blah blah fucking blah

LUCA:

So, in short form, Morana had a cast wrapped around her left arm, twelve stitches curving behind her ear, and the love of my life was lying on an operating table somewhere beyond a pair of heavy double doors while an entire surgical team fought to keep him alive.

He'd been shot.

It didn't even feel like a real sentence. It was too small. Too ordinary. Two stupid little words that somehow carried enough weight to crush an entire world.

He'd been shot.

As if that explained why my hands wouldn't stop shaking, or why the sterile white walls of the hospital suddenly felt like they were closing in around me, or why every time those operating room doors so much as twitched my heart launched itself into my throat before crashing back down again when it wasn't him.

The universe had reduced the worst hour of my life to three words.

Morana had called me around half an hour after I'd gotten The Call from Roman, which, coincidentally, also happened to be the reason there were now three very impressive dents decorating my living room wall.

Her voice had been steady, but only just.

She'd told me that one of the men from the Brazilian family had managed to pull enough of the collapsed debris away for her to crawl free, and then, she’d dragged Roman out from beneath the rubble before Ivan (one of Roman's men) had reached her and helped carry him the rest of the way to the van. They'd kept constant pressure on the gunshot wound in his shoulder for the entire drive because the bullet had passed terrifyingly close to a major artery, and every second they spent trying to stop the bleeding had been another second they were desperately trying to keep him alive.

By the time they reached the hospital, he'd already lost an amount of blood that made even the doctors move faster.

She hadn't tried to soften it and hadn't lied to make me feel better.

She'd simply told me that the surgeons had taken him straight into theatre, promised they were going to do everything they possibly could, and then, after making sure I knew which hospital to come to, she'd hung up.

Which was how I'd ended up here.

Curled into a small black leather sofa outside the operating theatre with my elbows resting on my knees and my hands clasped so tightly together my knuckles had long since turned white, staring at the closed doors as though I could somehow force them to open through sheer desperation alone.

Somewhere on the other side of those walls, beneath impossibly bright surgical lights and surrounded by people I'd never met, my entire world was lying unconscious while strangers fought to give him another tomorrow.

And all I could do...

...was wait.

And wait…

And wait.

And at 4:21 AM, Morana Elisa Caldwell burst through the door on my right, tears spilling down her face as she looked at me and gave me what felt like the two most important words of my entire life.

“He’s okay.”

And then I moved. I didn’t even think.

I just ran to her and wrapped my arms around her as tightly and carefully as I could, my own tears finally breaking free after hours of forcing myself to stay together. It felt like this massive, crushing weight that had been sitting on my chest finally lifted, and for the first time all night, I could actually breathe.

“H-he put up one hell of a fight in there,” she choked out, holding onto me just as tightly. “It was so close, Luca, but he fought. They thought they’d lost him for a little bit, but he’s alive... he’s okay.”

And for the first time in almost five hours, I spoke.

“He’s alive...” My voice came out broken, like I still couldn’t fully believe the words leaving my mouth. “Oh my god, he’s alive. He’s fucking alive. He fought to survive and he’s alive and he’s okay...”

The tears wouldn’t stop, but for once, they weren’t from fear.

They were relief.

Morana nodded, crying just as hard as I was, but somehow smiling through it.

“Yeah,” she whispered, squeezing my shoulder. “Yeah, he is.”

ROMAN:

The first thing I saw was white.

Just fucking white.

For a second, my brain, still clearly malfunctioning from whatever hell I had just crawled back from, decided that this was finally it. That after years of waiting, after all the nights where I’d wondered if there was some sort of peace waiting at the end of everything, I had finally reached the stupid bright light everyone was always talking about.

How annoyingly predictable.

Except, for the first time in my life, I didn’t actually want to see it.

For years I’d convinced myself I didn’t care. That I wasn’t afraid of dying, that I’d already accepted the possibility of it, that my life was just something I was borrowing until someone stronger or luckier decided to take it away.

And then Luca happened.

Luca, with his stupid jokes and his terrible movie recommendations and his inability to walk past a dog without immediately losing his mind. Luca, who somehow looked at all the darkest parts of me and decided that they weren’t reasons to leave. Luca, who had somehow made me want things I had spent my entire life convincing myself I didn’t deserve.

I didn’t want the light anymore.

Not if it meant leaving him behind.

Not if it meant never hearing him ramble about something completely unnecessary while I pretended I wasn’t listening. Not if it meant never waking up to him stealing half the blanket and acting like it was somehow my fault. Not if it meant losing the one person who had somehow managed to make existing feel less like a punishment.

I had spent years building walls, avoiding attachments, making sure nobody had enough power over me to hurt me, and then one sunshine idiot walked into my life and completely destroyed my entire system.

Very rude of him.

Something moved above me, pulling me away from my very unwanted philosophical crisis, and a face slowly appeared through the fog clouding my vision.

An old woman.

I thought.

Probably.

She had glasses, although I couldn't quite decide if they were square or circular because everything looked like it had been dipped in water. My eyes felt heavy, my body felt like it belonged to someone else, and my brain was operating approximately three business days behind everything happening around me.

“Welcome back,” she said.

Her voice was calm. Too calm. I immediately disliked her a little bit for that.

 I tried to speak, mostly to prove that I still could.

“Unfortunately,” I managed to rasp.

The woman stared down at me for a moment before sighing. I attempted to move and immediately regretted that decision because apparently being shot was not something the human body appreciated. Every nerve in me seemed to collectively decide that now was the perfect time to remind me that I had, in fact, been through a traumatic experience.

Interesting.

Would not recommend.

The woman noticed my expression and immediately told me not to move too much, which was probably reasonable advice considering I had just woken up from surgery and not from a pleasant afternoon nap.

“I wasn’t planning on running away,” I muttered.

“You’d be surprised what patients attempt.”

“I’m not most patients.”

That earned me a look. A very specific look.

The kind doctors gave when they had already decided you were going to be annoying. She wasn’t wrong. Then, before I could stop myself, before I could pretend I wasn’t desperate for the answer, the question slipped out.

“Where’s Luca?”

The woman's expression softened slightly.

“Mr. Russo has been sitting outside for the past 5 hours.”

Of course he had. Because Luca, despite being one of the most emotionally stable and yet somehow most chaotic people I had ever met, would absolutely sit in a hospital waiting room for hours and refuse to leave because caring about someone meant actually showing up.

A ridiculous concept. A beautiful one.

“He hasn’t left,” she added.

Something uncomfortable tightened in my chest. 

Not pain. 

Something worse. 

Something warm. 

I hated how easily he had gotten past every defence I’d spent years building.

I hated that I trusted him.

I hated that the thought of him waiting for me made me feel safer than anything else ever had.

Mostly, I hated that I didn’t actually hate any of it.

“I told him not to worry,” I murmured.

“Yes, well, he wasn’t the only one,” she said, glancing down at whatever notes she had in her hands. “There was a girl as well. A bit young, but she was worried sick. Just as much as Mr. Russo was.”

Morana.

The reason I was lying in this hospital bed. The reason my shoulder felt like it had been personally attacked by the entire universe. And yet, strangely enough, there wasn’t even a flicker of anger.

No resentment, no bitterness, nothing. Which was almost more surprising than the fact that I was awake at all.

Because if this had happened years ago, if someone had told me I’d end up bleeding out because I’d gone back for someone else, I probably would’ve laughed in their face. I had spent most of my life believing that survival meant putting yourself first, that caring too much about people was just another way of giving them something to take from you.

But Morana wasn’t just some random person. She was my responsibility, in a weird way.

Not because she was weak, because Mara was probably one of the most stubborn, terrifying people I knew, but because somewhere along the way, she had become like a baby sister to me. 

I still remembered meeting her for the first time; I was 21, she was 15, and we were already arguing within minutes. Somehow, that turned into years of her standing beside me through everything, and me doing the same for her.

She was one of the few people who actually understood me. She was the second person I ever told about the episodes, the ugly ones where my own mind felt like it was fighting against me, and she didn’t look at me differently afterward. She didn’t treat me like I was broken or dangerous. She just stayed. That was my Mara. She was my best friend, my family, one of the only people besides Dominic and Alessandra who felt like home.

And when everything had gone wrong, when there had been a choice between leaving her behind or going back, I’d gone back.

That was on me. My decision. My fault. And honestly?

Worth it.

Because she was alive. That was the only part that mattered.

Not the surgery or the pain. Not the fact that I was probably going to be miserable for weeks while Luca hovered over me like an overly concerned victorian house maid.

Morana was alive.

Luca was here.

Everyone I cared about was still breathing.

For once, that was enough.

The doctor, whose name tag I was pretty sure read Dr. Kavanagh (although, to be fair, my eyesight was still doing whatever the hell it wanted) poured me a glass of water and placed it carefully on the stand beside my hospital bed.

“Your visitors will be here any minute now, Mr. Davenport,” she said, giving me a small nod before turning toward the door.

I barely had enough time to wonder how she knew before the door suddenly burst open.

And there they were.

Luca and Morana.

Two of the most incredible yet impossible people I had ever met, both looking like they had spent the last several hours fighting their own battles just waiting to see if I was going to wake up.

Luca looked exhausted, his eyes red and his hair a mess, while Morana stood beside him with her arm still in a cast and the same fierce expression she always wore when she was pretending she wasn’t worried.

Which, unfortunately for both of them, I knew them too well for that.

The doctor left to give us some space, I assumed, and the second the door clicked shut behind her, Luca and Morana rushed over to the side of my bed. For a moment, they both looked like they were about to completely ignore every medical instruction ever given and just throw themselves at me.

Honestly, very on brand.

