Giovanni:
The silence in my study was thicker than usual.
It was silent to the point where it was actually annoying. The silence was supposed to be peaceful. I could not help but find myself getting lost in more thoughts than I wanted to be.
No wind. No sound. Just the low tick of the grandfather clock and the weight of disappointment pressing down on my chest like a vice.
She was failing.
Delilah.
And though I did not want to admit it, not out loud, I knew that she was.
The one I spent years shaping. Hiding. Training. Feeding with secrets and half-truths. She was supposed to be different. She had to be different. I had carved her from the ruin of my past, created her in the shadow of everything I had lost.
And now she was faltering.
Now she was weakening. Now she could not see pa
