The morning after the vote was wrapped in a peculiar silence, not the kind bred by peace or satisfaction, but rather the thick, waiting quiet that comes just before a storm.
The villa, usually alive with lazy laughter and clinking dishes by breakfast time, felt suspended in air—as if everyone was holding their breath, wondering what would happen next.
Darius sat alone on the garden terrace, a mug of black coffee cooling in his hand as his gaze stretched over the pool, the sky beyond it smeared with watercolor shades of gold and pink. Birds chirped faintly in the distance, and the ocean breeze that slid past his skin held a salt-sweetness to it, but none of it reached the inner coil of tension in his gut.
He could feel their stares through the villa walls.