Then they noticed. The anaesthesia cannula taped into my forearm, the IV lines, the strange collection of bandages and medical equipment wrapped around my shoulder, the way I was clearly alive, but also clearly not exactly in one piece.

They both stopped.

And that was worse.

Because Luca’s entire expression changed in a matter of seconds. The usual warmth, the little spark of chaos he carried everywhere with him, softened into something far more fragile as his eyes moved over every injury like he was trying to memorise what had happened to me.

Morana was quieter. Of course she was.

But I knew her well enough to see the panic she was trying desperately to hide behind that usual sharp expression of hers.

“You two are staring,” I finally said, because someone had to break the silence and I was unfortunately the only person in the room capable of doing so.

Luca blinked, looking back at my face.

“Sorry,” he whispered. I hated how guilty he sounded.

“I’m not dead, you know.”

“Roman,” Morana said immediately, her voice carrying the exact warning tone that meant I was about to be lectured.

“What?”

“You were literally shot.”

“Yes, and I’m currently awake, which I think is a pretty important detail.”

Luca let out a shaky laugh, the kind that sounded like it had been fighting its way out for hours. “You are unbelievable.”

“I’ve been told.”

“Not in a good way.”

“Also been told.”

That finally got a real smile out of him.

Small. Tired. But real. And seeing that was worth the entire hospital room.

Because despite everything, the pain, the exhaustion, the fact that my shoulder felt like someone had personally declared war on it, I had them both standing there.

Luca.

Morana.

My two biggest headaches.

And somehow, the two people I’d been most afraid of losing.

Morana looked between the two of us for a long, quiet moment before giving Luca's shoulder a gentle squeeze with her good hand, silently reading the room the way she always seemed to. Without a word, she mumbled something about finding the doctor to annoy him with questions and slipped out, the door clicking softly shut behind her and leaving the room wrapped in a silence that somehow felt louder than anything we'd said all night.

Luca stayed exactly where he was.

He didn't rush toward me. He didn't throw himself into my arms. He just stood there looking at me, his eyes impossibly red and swollen, like he'd cried until there was nothing left and then somehow kept going anyway. I'd seen Luca smile through pain, joke through fear, laugh at things that would've broken most people, but I'd never seen him look quite this fragile.

"I really fucked up your night, huh?" I said, because what the fuck else was I supposed to say?

He laughed. Or... tried to. 

It came out as something halfway between a laugh and a sob.

"You are such an asshole," he whispered, shaking his head as he walked over to the bed. "Do you know that? You get shot, scare me half to death, wake up, and the first thing you do is try and hit a one-liner.”

"I thought it was a good one."

"It wasn't."

"I'll take it."

His smile disappeared almost as quickly as it'd arrived.

Very carefully, like I was made of glass instead of bone and bad decisions, he reached over and took my hand, weaving his fingers through mine with enough caution that it made my chest ache more than my shoulder did. He tugged my hand as far as the weird thing on my shoulder would allow, and then pressed the gentlest of kisses to my knuckles.

Neither of us spoke for a while. He just held my hand. Then, so quietly I almost didn't hear him, he said, "Thank you." 

I frowned.

"For what?"

His thumb brushed absentmindedly over my knuckles. "For fighting."

The words caught me completely off guard.

"For staying."

He swallowed hard, his voice trembling despite every effort to steady it. 

"For coming back to me."

I looked at him for a long moment before squeezing his hand as much as I could manage.

"I told you I'd come home."

"You almost didn't."

"I know."

"I thought..." His voice cracked completely this time. "I thought that phone call was going to be the last time I ever heard your voice, and I don't think I've ever been that scared in my entire life."

Guilt settled heavily in my chest.

"I'm sorry."

"No." He shook his head immediately. "No, don't apologise. Just... don't scare me like that again."

"I'll do my best."

"You'd better, because I don't think I could survive a sequel."

A small laugh escaped me. Then he looked me straight in the eyes.

"I love you back.”

Not rushed or nervous or like he was saying it because he had to. He said it like he'd been carrying the words around for months and had finally found somewhere safe to put them.

"I think I loved you before I even realised what was happening," he admitted with a watery smile. "I just kept finding reasons to stay a little longer every time we were together, and then one day I realised that home wasn't really a place anymore."

His fingers tightened around mine.

"It was you."

I felt my throat tighten.

"I don't know how someone like me got lucky enough to be loved by someone like you," he continued, tears slipping freely down his cheeks now, "but I promise I'm going to spend the rest of my life reminding you that you're worth staying for, because you are. You always will be."

For the first time in a very long time...I didn't have a sarcastic and/or mean reply. I just lifted our joined hands as much as my shoulder would allow and pressed the lightest kiss against his knuckles.

"I love you," I whispered.

Luca smiled through his tears. "I know."

Then, with all the care in the world, he leaned down and pressed the softest of kisses to my lips, and for the first time since waking up, everything else, the hospital, the pain, the monitors humming in the background, faded into something wonderfully insignificant.

I loved dating Roman Davenport. 

Yep. You heard me. Dating. For almost 3 months now.

It still felt surreal to say out loud. Surreal, but absolutely fucking amazing too, because somehow this impossibly beautiful, permanently grumpy man had looked at me and decided, against all reason and common sense, that I was somebody he wanted to build a little life with. He was my boyfriend. Somebody I got to hug and laugh with and tell pointless stories to at two in the morning, somebody I got to share pieces of myself with until, little by little, our lives started weaving together.

He was mine.

Unfortunately, we lived apart.

Roman's...job (I guess you could call it?) took him everywhere, and even when it didn't, he insisted on spending most of his time in that godforsaken building because he needed to keep an eye on his people and make sure everything was running smoothly. And, of course, there was Morana, whom he absolutely refused to admit he loved despite the fact that every single person around him could see straight through the act.

The longest we'd been apart was a week. A full week.

And I learned very quickly that I was absolutely terrible at long distance.

On day one, I managed to act like a normal, well-adjusted human being and called him once in the morning and once before bed. By day two, I'd started sending him completely meaningless texts and a concerning paragraph explaining why I thought at least half the animals in Central Park were government spies. Days three and four somehow evolved into me sending him pictures of things that reminded me of him for absolutely no reason whatsoever. A crow sitting on a fence. A particularly dramatic cloud. A motorcycle that was vaguely the same shade of black as his. By days five and six, I had completely lost the plot. I was sending him voice notes, pictures of Yves, updates on what I'd eaten for lunch, and detailed complaints about strangers who had mildly inconvenienced me.

Then, finally, day seven rolled around and I got him back.

Turns out I was completely, hopelessly, embarrassingly attached to the cute little fucker.

But being with Roman had done something else, too. It had helped me understand him. Not just the version everybody else saw, but the person underneath all of that. 

His mental conditions especially started making more sense the longer we were together, because I realised that his mind wasn't cruel to other people nearly as often as it was cruel to him. The first time I saw him having a really bad episode, I didn't know what to do. I'd only known him for so long before then, and seeing somebody who always looked so composed suddenly overwhelmed by his own thoughts was terrifying, not because he scared me, but because I could see how much he was hurting.

Since then, I'd seen it happen a couple more times.

The mania ones hit hardest. The ones where his mind raced. They were always the hardest to watch because he looked like he was trying to outrun something only he could see, getting frustrated with himself because he couldn't seem to quiet the noise in his own head. The quieter days hurt too, though, because that was when he withdrew into himself and convinced himself he was a burden, or that he was somehow too broken for anybody to stay.

At first, I thought I needed to fix it. Then I realised that wasn't what he needed. Most of the time, Roman didn't need perfect words or clever advice. He just needed somebody who stayed. So I'd sit beside him, even if he insisted he was fine. I'd make sure he ate something, or got some sleep, or simply had somebody there while the storm in his head settled down. I'd let him know, over and over again if I had to, that he wasn't facing it by himself anymore. 

I think the days when his mind wasn’t trying to convince him that the world was ending were my favourite.

Not because I loved him any less on the bad days, because I didn’t, but because the good days let me see the version of Roman that I was pretty sure almost nobody else got to know. The quiet, awkward one who never really knew what to do with himself when he was happy, the one who followed me around my apartment pretending he wasn’t, the one who would stand in the kitchen with his arms folded while I cooked and somehow act like he wasn’t waiting for the exact moment I looked away so he could steal a piece of half-cooked pasta straight out of the pot.

And he always did it.

Every. Single. Time.

I’d hear the lid move behind me, spin around, and there he’d be, holding one pathetic little piece of spaghetti between his fingers like he’d been caught stealing state secrets instead of uncooked dinner.

The idiot.

Then there was the day he decided he wanted to make dinner himself.

I came into the kitchen because it had gone suspiciously quiet, which, in my experience, usually meant either Roman had fallen asleep somewhere or something had gone wrong.

He was standing over the pot with the box of spaghetti beside him.

The spaghetti...which was in pieces.

Little broken pieces.

I actually just stood there.

He looked at me. He looked down. Then back up.

I’m not joking when I say I think my soul left my body for a second.

I had to sit down.

He should’ve been grateful nobody from my family had seen that, because I’m almost certain one of my relatives would’ve materialised out of thin air just to slap him.

But those quiet evenings were my favourite.

Or those nights at his place where we'd sit on the roof with our legs dangling over New York, the two of us sewn together by Roman's ancient pair of wired headphones while we listened to something one of us wanted the other to hear. Usually, it was me introducing him to stuff, because Roman had absolutely zero ball knowledge when it came to good music, which I found deeply concerning.

It was kind of sad.

So far, I'd only managed to get him hooked on sombr, because he vibed hard with we never dated, and I'd slipped a few Conan Gray songs into the playlist too. He also liked escapism by RAYE and 070 Shake, which basically confirmed my suspicion that underneath the scary face and all the tattoos, my boyfriend loved sad people music.

