Sarah's False Move

The air in the Rossi mansion always felt thick, heavy with the scent of expensive polish and unspoken words. I’d grown up breathing it, thinking it was just the smell of home. But lately, it felt more like the suffocating perfume of a gilded cage. My cage. And Sarah, with her sharp eyes and sharper tongue, was just another gilded bar.

She’d been circling Marco and me for weeks, a predator disguised in designer silk. Her presence was a constant, irritating hum, a reminder that even in my own home, I wasn’t entirely free. Tonight, she was particularly insufferable, perched on the edge of the velvet chaise lounge in the solarium, her gaze fixed on Marco as he leaned against the marble fireplace, a half-empty glass of amber liquid in his hand.

“Bella, darling,” Sarah drawled, her voice dripping with a saccharine sweetness that always set my teeth on edge. “You’re looking a little… preoccupied. Everything alright?”