from something deeper—something more uncertain. And just like that, the silence of this new life no longer felt so peaceful.