I'd work on fixing his music taste later.

Also, unfortunately, I still had nightmares. I still had therapy.

I still had moments where something stupid, a smell, a sound, a scream that wasn’t roman’s, would drag me somewhere I didn’t want to go, back into memories I tried to forget. But the difference now was that I didn’t have to claw my own way back out every time. Roman always noticed. Sometimes before I did.

He’d pull me onto the couch and put on one of those movies I loved and he thought were absolutely ridiculous, or make me hot chocolate that somehow always tasted slightly different because he never measured anything, or just sit there beside me until my breathing settled down.

And sometimes I was the clingy one.

Actually, most of the time I was the clingy one.

I’d practically glue myself to him for entire evenings, following him from room to room until he finally gave up and accepted that whatever he was doing was now a 2 person activity. Sometimes he’d be lying in bed reading, completely absorbed in one of his books, and I’d just crawl over and flop down on top of him with my head against his chest, peeking up at him from underneath the pages. He never complained. He’d shift the book a little so I could still see his face if I wanted to, then one hand would find my hair almost automatically, his fingers running through it slowly while he kept reading like this was the most normal thing in the world.

With me.

With Yves.

With Josie, who had somehow managed to reduce one of the most dangerous men in New York into a human climbing frame.

With Morana.

Actually, speaking of her, we'd gotten to know each other a lot better over the last few months, mostly because she kept showing up whenever I was at the building and immediately deciding that whatever I was doing was now her business too.

She was...a lot.

She had this energy about her that made it feel like she'd walk into a room and immediately become the centre of it without even trying. She was loud and hilarious and had absolutely no filter, and I don't think I'd ever met somebody who could switch so effortlessly between threatening to stab somebody and then going out shopping because, apparently, her wardrobe was "a humanitarian crisis."

One afternoon we'd ended up getting coffee together while Roman was working, and somewhere between her insulting my shoes and stealing half my pastry, she'd admitted that she didn't actually want to stay in the Brotherhood forever.

She wanted out eventually.

She wanted more.

She wanted parties and runways and fashion shows and stupidly expensive clothes, she wanted fame and drinks and red carpets and everything. Roman had apparently offered to just give her the money to leave and start over about a thousand times, but she'd refused every single one.

She wanted to earn it.

She wanted to build something that was hers.

Honestly, I couldn't even argue with that.

There was something kind of incredible about watching a 22 year old assassin talk about how she’d gotten scouted by modelling agencies so many times with the exact same passion most people talked about falling in love.

Right now, it was raining like hell outside, and somewhere in the last twenty minutes the rain had started turning into snow, the little white flakes spinning through the air before disappearing against the wet black streets below. It was the middle of November, and New York had reached that weird point where the whole city looked cold enough to break.

We were at my place because Roman hadn't been over in a while. And Roman wasn't with me.

He was outside on the balcony, the hood of his hoodie pulled over his head and his headphones tucked over his ears, leaning against the railing while he looked out over the city. I couldn't hear what he was listening to from inside, but considering I'd spent the last three months aggressively educating him on what constituted good music, I was choosing to believe it was one of my playlists.

Contrary to what I'd yapped about earlier, I did actually leave Roman alone when he wanted to be alone.

It took me a while to understand (and an even longer while to stop taking it personally) that as much as Roman needed somebody beside him, he also needed to be alone every now and then, to just sit with his thoughts and let his mind settle. At first I'd always wonder if I'd done something wrong, if I'd annoyed him or said something stupid, but eventually I realised it had nothing to do with me.

It was just introvert bullshit. Very dramatic, very mysterious, introvert bullshit. But I respected it anyway.

I poured some hot chocolate into two mugs and wandered over to the door, giving the glass two little knocks. Roman looked over his shoulder. I held one of the mugs up. His eyes dropped to it for a second, then back to me, and after a moment he pulled one side of his headphones off.

"...For me?"

I blinked.

"No, baby, I made two mugs because I thought it'd be fun to drink both."

He stared at me.

"...That's fair."

I laughed so hard I nearly spilled the hot chocolate.

He took the mug from my hands and had a sip, and after a second he let out this tiny little hum of approval that most people probably wouldn't have even noticed.

I did.

I'd gotten pretty good at translating Roman by now.

That little noise was basically the Roman Davenport equivalent of awarding me three Michelin stars and declaring me the greatest chef to ever walk the Earth.

"It's really good," he said after a moment.

"Thanks."

He took another sip, both hands wrapped around the mug because it was freezing outside, and I watched him over the rim of mine while the snow slowly settled in his hair where his hood had slipped back. He didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he did and just didn't care. Roman had a habit of forgetting about little things like the weather once he got lost in his own head.

For a little while, we just stood there, our shoulders brushing every now and then whenever one of us shifted.

Then he held the mug out towards me. I frowned. "What?"

"Try it."

"Roman, I made it."

"Try it anyway."

I took a sip.

"...It tastes exactly the same."

"No."

"No?"

"It cooled down."

I looked at him for a second before I started laughing.

"You dragged me into the freezing cold to tell me my hot chocolate got cold?"

"I didn't drag you anywhere."

"Right, sorry. You stood out here looking mysterious until I voluntarily followed you."

He didn't answer. He just looked back out over the city again, but I caught the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. I bumped his shoulder with mine.

"You know, normal people say things."

"I am saying things."

"No, you're saying three words every five minutes and expecting me to piece together the rest through divine intervention."

"You manage."

"I do manage," I admitted, taking my mug back from him. "It's kind of concerning how good I've gotten at understanding you."

“Really??”

"Now I just assume you thought the cocoa would taste better if I had some too."

He looked down at his own mug.

"...It did."

The words came out so quietly that I almost missed them. I didn't say anything after that. I just smiled into my hot chocolate while the snow drifted down around us, and after another minute or so Roman reached up, pulled one side of his headphones off, and held it out towards me without even looking.

I slipped it over my ear.

The Exit by conan gray was playing, one he'd claimed was "alright, I guess" before accidentally listening to it enough times that he knew all the words.

"I thought you said you didn't like this one."

"I don't."

"Roman."

"It's...fine."

I looked at him. He kept his eyes fixed on the skyline.

"You made a playlist, didn't you?"

Silence.

“Baby.”

A longer silence.

Then, without even a hint of embarrassment, he muttered,

"You put too many songs in the one you made me."

I think my heart actually melted a little. "So your solution was to make your own?"

"The good ones are easier to find now."

I stared at him. "You are officially the cutest person I've ever met."

That finally got him to look at me.

"Don't call me cute."

"Why not?"

He smirked. “I have a reputation."

I snorted. "Oh yeah? The scary assassin reputation?"

"Yes."

"The same guy that's currently standing in the New York chill, sharing headphones and hot chocolate with his boyfriend because he made a playlist?"

His ears turned the faintest shade of pink.

"Shut up."

I bumped his shoulder again.

"Make me."

He looked at me for a long second, completely unimpressed, before quietly taking my mug out of my hands and holding it with his own so I wouldn't spill it while I laughed.

Honestly, I don't think either of us noticed he'd done it. It just sort of happened and somehow that made me happier than anything else.

“So, uh, I’m going out tonight,” he said.

I immediately perked up, my eyebrows shooting up so quickly they practically disappeared into my hairline.

“Where?” He looked away for a second, taking a sip of his hot chocolate before answering.

“Uh... Brotherhood stuff. I might stay at mine tonight then.”

I blinked.

“Can I come?”

“No.”

The answer was immediate, not even a second of thought, not even the courtesy of pretending to consider it.

“Why?”

Roman sighed softly and stared into his mug for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone completely flat and detached, like he was discussing grocery shopping instead of something that was clearly bothering him.

“Look, I’ve managed to keep you away from danger so far, don’t make me risk it. Sure, people know you’re my boyfriend but that puts a huge target on your back. Just stay here. I’ll send you a text if I'm not that tired afterwards.”

Have I mentioned he could be really annoying sometimes?

“Roman,” I said, exasperated, straightening up properly. “I’m your boyfriend. We've been dating for, like, almost four months now. You can't keep me out of your business forever.”

His expression changed almost immediately. It was just the slightest tightening of his jaw, the faintest crease appearing between his eyebrows as he looked away from me and out towards the snow gathering on the balcony.

“Luca...” He exhaled slowly, sounding exhausted already. “Look, I know it’s unfair, I know. But I really don't want you getting hurt again. I can't survive a second time. It fucking broke you. Do you think I'd really risk that happening again?”

My mouth slowly fell into a thin line. 

Not because I was angry. Honestly, I didn't even know what I was.

Because one part of my brain was immediately screaming that this was unfair. We were dating, for fuck's sake. I knew he was dangerous. I knew about the Brotherhood. I knew his life was complicated and messy and occasionally involved disappearing for hours without explanation. He couldn't keep me tucked away from an entire half of his existence forever.

But the other part of me understood exactly where he was coming from. Because he wasn't saying this to punish me. He wasn't saying it because he didn't trust me. He was scared. And that made it infinitely harder to argue.

Because the thing about Roman was that he remembered everything. Every nightmare I'd had. Every zone out episode. Every time I'd frozen while we were fucking or gone quiet because something had reminded me of that basement. He remembered every bad day with horrifying accuracy and carried them around with him like little ghosts.

And apparently, despite all of my progress, despite the fact I was doing better now, he was still terrified of seeing me become that version of myself again.

I sighed.

“Can you at least tell me what kind of gathering this is?” I asked eventually, deciding I was willing to take literally any scrap of information he was prepared to throw my way.

