The Marino estate sat on the north side of the city where old money had been building walls for three generations… high stone, manicured grounds, the kind of house that didn't need to announce itself because everyone who mattered already knew it was there.
Nico handed his jacket to the attendant at the entrance without looking at him.
Mara walked beside him through the main doors, her hand resting in the crook of his arm. The Ferrante crest pin caught the chandelier light as they crossed the threshold.
The room was already half-full. Six families were present, intimate by Council standards, though that still meant forty people in evening wear performing varying degrees of goodwill toward one another.
Mara read the room in under a minute and noticed who was grouped with whom, which conversations fell silent when they entered, and whose eyes were doing the real work behind social smiles.
She was still doing that read when she saw Carla.
