Kya didn't tell Julian she was going back to the Gray estate. She had simply realized halfway through prepping her new recipe that she'd left the saffron — the expensive one Julian bought her from Spain — in the pantry at home. The small glass jar with the red label she'd been searching for for twenty minutes. She'd turned the entire kitchen of her studio upside down before the memory clicked into place. She grabbed her bag, called her driver, and told her assistant to come along. It was supposed to be a quick stop. A normal errand. In and out, ten minutes tops. Nothing more.
But the moment the car turned into the long driveway, Kya felt something was off.
She noticed it before she could name it. A stillness that didn't belong. The kind that pressed against the windows of the car and mad