Roman looked at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

“It's a... ceremony.”

I stared at him. A ceremony. Very fucking vague.

He kept looking at me, though, and after a few seconds something in his expression softened. It was subtle, so subtle that somebody who didn't know him probably wouldn't have noticed, but I did. I'd gotten good at noticing.

He took my mug from my hands, then handed it back again a second later after adjusting his grip on it for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

“Listen,” he said quietly. “I have to go back home and get ready and then head out, okay? But when I'm done, I'll call... maybe we can watch a movie or something. Yeah?”

I looked at him. He looked...tired. Distracted. Like his mind had already left the balcony and was halfway to wherever he needed to be.

“Okay,” I said.

Some of the tension left his shoulders.

“Okay,” he repeated softly.

He took a small step backwards towards the door.

“I gotta go, though.” Then he paused for a fraction of a second and added, almost absent-mindedly, “Love you.”

And then he left.

The door clicked shut behind him, I didn't move. I just stood there, holding my mug and staring at the door.

Because that...That was another thing currently eating away at my sanity.

We hadn't said I love you.

Well, we had, technically. We'd said love you before hanging up the phone sometimes or when one of us was half-asleep. We'd used the word love casually in sentences and jokes and teasing comments. It existed between us comfortably enough.

But neither of us had ever looked at the other and actually said, I love you.

Not seriously, not in a way that meant I am completely and entirely in love with you and I need you to know that.

But I shouldn't have been complaining. God knew I'd had opportunities. Plenty of them.

There had been nights where he'd been reading in bed while I used his chest as a pillow, one hand absent-mindedly stroking through my hair for an hour straight. There had been mornings where he'd made me breakfast because I'd had a nightmare. There had been moments on rooftops and balconies and in kitchens and in the quiet spaces between conversations where I had looked at him and felt my chest get so painfully full of love that I thought I might explode.

And every single time, I'd chickened out.

Because I just...I wasn't sure. I knew he cared about me.

I knew that.

I knew he'd protect me with everything he had and that he'd hold me after diassaocisating and let me steal his too-small-for-me hoodies and somehow put up with me talking for 40 minutes straight about something stupid.

But loving me?

Being in love with me?

I didn't know.

And now he'd casually thrown a love you over his shoulder while leaving for some mysterious Brotherhood ceremony and disappeared before I could even process it.

I looked down at my mug. Then back at the door. Then back at my mug again.

I was going to lose my fucking mind.

Also, just for confirmation, I did love him. So fucking much. Though, to be fair, I'd only realised it last week. 

We'd been lying on the floor of his living room after having the fuck fest of our lives, too comfortable to bother moving, the city humming quietly outside while we existed in our own little pocket of silence. Roman had been tracing absent-minded patterns against the carpet with his fingertips before he turned his head to look at me, those sage-green eyes softer than I'd ever seen them, and after hesitating for just a second too long, he'd asked, almost so quietly I could've convinced myself I'd imagined it, 

“Are you, uhm... around? For Christmas?”

It wasn't a big question. To anyone else, it probably would've sounded ordinary. But Roman didn't ask ordinary questions.

Every word he spoke was chosen carefully, held in his mouth for a while before he decided it was safe enough to let it exist, and somehow that tiny, hesitant question held more hope than a thousand love letters ever could. He wasn't asking about Christmas.

He was asking if, when he pictured the winter, I could be in it too.

And when I looked into those impossibly gentle sage green eyes, I realised something that made my chest ache in the nicest way imaginable. 

Somewhere along the line, without either of us noticing, he'd become my favourite place.

Not his apartment.

Not his arms.

Just...him.

The sound of his voice after a long day. The little crease between his eyebrows whenever he was concentrating. The way his hand always found mine without thinking about it. The quiet moments where we didn't need to speak because simply existing beside each other somehow felt like enough.

I loved the extraordinary parts of him, of course.

But I loved the ordinary ones even more.

I loved the version of Roman Davenport that the rest of the world never got to meet.

And as I laid there looking at him, I remembered thinking that if someone had offered me every beautiful thing the world had to give in exchange for never hearing him ask another shy little question like that again...

I would've turned them down without a second thought.

Because I didn't want a grand life anymore.

I just wanted one with him in it.

Anyway.

Enough yearning and standing in my kitchen like the world's most pathetic Hallmark protagonist.

I had a mystery to solve.

Roman Davenport thought he was being slick. He thought he could hit me with the incredibly informative explanation of "Brotherhood stuff" followed by an even more incredibly informative "it's a ceremony," and disappear into the night and expect me to just...accept that.

Absolutely not.

Curiosity had been one of my defining personality traits since birth. My mother probably popped me out and I immediately started asking where we were going.

Which meant a plan was already beginning to bloom inside my head, growing bigger and more questionable by the second, and like every spectacularly terrible idea I'd ever had, it depended almost entirely on one very specific person.

One very important young woman with an untamable halo of brown curls, enough confidence to tell the devil he was being dramatic, and an attitude sharp enough to go head to head with Roman's without either of them backing down.

Morana Caldwell.

If anybody was going to accidentally - or intentionally, depending on how much she liked the chaos that day - tell me what the hell was going on tonight, it was her.

So, I dialled her number. 

By the third ring, she picked up, and before I even had the chance to say hello, her voice came through the speaker with enough confidence to make it sound like she'd been expecting my call all along.

“Hello, dearest and most probable future brother-in-law.”

I snorted, shaking my head as I wandered aimlessly into the living room.

“Woah, calm down. For someone who claims to despise Roman so much, you seem awfully determined to remind me that I'm dating your best friend.”

“He's not my best friend, and we're not friends,” she corrected immediately, sounding genuinely offended by the accusation.

Yeah. Right.

They were about as convincing as Roman pretending he didn't enjoy cuddling. Those two bickered with enough commitment to fool anyone who didn't know them, but I'd seen the way Morana quietly checked whether he'd eaten after disappearing for three days, and the way Roman always somehow knew when she needed picking up after a job without her ever asking.

They weren't friends. They were siblings who'd forgotten they weren't actually related.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I laughed. “Anyway... I need to chitchat.”

There was a pause. A you definitely want something pause.

“Oh?” she hummed, amusement dripping from every syllable. “And does this delightful little chitchat happen to involve my emotionally constipated roommate, or have you suddenly decided you enjoy my sparkling personality?”

“Well...”

“It involves Roman.”

“It might involve Roman.”

“So it definitely involves Roman.”

I sighed dramatically.

“I hate how quickly you figured that out.”

“Luca,” she said with a laugh, “you've called me exactly 2 times since we met, including now, and the first time was to see if my number worked. You're about as subtle as a marching band.”

“…That's a little hurtful.”

“And yet true. Now, shoot.”

“So…” I started, trying very hard to sound casual and absolutely not like I was fishing for information, “I’ve been made aware that there’s some sort of special ceremony happening today?”

“Luca.”

“What?”

“You are so bad at pretending you’re not trying to get information.”

I frowned, even though she couldn't see me.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You called me out of nowhere, started with a suspiciously sweet greeting, and now you’re bringing up a mysterious ceremony that Roman definitely didn’t explain properly.”

I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Because, unfortunately, she was right.

“Okay, first of all, I object to the word suspiciously. I’m always sweet.”

“Sure.”

“I am.”

“Luca.”

“Fine, maybe not always.”

She laughed quietly on the other end of the phone, and I could practically picture her rolling her eyes.

“So Roman told you about the ceremony?”

“Technically.”

“What does technically mean?”

“It means he told me there was Brotherhood stuff happening and that he might stay at his place afterwards, and when I asked what kind of gathering it was, he looked at me like I’d asked him to reveal state secrets and said it was a ceremony.”

Morana was quiet for a second.

Then I heard her sigh.

“That man.”

“Exactly.”

“He really does think giving people the tiniest amount of information possible counts as communicating.”

“THANK YOU.”

“I didn’t say you were right.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I really did.”

“Anyway,” I said, ignoring that, “what is it?”

“Luca…”

“Please.”

“You’re doing the voice.”

“What voice?”

“The one where you sound like a very determined golden retriever who has discovered a locked door.”

I gasped.

“Thats incredibly specific.”

“Because it’s accurate.”

“Wow. Rude.”

“Accurate and rude are not mutually exclusive.”

I tried not to laugh and I failed.

“Okay, so are you going to tell me or are you going to let me sit here and dramatically suffer?”

“You’re already being dramatic.”

“Yes, but now I’d be dramatically informed.”

Morana sighed again.

And I knew I had her.

“So you want to know what the ceremony is.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.”

“Luca…”

Immediately, my joking faded, because there was something different in her voice now. It was weirdly careful.

“It’s not just a Brotherhood thing,” she finally said. “Not really.”

I stayed silent, letting her continue.

“The Brotherhood is connected to a lot of people. A lot of powerful people. The kind of people who don’t need to announce they have power because everyone already knows.”

A small chill ran through me.

“And the ceremony is…”

“It’s a meeting.”

I frowned.

“A meeting?”

“A meeting between families.”

The way she said the word families made it sound nothing like the way normal people used it.

Not warmth or Sunday dinners or childhood memories.

These were names.

Legacies.

Organizations built on reputation and fear.

“What kind of families?”

Morana was quiet for a second before answering.

“The Allisters. The Caines. A group coming in from Brazil. A representative from the Bianchi family is supposed to be there too.”

I stopped moving, because even I knew enough to understand that those names weren’t being thrown around casually.

These weren’t random people meeting for drinks. These were people who carried histories behind them. People whose names meant something.

“So basically…” I started slowly, “this is a crime meeting.”

Morana didn’t correct me.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“That’s never a good sentence.”

“No, it usually isn’t.”

