The house was too quiet.
Dante noticed it the moment he stepped through the front door.
The silence pressed against his eardrums like water... thick and wrong. There was no television murmur from the living room, no soft footsteps from upstairs. no presence that he'd grown accustomed to feeling the moment he crossed the threshold. It was like he had developed a special awareness that Mila was somewhere in the house, breathing the same air, occupying the same space.
But today, he stood in the foyer, his hand still on the door handle, and felt the wrongness settle into his bones.
His eyes swept the entryway, the stairs, the hallway leading toward the kitchen. Everything looked normal. Everything looked exactly as it should. But something fundamental had shifted, and his body knew it before his mind could articulate why.
"Where is she?" he asked, his voice cut through the silence, sharp and demanding.
