That night, I dreamed of Venice 1343 —the chandeliers dripping with candlelight, the sea of masks swirling across the marble floor of the Palazzo Dolfin, the way he had crossed that ballroom as a member of the Council of Ten. His black robe whispered against the polished stone with each step, the crimson stole across his shoulders marking him as one of the most powerful men in the Most Serene Republic. He moved with the confidence of a man who had already condemned someone to death that night—and would later be condemned himself.

  His eyes had found mine across the crowd with the certainty of destiny. No introductions were needed. No words were exchanged. He simply extended his hand, and I took it, and for the next several months then turn to years, I became his secret—the woman who shared his bed in the darkened palazzo, who listened to the softness beneath his public cruelty, who watched him give coin to beggars from his private gondola when he thought no one was looking.

  We spent countless nights together; lovers tangled in silk sheets while Venice slumbered. By day, he was the fearsome Councillor whose name made powerful men tremble. By night, he was simply mine—the man who traced the lines of my face in the darkness and whispered questions about where I had come from, questions I could never truly answer.

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  He was feared, yes. The Council of Ten answered to no one but the Doge himself, and they judged in secret, their verdicts delivered in whispers and carried out in darkness. But those who knew him beyond the black robe spoke of his hidden compassion—the orphanages he funded anonymously, the families he saved from starvation with purses left on doorsteps, the prisoners whose sentences he quietly commuted when their crimes were born of desperation rather than malice.

  "You are two men," I told him once, in the hours before dawn, my fingers tracing the lines of his face.

  He caught my hand and pressed it to his lips. "I am one man," he said softly. "The Republic sees what it needs to see. The people see what I can give them. But you..." His dark eyes held mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. "You see what I am. And that terrifies me more than any enemy ever could."

  The terror was justified.