She sighed.

“Think about it like this. These families have been around for years. Decades. They have businesses, connections, influence. Some of them have legitimate power, some of them have power that exists in the shadows, and most of them have both. The ceremony is where certain things are discussed, where alliances are maintained, where everyone reminds each other who they are dealing with.”

The room suddenly felt quieter. There was something unsettling about realising that Roman’s world wasn’t just dangerous because of the things he personally did. It was dangerous because he existed inside something much bigger. Something old that had survived because people protected it. Because people feared it.

“And Roman has to be there?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Morana didn’t hesitate. “Because Roman is one of the people they pay attention to.”

That answer landed harder than I expected. I knew Roman was respected and I knew people feared him, but there was a difference between knowing someone was dangerous and realising there were rooms full of dangerous people where his presence actually mattered.

“He hates that, doesn’t he?”

Morana laughed quietly.

“Oh, he hates almost everything.”

“Fair.”

“But yes. He hates being seen as important because he knows what comes with that.”

“And what comes with it?”

“Expectations.”

Her voice softened.

“People think Roman is cold because he doesn’t care. They’re wrong. He cares too much, and that’s why he’s careful.”

I looked down at my phone.

Because suddenly I understood why he hadn’t told me, not fully, but enough. Roman wasn’t keeping me away because he thought I was incapable. He was just keeping me away because in his mind, loving me meant making sure the darkest parts of his world never touched me.

Which was very Roman.

UGH.

“So,” I said after a moment, trying to bring back some of the lighter mood, “you’re telling me my boyfriend is secretly attending terrifying mafia meetings while I’m sitting at home drinking cold hot chocolate?”

Morana hummed.

“When you say it like that, it sounds dramatic.”

“It is dramatic.”

“It’s also accurate.”

“Great. Love that for me.”

“You chose him.”

I sighed.

“I know.”

And the worst part was, I really did.

“So... what exactly am I supposed to do then?” I asked, trying, and failing, to keep the hopeful edge out of my voice. “Can you, like...sneak me in, or-”

“NO.”

The answer came so fast and so loudly that I instinctively pulled the phone a few inches away from my ear.

“Jeez,” I muttered with a sheepish laugh that disappeared almost as quickly as it'd come. “Sorry.”

My shoulders slumped, and I found myself absentmindedly staring out into the distance as the disappointment settled in my chest a little heavier than I'd expected. It wasn't even that I desperately wanted to attend some terrifying gathering of organised criminals (I absolutely did not) but I hated the feeling of standing outside a door that seemed determined to stay locked.

Morana sighed, and when she spoke again, the firmness in her voice hadn't disappeared, but it had softened around the edges.

“Luca, listen to me, okay? This isn't me being dramatic, and it isn't Roman being overprotective just for the sake of it. This is a really big deal, and it's dangerous enough that the only people Roman is bringing with him are me and the two heads of the defence section. Meetings like this can turn ugly without warning, and if they do, nobody gets time to react before everything goes to shit. I know you're frustrated, but if you were there and something happened, you could get hurt, and neither of us is willing to take that risk.”

I stayed quiet.

“I promise I'm not trying to keep you out just because it's easier,” she continued. “It's genuinely because we'd rather have you annoyed at us than caught in the middle of something you should never have had to see in the first place. If I get the chance, I'll take a few pictures before everything starts and show you later, but that's honestly the best I can do. So... just trust me. Trust Roman on this one.”

I let out a long sigh through my nose.

“…Fine.”

“Thank you.”

There was a small pause before her voice brightened ever so slightly, like she was deliberately trying to steer us away from a conversation that had become heavier than either of us wanted.

“In the meantime,” she said, “maybe spend your evening figuring out what you're getting Roman for Christmas.”

My eyebrows knitted together. “…How do you know we're spending Christmas together?”

“Don't sound so offended,” she laughed. “I only know because he told me he isn't staying with my mum and I this year. He normally does. But I don’t care. I got tickets for me and mom to go to London for 5 days anyways.”

She said it lightly, almost carelessly, but there was something underneath it that caught my attention, a tiny thread of disappointment she'd buried so quickly that I probably wasn't supposed to hear it at all.

“Oh,” I said quietly. “...Okay.”

“So,” she continued before the silence could linger, “find him something good while you wait. This whole shitshow should be over by around ten-thirty, maybe eleven if everyone behaves themselves, and then either he or I will call you from the hospital and you can come pick us up.”

I blinked.

“…Why would you be calling me from a hospital?”

“Because somebody always ends up there.”

Then the line went dead.

After waiting, and waiting, and waiting and waiting….my phone finally rang.

ROMAN.

“Baby?” “Luca.”

He sounded...broken. Anguished. Tired. Exhausted. Scared.

What happened?

I could hear faint screams in the background, glass shattering, gunshots-

“Things went south,” Roman's rasp cut through the chaos. “I'm okay, but Morana's stuck and-”

“You're going back for her.”

A beat of silence.

“…I have to, moya dushka.”

I froze.

“You... you gave me a nickname...”

A quiet, breathless chuckle reached me through the speaker, somehow surviving all the noise around him.

“Better late than never.”

“Listen here, you little shit,” I said, my voice already cracking despite how hard I was trying to keep it together. “You are going to be okay, okay? And when you get back, I'm making you all the hot cocoa and pasta in the world, and you're going to complain about the marshmallows like you always do, and you and Morana are both going to get out of there okay and it’ll all be fine and we’ll all be-”

“I love you, Luca.”

What.

The.

Fuck.

“I think...” he whispered, the words almost disappearing beneath another burst of shouting somewhere behind him, “I think I have for a long time. Longer than I knew how to admit to myself. I just...I needed you to hear it.”

My eyes burned.

“Roman...”

“You walked into my life and somehow made it feel... lighter,” he continued, his voice trembling in a way I'd never heard before. “You made me laugh when I didn't think I could. You made ordinary days feel worth surviving just so I could see the next one with you. Every time you smile at me, every time you ramble about something I know absolutely nothing about, every time you fall asleep on top of me because I'm your favourite mattress...” He let out another tiny laugh. “...I remember what it feels like to live instead of exist.”

I covered my mouth with my hand, tears spilling over before I could stop them.

“Don't cry,” he murmured.

“You're literally in the middle of a shooting!”

“I know.”

“So don't tell me not to cry!”

Another soft laugh.

“I just...wanted you to know that I'm yours, dushka, just as much as you're mine. Thank you...for making me happier than I ever thought I was allowed to be. I need you to know what. To remember that if I-”

“Don’t. You. Dare! You tell me all of this when you get home,” I said immediately, wiping furiously at my face. “Not over the phone. You hear me? You get Morana, you both get out of there, and then you come home and tell me again!”

A pause. I could hear him running.

“Alright,” he said, his voice rough with exhaustion, “I'll tell you again later. As many times as you want.”

“You better.”

“I will.”

Another crash erupted somewhere behind him, followed by overlapping voices shouting orders that dissolved into static before I could make out a single word.

“Roman...?”

“I have to go.”

“Be careful.”

“I always-”

BANG!!

The gunshot cracked through the phone so violently that I instinctively yanked it away from my ear. Glass exploded somewhere nearby, people were screaming over one another, more shots rang out in quick succession, and for a split second all I could hear was the deafening chaos swallowing everything else.

“Roman!”

My own voice sounded tiny against the noise.

“Roman, answer me!”

There was a burst of static, footsteps pounding across what sounded like broken glass, someone shouting his name in the distance, that I recognised as Morana.

The last thing I heard was “Luca…my Luca…”

I was not many things.

Tall, muscular, social, outgoing, normal.

Unfortunately, I was nervous enough that my heart rate was probably higher than Morana on coke, which felt impressive considering all I was doing was sitting in the living room of Dante and Vivian Russo while trying not to visibly malfunction in front of Luca’s family.

The worst part was that they were nice. That somehow made this infinitely more terrifying.

The huge ass penthouse itself felt warm in a way I wasn’t used to, not physically warm but alive warm, full of soft lighting and organised bookshelves and framed photographs cluttering the walls while the smell of garlic, broth, onions, and fresh noodles drifted out from the kitchen. Somewhere deeper in the place, music played quietly enough to blend into the background while Vivian moved around cooking, occasionally laughing at something Dante muttered under his breath.

It felt painfully domestic here, painfully good, like the kind of place people actually came home to.

Dante hadn’t said much yet besides offering me a drink and occasionally looking at me in that deeply unsettling older-brother way that made me feel like he was mentally checking whether I deserved oxygen near Luca, but Vivian was sweet in this effortless sort of way that immediately reminded me of Luca himself.

Actually, sitting here explained a lot about him.

I was currently watching Luca “play” with his 6 month old niece Josephine, aka Josie, and by “play,” I really meant she was using him as a human jungle gym while violently pulling his hair with tiny terrifying baby strength.

“You little demon,” Luca laughed while Josie grabbed another fistful of his hair and nearly toppled sideways off his lap in the process.

She responded by shrieking happily and immediately trying to chew on the sleeve of his sweater. Honestly, she already had the chaotic energy of a future supervillain. Luca, meanwhile, looked completely enchanted by her existence.

He was sitting cross legged on the rug in front of the couch with Josie balanced against his chest while she continuously assaulted him in increasingly creative ways, and every single time she grabbed his face or yanked his hair or smacked his shoulder with her tiny hands, he just laughed harder like this was the greatest experience of his life.

He looked really pretty.

The apartment lights turned his warm olive skin gold while his chocolate strands fell messily into his eyes from Josie’s relentless attacks, and every time he smiled at her, really smiled, something painful twisted inside my chest because I suddenly understood with terrifying clarity why people loved him so easily.

