~ Massimo ~
The air outside the mansion was sharp and unforgiving, a biting chill that seemed to settle right into my bones the second I stepped out onto the gravel.
It was barely six in the morning, and the world was trapped in that eerie, gray liminal space between night and day.
Above me, the sky was a bruised shade of violet and charcoal, heavy with the weight of unshed rain, and the mist clung to the ground like a shroud.
The manicured trees that lined the long driveway swayed slowly in the wind, their branches creaking like old bones, while the air tasted of damp earth.
I stood there for a second, my lungs burning with the cold intake of breath, and I felt a visceral, pulling ache in my chest.
Every instinct I had was screaming at me to turn around.
I wanted to go back inside, to climb those stairs and crawl back into that bed where the air was still warm and smelled like everything I craved.
