Three months later.
The world did not end when the Mercato del Muerte burned.
It simply went quiet.
Matthew used to think silence was dangerous—that when guns stopped firing and deals stopped bleeding, it meant something worse was coming. But this silence was different. It wasn't the kind that pressed against the ears until paranoia crept in. It was the kind that settled gently, like ash after a fire had already died.
Or like a child sleeping in the next room.
The mansion had changed.
Not structurally—its walls still stood tall and white against the hills, its gates still guarded, its corridors still echoing with quiet footsteps—but something fundamental had shifted. The air no longer felt heavy with secrets that might explode at any second. The men who moved through the halls did so with less tension in their shoulders. Laughter, rare but real, occasionally slipped out during meals.
And at the center of it all was a crib.