Luca made places warmer simply by existing inside them.

“She likes you more than us already,” Vivian said from the kitchen, sounding deeply amused while she watched Josie aggressively climb halfway up Luca’s chest.

“Of course she does,” Luca replied dramatically without looking up. “I’m her favourite uncle.”

“You’re her only uncle,” Dante pointed out flatly from the armchair.

“That’s irrelevant.”

Josie made another delighted squealing sound before grabbing Luca directly by the nose this time while he laughed through it, completely unbothered by the fact that he was currently being physically overpowered by a 6 month old.

I couldn’t stop staring at him. not in a creepy way…probably. It’s just that there was something devastating about seeing somebody like him inside the kind of life they were always meant for.

Then suddenly Josie noticed me watching from the couch.

Oh no.

Her giant brown eyes locked directly onto mine while she paused mid hair pull.

I froze instinctively.

She froze too.

For one deeply horrifying second, we just stared at each other across the room like two opposing crime families negotiating territory.

Then, impossibly enough, she held both tiny arms out toward me.

Absolutely fucking not.

“No,” I said immediately.

Luca looked delighted. “Oh my God, she wants you.”

“She does not.”

“She does.”

“I think she’s threatening me.”

Josie made an impatient whining sound and continued reaching toward me insistently.

Traitor.

Complete traitor.

Vivian was visibly trying not to laugh now while Dante watched this unfold with the expression of a man observing an extremely important scientific experiment.

“Roman,” Luca grinned while standing up carefully with Josie in his arms, “hold the baby.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You just sit there.”

“That sounds highly inaccurate.”

Luca laughed softly under his breath before walking over anyway, and before I could properly protest, he carefully transferred Josie into my arms like this wasn’t the most stressful thing that had ever happened to me.

Immediately every muscle in my body locked.

Oh my God.

She was so small.

Why was she so unbelievably small?

What if I accidentally broke her somehow?

“You look like somebody handed you an active bomb,” Vivian laughed gently while I sat there completely rigid with terror.

“Babies are horrifying,” I muttered stiffly, staring down at Josie while she stared directly back at me with giant curious eyes.

Then somehow, impossibly, she smiled at me. A huge gummy little baby smile like she’d already decided I wasn’t a threat. And before I could emotionally process that at all, she reached up and wrapped her tiny hand around one of my fingers.

The room went suspiciously quiet afterward.

I glanced up cautiously.

Luca was looking at me with the softest expression I’d ever seen in my entire life, all warmth and affection and something else hidden underneath it that hit me so hard in the chest I almost forgot how to breathe for a second.

And then, before I could even fully recover from the psychological warfare of being trusted by an infant, I felt something small and warm suddenly snuggle into my shoulder, Josie’s tiny body going soft and limp against my chest while her little hand stayed curled loosely around my finger like she’d decided, for reasons completely beyond my comprehension, that I was safe enough to fall asleep on.

Holy fucking shit.

“Oh my God,” Luca whispered dramatically from beside me, sounding like he was seconds away from ascending directly into heaven. “Roman.”

“Don’t,” I muttered instantly, not taking my eyes off the baby currently asleep on me. “Don’t make this weird.”

“You’re holding her so gently.”

“She’s the size of a shoe.”

Luca looked deeply emotional about this entire situation anyway, his stupid beautiful brown eyes practically glowing while he stared at me and Josie like he’d just witnessed something life-changing.

Which, judging by the look on his face, maybe he had.

Vivian smiled softly from the kitchen doorway while drying her hands on a towel.

“She likes you,” she said quietly.

I looked down at Josie again, at the way her tiny face was pressed sleepily into my shoulder while soft little baby breaths warmed my neck, and something inside my chest twisted so painfully it almost scared me.

Because nobody had ever looked comfortable falling asleep on me before.

Not like this - not instinctively, not safely.

The thought hit too hard and too fast, and suddenly all I could think about was every awful thing I’d ever done with these same hands currently holding something impossibly gentle and fragile.

I swallowed hard.

“She’s probably just tired,” I muttered quietly.

Dante, who had been silently watching this entire thing unfold from the armchair, finally spoke.

“Nah,” he said simply. “Josie cries when she doesn’t like somebody.”

Well.

That was mildly horrifying information to receive while actively holding her.

I looked at him cautiously.

“…She does?”

“Mmhm.”

Luca looked entirely too pleased about this development while he sat down beside me again, close enough that his knee pressed lightly against mine.

“She’s an excellent judge of character,” he informed me smugly.

“That feels fake.”

“It’s not fake,” Vivian laughed softly. “She gets fussy around people she doesn’t trust.”

I stared down at the sleeping baby against my shoulder again while my brain tried unsuccessfully to process the fact that somebody this small and innocent apparently felt safe with me.

Me.

A mentally ill organised crime psycho with prescription bottles littered everywhere in my bathroom cabinets. The whole thing felt absurd. Luca must’ve noticed the way my expression changed because his hand slid quietly over mine where it rested against Josie’s back, warm fingers threading carefully through mine.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

I looked at him for a second.

At his warm brown eyes and messy curls and the way he looked at me like none of the things wrong with me outweighed the things worth loving.

Then I looked back down at Josie sleeping against my chest.

“…I think so,” I admitted quietly.

Eventually, Dante had taken Josie away and put her in her crib after realising she was actually fully asleep and not just having one of her tiny power naps, which apparently she did often enough that everybody in the apartment spoke about it like she was some unpredictable little boss running on a classified schedule.

And now Luca and I were, very foolishly, standing alone together on the balcony.

I leaned forward slightly against the balcony railing while Luca stayed wrapped around me from behind, his arms warm around my waist and his chest pressed against my back in a way that somehow managed to quiet parts of my brain I’d believed would stay loud forever, and below us the city kept moving endlessly through the night, white headlights streaking across dark streets while thousands of apartment windows glowed gold against the skyline.

For a while neither of us spoke.

Luca just stayed there holding me like he belonged there, like touching me had already become instinctive to him, his fingers absentmindedly tracing slow patterns against my stomach through my sweater while cold air drifted across the balcony and carried the distant noise of New York upward in softened waves.

And unfortunately, because my brain hated me deeply and personally, I started thinking about the two days we’d spent apart before tonight.

Which immediately made me realise something important.

Luca was fucking insufferable when he missed somebody.

I had discovered this very quickly after leaving his apartment two days ago because apparently the second I was no longer physically near him, he’d decided I needed constant updates about every single thought passing through his ridiculous little brain.

Every few hours my phone would light up with something new from him, usually at times no sane person should’ve been awake.

Pictures of Yves sitting in increasingly strange locations around the apartment accompanied by captions like “she yearns for you”.

Random selfies where Luca looked unfairly beautiful without even trying, hair damp from the shower while steam fogged the mirror behind him and his oversized sweater hung low enough around his collarbones to make me briefly consider driving directly into oncoming traffic.

And then, because apparently God hated me specifically, there had been the actual nudes.

No warning, no buildup, just my phone lighting up at one in the morning while I sat in bed only to reveal Luca naked and smiling lazily at the camera like he had absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the psychological damage he was capable of causing another human being.

I’d nearly dropped the fucking phone.

Then there were the voice notes. Jesus Christ, the voice notes. Luca apparently loved sending them at absurd hours while half asleep, his voice always soft and rough around the edges in a way that made something deep in my chest ache painfully every single time I listened.

“Roman,” he’d whispered sleepily in one of them, sounding like he was already halfway unconscious, “Yves knocked my plant over again and now she’s pretending he had nothing to do with it. This is your daughter by the way.”

And then another one twenty minutes later.

“I just realised I miss you.”

Like that was a normal thing to casually say to somebody. Like he hadn’t just detonated a bomb directly inside my ribcage. Then there were the messages themselves, endless streams of thoughts Luca apparently felt compelled to share with me immediately the second they entered his head.

I saw a motorcycle today that looked like yours and almost got emotional.

Do you think pigeons know they’re pigeons.

The barista drew a heart in my coffee foam and now I think she sensed my tragic yearning.

I miss your face.

That last one had fucked me up a little.

Because the thing about Luca was that he loved people loudly. He loved in huge overwhelming waves that crashed into everything around him until even somebody like me, somebody who had spent most of his life believing there was something rotten inside him, started wondering if maybe being loved wasn’t impossible after all.

Which honestly terrified me more than almost anything else.

Because now every time he touched me like this, soft and instinctive and certain, my chest hurt with the awful realisation that if I ever lost him, I probably wouldn’t survive it.

“You’re doing the thing again,” Luca murmured quietly against my shoulder, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I frowned slightly.

“What thing.”

“The overthinking thing,” he replied immediately, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. 

I exhaled slowly through my nose while staring out over the city lights below us.

“You were unbelievably annoying for the past two days.”

Luca gasped dramatically behind me.

“I was delightful.”

“You sent me fourteen voice notes in one night.”

“You listened to all fourteen.”

“That’s not the point.”

Luca laughed softly against my shoulder, warm and sweet and entirely too fond.

“I missed you,” he admitted quietly afterward, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

And there it was again, that terrifying openness, the way he said things most people would hide like they were nothing to be ashamed of. I looked down over the balcony railing instead of answering immediately because it was easier than letting him see my face properly.

“…You sent me a picture of Yves sitting in your sink.”

“She looked cute.”

“she looked criminal.”

“she is criminal.”

Despite myself, I felt my mouth twitch faintly upward, and Luca immediately noticed because of course he did.

“There’s my man,” he murmured affectionately.

“Don’t say weird shit like that.”

“You love when I say weird shit like that.”

Unfortunately, he was probably right.

