Chapter 55

Violet

He left me. Yet again, he hadn’t let me come. Well, neither had he come, to be fair, and then, he’d left. I know because, after I’d gone to my room and showered, I had marched out and back to his room, which had been empty.I had walked down the stairs, headed to the living room, found it also empty. So was the kitchen…. Apparently, he’d left… And he hasn’t returned. Guess he has no intention of coming home anytime soon.

I had come to the kitchen, after smelling the coffee and toast and hash browns searing on the griddle, and for a second, I had thought that it was Alessio … But sadly, it wasn’t. I finished my breakfast on my own, and wandered around the house, before finding my way back to the library.

I had lingered there, picking out more strategy books likeThe Princeby Niccolo Machiavelli—of course, he’d have Machiavelli in his collection—Meditationsby Marcus Aurelius,A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategywritten by someone called Miyamoto Musashi who had bee