Ep. 4 Introduction
The Encino's name moved through Florence like old music, respected recognized and rarely questioned.
The Encino family lived in Florence, Italy the way roots live in stone, deep silent, impossible to remove. They didn't chase attention, but their name carried weight in rooms long before any of them spoke. People in the city didn't ask what the Encino did, they asked how much the Encino knew. Power wasn't something they performed. It moved with them, quite and constant. You wouldn't find them in headlines, in magazines. You'd find them in names of plaques, in decisions made behind closed doors that shaped the entire society. They didn't need to be seen to be felt.
In Florence,some families existed. The Encino's endured.
Their home stood just beyond the city's noise, tucked into the green folds above San Niccolo, where the streets grow narrow, and the air smells faintly of cypress and stone. Up there, the city hums softly below like a memory, close enough to see, far enough to breathe.
From their windows, you couldn't hear traffic. Only bells. And the Occasional silence that comes when the wind pauses to listen.
They lived just far enough away to be left alone, but close enough to remind the city they were always watching.
The Encino's house was not large in the way Palaces were large. It was large in the way Mountains are-solid, silent and undeniably there. Built from weathered stone and lined with Arched Windows, the house rose from the Hillside like it had been part of the land before Florence ever had a name. Vines curled around the old walls, thick with the moss in the shade, Golden in the morning Light. A narrow winding path led up to a huge garden. The entrance itself was modest, a dark oak door framed by carved stone and Shadow, flanked by two tall, silent Cypress trees that had watched generations come and go.
The Encino's are seven members,though people often assumed more.Their presence filled more space than their number.
MALCOLM ENCINO, a businessman, an influential person of the country. He is the kind of father whose silence shaped entire rooms. He never raised his voice, because he never needed to. One look, one pause in his speech, and the air shifted.
DANIKA ENCINO, is not a woman of many words, but her work is spoken Louder Than language ever could. She is a perfumer, One of the finest in Florence. Her perfume brand name as FIORENZA, evoking beauty and old-world charm. She isn't the kind of mother who filled the house with noise or warmth. She didn't hover. She didn't repeat herself. She isn't known for lullabies or soft hands.
Both are partners in the truest sense, two forces that didn't mirror but balance. Where Malcolm ruled with silence and weight, Danika moved with nuance and intent. He is the unmoving stone, she is the scent that lingered in the air long after a room had emptied. He watched the world. She read it.
They have five children, and not one of them is ordinary.
The eldest is twin boys, MICAH ENCINO and MALCHAI ENCINO- two sides of the same blade. One sharp with words, the other sharper with silence. Both are businessmen and twenty-eight years old.
After them came twin girls, FIORA ENCINO and GIADA ENCINO. Mirrors in appearance, opposites in soul. Fiora is precise, often poised like a sculpture. Giada Wild-eyed and Quick-witted, always half a second from Breaking the calm. Both are businesswoman and twenty five-year-old.
And then there is the youngest child of Encino's. The only one without a twin-OCEAN ENCINO. At twenty, she still walked as if trying not to be seen and spoke as if each word was something she had to drag into the light. She didn't carry herself like an Encino- not yet.
Her name is Ocean but she barely made a sound. She struggled to speak in full sentences. Not because she didn't know what she wanted to say-she knew. But something is always caught in her throat before the words could escape. In front of people, she unraveled. Her voice turned soft, hesitant, and easily overrun. She is an Encino, but she didn't wear the name like her siblings do. She avoided the center of rooms. She counted her steps. She listened more than she spoke. People mistook her quiet for weakness. They didn't understand that silence, too, can be a wound.
But Ocean carried a depth no one had reached yet. Something unspoken. Something waiting.
And some storms begin quietly- just beneath the surface, where no one thinks to look.
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