“Y’know,” Luca murmured lazily against my shoulder while his arms stayed looped around my waist, “you never actually explained your tattoos to me.”

I glanced back at him slightly.

“What?”

“Your tattoos,” he repeated immediately, sounding genuinely offended now that he’d remembered this. “The crows and the snakes and all the little symbols and skulls and shit. I don’t know what any of them mean.”

I snorted softly.

“You never asked.”

“Yeah, because I thought you’d eventually reveal the lore dramatically on your own.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means,” Luca replied patiently, “I expected symbolic backstory.”

I groaned quietly while Luca grinned against my shoulder, entirely too pleased with himself.

“Fine,” I muttered eventually. “The crows were the first ones.”

Luca immediately perked up.

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Roman!”

“What.”

“That is young.”

I shrugged slightly while looking out over the city lights below us.

“I liked crows.”

“That is not a reason.”

I stayed quiet for a second.

“It’s because they survive everything,” I admitted eventually, quieter now. “People hate them, think they’re bad omens, chase them out of places, throw shit at them, and they still survive anyway. They remember faces too. They don’t forgive easily.”

Luca went softer behind me immediately, his fingers slowing slightly against my stomach while he listened.

“Jesus Christ,” Luca murmured eventually. “You were fifteen and already thinking like a tragic antihero.”

“I was going through things.”

“You were an orphan with trauma and access to tattoo needles.”

Fair enough.

I snorted softly despite myself.

“And the snakes?” Luca asked gently after a moment.

I glanced down toward the black ink curling around my forearm.

“I got those at seventeen because everybody thinks snakes are evil when most of the time they’re just trying to protect themselves.”

Luca hummed softly.

“They only bite when they feel threatened,” I continued quietly. “Or cornered. People see poison and immediately decide something’s monstrous even when it’s literally just survival.”

Luca’s arms tightened around me slightly after that.

God.

I hated how understood he made me feel sometimes.

“And the cracks?” he asked more softly now.

I looked down at the fractured black lines tattooed across forearms, that spread upward beneath my sweater sleeves. Those were harder.

“…I got those after my first kill when I was nineteen.”

Luca stayed silent behind me. Not scared.

“I thought I was gonna feel horrified afterward,” I admitted flatly while staring at my hands. “Like sick or guilty or destroyed or whatever normal people are supposed to feel.”

The city hummed quietly below us.

“But instead…” I laughed softly without humour. “Part of me liked it.”

The words came out rougher than I intended.

“I liked the control of it. The adrenaline. The power.” I swallowed slightly. “And realising that made me feel like something inside me was shattering.”

My fingers flexed slightly against the railing.

“So I got the cracks.”

For a second neither of us spoke.

Then Luca pressed a soft kiss against the side of my neck, right beneath my ear.

“You were nineteen,” he murmured quietly.

“Nineteen isn’t young.”

“It is.”

Something about the certainty in his voice made my chest ache. Then thankfully Luca shifted slightly before my brain could spiral too far again.

“What about the writing on your hip?” he asked curiously. “‘You live your life, you go in shadows’ is one of the sexiest tattoos I’ve ever seen.”

I groaned immediately.

“Oh my God.”

“What?” Luca laughed softly. “I’m serious.”

“I got that when I was drunk. Morana got one, too. It was a stupid dare.”

“That explains absolutely nothing.”

“It’s from a song,” I muttered reluctantly.

Luca immediately gasped.

“Roman!”

“What?”

“You’re secretly romantic.”

“I’m literally not.”

“It’s from Fade Into You, isn’t it?”

I went completely still for half a second.

Luca sounded delighted.

“Oh my God, it is.”

“Shut up.”

“You got a Mazzy Star lyric tattooed on your body while drunk?” Luca sounded like this was the greatest revelation of his life. “That is devastating.”

“It sounded cool at the time.”

“It is cool,” he argued immediately. “It’s beautiful.”

I looked away toward the skyline because unfortunately hearing Luca call something about me beautiful still did weird things to my nervous system.

“And the bow and arrow?” he continued smugly. “The one on the back of your neck.”

“That one’s stupid.”

“No it isn’t.”

“It just means I’m a Sagittarius.”

Luca burst out laughing directly against my shoulder.

“Oh my God.”

“I was eighteen and thought it looked cool.”

“That’s the cutest thing you’ve ever said.”

“It’s astrology.”

“Exactly,” Luca replied immediately. “You have all these tragic symbolic tattoos and then one of them is basically just zodiac sign.”

I groaned while Luca laughed harder behind me, warm and bright and completely unembarrassed by how happy he sounded.

“I like them,” he murmured quietly. “All of them.”

I stared out at the skyline instead of looking at him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Luca whispered while tightening his arms around me again. “Because they all feel honest. Like little pieces of you that survived long enough to become art instead.”

“…I feel like you stole that from somewhere, but I can’t prove it.”

Luca immediately let out the most dramatic, long-suffering groan I'd ever heard, dropping his forehead against my shoulder as though I'd just shattered his heart into a million pieces instead of lightly accusing him of stealing a sentence.

“Ugh, you ruined the moment,” he complained, and even though I couldn't see his face properly, I could hear the pout in his voice.

A laugh threatened to escape before I shoved it back down.

“That's rich coming from you.”

“Uh huh?”

“Uh huh.”

Luca lifted his head just enough to squint at me suspiciously before tightening his arms around my waist in what I assumed was supposed to be retaliation.

“Nope,” he informed me with all the confidence of a man who was completely full of shit. “That came directly from the bottom of my silly little heart.”

I snorted.

“Whatever you say, loverboy.”

“You did not just call me that.”

I couldn't help myself.

I turned around in his arms so I could see his face properly, and immediately regretted absolutely nothing because he looked scandalised, his brown eyes wide and his mouth hanging open slightly as though I'd just committed a crime against humanity.

“I did, too.”

Luca stared at me.

I stared back.

Neither of us moved.

Then his eyes narrowed.

“You know what?” he said finally, pointing at me. “You'll pay for that when we leave.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Mmhm.”

“How exactly?”

The grin that spread across his face was so ridiculously smug that it should've been illegal.

“You'll find out in the car.”

My cheeks immediately flared with heat.

Unfortunately, Luca noticed. Of course he noticed. The bastard noticed everything. His grin widened instantly.

“Oh my God,” he laughed, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. “Look at you.”

“Don't.”

“You're blushing.”

“You just threatened me.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You absolutely did.”

“I was being mysterious.”

“You were being annoying.”

“Tomato, tomahhto.”

I groaned and looked away while Luca dissolved into laughter, the sound bright and warm and completely unrestrained, and despite every effort to remain dignified, I felt myself smiling too.

Which was becoming a problem, because the thing about Luca was that he somehow made it impossible to stay serious around him for long. I'd spent years building this reputation as somebody intimidating, somebody cold, somebody who could walk into a room and make people nervous without even trying, and then this idiot had shown up and somehow reduced me to arguing over nicknames on a balcony at midnight.

“What's that look for?” Luca asked when he caught me staring at him.

I blinked.

“What look?”

“That one,” he said immediately. “The one where you're looking at me like you're about to either kiss me or push me down a flight of stairs.”

“Those aren't mutually exclusive.”

Luca barked out a laugh so loud it echoed slightly off the balcony walls.

“Jesus Christ, I missed you.”

The words slipped out of him so casually that I wasn't even sure he'd meant to say them. For a second, neither of us spoke.

Then Luca's smile softened. The kind of smile people only gave somebody they trusted completely.

“Seriously, though,” he admitted quietly. “The last 2 days sucked.”

My chest tightened slightly because mine had too. Not that I'd been planning on admitting that.

“I survived.”

“Barely,” Luca said immediately.

I rolled my eyes.

“You sent me 37 messages in one day.”

“39.”

“That's worse.”

“Actually,” he corrected proudly, “it's impressive.”

I stared at him. Luca stared back. Then he started laughing again. And somehow, against all odds, I started laughing too.

Not because anything he'd said was particularly funny but being around him was. Because somewhere along the way we'd become the sort of people who could stand on a balcony and argue about absolutely nothing for half an hour without getting bored.

The sort of people who could spend entire evenings talking complete nonsense and somehow still enjoy every second of it.

The sort of people who were just as comfortable making fun of each other as they were confessing things that hurt.

And maybe that was my favourite thing about us.

Because yes, I was into him romantically. A concerning amount. 

But he was also my friend.

The person I wanted to tell things to first.

The person I wanted sitting beside me when something stupid happened.

The person I wanted around even when neither of us had anything important to say.

The person who could make me laugh on days when I didn't think I wanted to ever again.

“You're staring again,” Luca informed me.

“Shut up.”

“See, that's exactly what I mean.”

“Luca.”

“Roman.”

“Luca.”

“Roman.”

“Luca.”

“Roman.”

I narrowed my eyes.

He grinned.

Then, before I could think of a response, he leaned forward and bumped his forehead lightly against mine, smiling so warmly that something deep inside my chest melted against my will.

“My grumpy little phantom,” he murmured softly.

ROMAN:

I’d actually put on a suit for this.

Not because Luca told me to, because technically he hadn’t, but because my brain had decided that if I was going to emotionally humiliate myself in public tonight, I should at least do it looking expensive.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t helping.

Nothing was helping, actually.

The restaurant Luca picked was some absurdly fancy place in Manhattan owned by the Laurent family, all dark gold lighting and polished marble and rich people pretending not to stare at each other while absolutely staring at each other. I’d forgotten the name the second he texted it to me because my brain had been too busy short-circuiting over the fact he still wanted to see me at all.

My palms felt clammy despite the cold and I kept flexing my fingers uselessly at my sides while I stood outside the entrance trying to decide whether walking directly into traffic would somehow be less psychologically taxing than this conversation.

I probably wasn’t in the right headspace to be doing any of this after yesterday.

Hell, I probably wasn’t in the right headspace to be doing anything lately.

My brain felt loud. Too loud.

Like every thought was stacked on top of another thought on top of another until none of them fully finished before the next one started screaming over it, emotions flickering so fast beneath my skin it made me feel vaguely sick. One second I felt almost numb and detached from my own body, the next I wanted to punch something, or disappear, or find Luca and bury my face into his neck for six uninterrupted hours.

It was exhausting.

And now I knew why.

Borderline personality disorder and small symptoms bipolar disorder. Some psychopathic tendencies, but manageable.

That was what the psychiatrist had told me yesterday in that calm clinical voice doctors always used when they were discussing things capable of rearranging your entire life.

Manageable.

Funny word, really.

Didn’t feel fucking manageable.

It felt like somebody had sliced my skull open and dumped every ugly broken part of me out onto a table under fluorescent lighting for examination.

Because suddenly all those years of feeling wrong had names now.

Mania. Depression. Mood swings. Emotional detachment.

All labelled neatly like symptoms in a textbook.

So yeah.

Turns out I really was a freak.

The thought curled ugly and cold in my stomach while I stared blankly at my reflection in the restaurant window, jaw tight enough to hurt.

I almost left. Actually, no, that was a lie.

I tried to leave.

Twice.

But every single time I started walking away, all I could think about was Luca standing on that balcony last night with tears in his voice while he told me I wasn’t evil, and suddenly my feet refused to cooperate. Which was deeply irritating.

I rubbed a hand hard over my face before finally forcing myself through the restaurant doors.

Warmth immediately wrapped around me alongside the low murmur of conversation and clinking glasses, but it did nothing to settle the horrible restless energy crawling beneath my skin.

Then I saw him.

And every thought in my head stopped so abruptly it almost hurt.

Luca was sitting near the back of the restaurant beneath soft amber lighting, one leg tucked slightly beneath the table while he absentmindedly twisted the rings on his fingers, clearly anxious despite the composed expression he was trying very hard to maintain.

There he was.

Beautiful enough to make religion feel understandable.

The second his eyes lifted and found mine across the room, something in my chest cracked open so painfully and completely that for one terrifying moment I thought I might actually lose my ability to breathe altogether.

No, you are not going to cry, Roman. Just walk over there and get it done.

Which sounded significantly easier in theory than it did in practice considering my nervous system currently felt like it had been wired directly into an electrical socket.

Still, somehow, my legs carried me forward anyway.

One step.

Then another.

Then another.

Until suddenly I was there, standing across from Luca with the soft restaurant lighting turning his hair gold around the edges while his stupid beautiful eyes stared up at me like they’d been waiting for me specifically to walk back into his orbit.

God.

I felt sick with it.

I pulled the chair out slowly and sat down across from him, trying very hard to look composed while internally my brain continued doing the psychological equivalent of throwing furniture around a room.

For a second neither of us spoke.

And the silence wasn’t awkward exactly.

Just fragile.

Heavy with too much feeling and too many unfinished conversations and the unbearable reality of finally seeing each other again after an entire month of missing each other so violently it had started feeling terminal.

Luca looked different somehow. Not physically. Just…quieter around the eyes. Softer in sad places. Like loneliness had settled into him while I wasn’t there to stop it.

And suddenly guilt crashed into me all over again so hard it almost made me nauseous.

Then Luca smiled.

Small. Fond. Devastating.

“Hi, baby.”

Oh.

Now I was really about to cry.

The word hit me straight in the chest so hard it physically hurt because nobody had ever said things like that to me before Luca. Nobody had ever looked at me with softness instead of caution. Nobody had ever made affection feel less like something dangerous and more like coming home after being cold your entire life.

My throat tightened painfully.

I looked away immediately toward the table because if I kept looking at him for another second I was genuinely going to embarrass myself in the middle of this expensive restaurant.

Which, considering I was Roman Davenport and had once stitched a gunshot wound into my own shoulder without flinching, felt deeply offensive to my personal brand.

“…Hi,” I managed quietly.

Pathetic. Actually pathetic. Luca’s smile softened further at the edges like he could hear every emotion I was trying and failing miserably to hide, and God, I’d missed that expression so much it bordered on violence.

“You look stunning,” he said gently after a moment.

I frowned slightly at the table.

“I wore a suit.”

“I noticed.”

“…I don’t usually wear suits.”

That finally earned a quiet laugh from him, warm and bright and achingly familiar, and something inside me immediately unclenched at the sound without my permission.

There it was again. That feeling. Like my entire nervous system recognised him before my brain even had time to catch up.

The first few minutes were a little awkward, though not in a bad way, more in the way two people become awkward when they’ve missed each other too much and suddenly have to exist in the same room again without immediately saying everything all at once.

Luca kept fiddling absentmindedly with the silver rings on his fingers beneath the table, twisting them around and around whenever he got nervous, while I sat across from him pretending I wasn’t internally doing breathing exercises like some deeply unstable idiot trying not to faint at a dinner party.

Which, to be fair, wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

A waiter eventually came by and placed our drinks down between us, the soft clink of glass briefly interrupting the fragile little bubble we seemed to have slipped into without meaning to. I reached automatically for my wine and took a slow sip, and over the rim of the glass I found myself watching Luca lift his champagne to his lips.

He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever known.

I meant it in the same devastating all-consuming way I’d meant it the very first time I saw him standing in that club. He really was an angel.

His halo of dark brown hair fell in soft waves around his face, and his skin carried that same impossible warmth to it too, olive and glowing beneath the amber lights like he’d swallowed pieces of the sun whole. Even his eyes looked softer here, endless dark pools I could probably spend the rest of my life drowning in willingly if he asked me to.

He was so far out of my league it actually bordered on comedy.

And somehow he still looked at me like I hung the moon.

For a little while, we just existed quietly together, the soft murmur of expensive conversations and clinking cutlery filling the restaurant around us while neither of us seemed in a rush to force the moment into something bigger too quickly.

I appreciated that more than I could explain.

Because despite how badly I wanted him, wanted this, my brain still felt loud tonight, thoughts overlapping too quickly beneath my skull while the crowd around us pressed against my nerves in ways that made my skin feel tight. I hated places like this sometimes, too many people, too much noise, too many moving pieces all existing at once until it started feeling impossible to fully relax. I hoped this episode ended soon.

My knee had been bouncing beneath the table almost nonstop since I arrived. 

And then, quietly enough that nobody else around us could’ve possibly noticed, I felt Luca brush his foot lightly against mine beneath the table. Not dramatic and not obvious, but there nonetheless.

A small grounding touch hidden beneath white tablecloths and dim lighting, like he instinctively knew exactly how overwhelmed I was getting and wanted to anchor me without embarrassing me over it.

It worked immediately.

I took one slow breath in.

Then out.

And for the first time since walking into the restaurant, the noise in my head softened slightly around the edges.

I missed this. Missed being understood without having to explain every ugly complicated thing happening inside me first.

Luca looked up at me then, his expression careful and gentle all over again once he noticed my knee finally stop bouncing beneath the table.

“How was the doctor?” he asked softly.

Okay, screw being calm.

How the fuck was I supposed to tell him this?

How was I supposed to sit across from the sweetest person I’d ever met, in some absurdly expensive restaurant glowing gold around the edges like a scene out of a romance movie, and casually explain that apparently my brain was a cocktail of bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and psychopathic tendencies stacked on top of years of trauma like the universe itself had personally decided to build the world’s most emotionally unstable man as an experiment?

Absolutely the fuck not.

The second Luca asked the question, I felt my entire body tense instinctively, my grip tightening slightly around the stem of my wine glass while my thoughts immediately started stampeding over each other again loud enough to make my skull hurt.

Because suddenly all I could hear was the psychiatrist’s voice from yesterday, calm and clinical and far too composed for somebody actively rearranging my sense of self sentence by sentence.

Emotional disregulation. Instability. Manic episodes. Depression. PTSD. Violent tendencies. Antisocial traits. 

Traits.

Interesting word for something that felt like it had carved itself directly into my bones. I looked down toward the table briefly, jaw tight. Luca waited patiently across from me, soft-eyed and careful in the way he always became whenever he realised I was struggling internally, and somehow that only made this harder because God, he trusted me. He looked at me like I was still safe to love.

What if this changed that?

What if this was the moment he finally realised everybody else had been right about me all along?

I swallowed hard before finally forcing out, “…Bad.”

Luca’s expression softened immediately. Not fear. Not even discomfort. He was concerned. Which almost made this worse.

“It wasn’t bad because of you,” he said gently, like he’d somehow already guessed where my thoughts were heading. “You know that, right?”

I laughed once quietly under my breath.

“Debatable.”

“Roman.”

I rubbed a tired hand over my face before leaning back slightly in the chair, staring up toward the ceiling for a second because eye contact currently felt like a deeply unsafe activity.

“They said I have borderline personality disorder,” I admitted finally, the words sounding sharp and ugly in my own ears. “And it overlaps with minor bipolar disorder.”

Luca stayed completely still across from me, listening carefully. I exhaled slowly through my nose.

“And apparently…” I looked back down at the tablecloth. “Some psychopathic tendencies too.”

There.

Said it.

Immediately I felt sick.

I couldn’t look at him afterward, couldn’t bring myself to see the shift in his face when the sentence settled properly between us.

Because there would be one.

There always was eventually.

That moment where people started looking at you differently once they realised something fundamental inside you was wrong.

The restaurant noise suddenly felt too loud again.

Forks clinking against plates.

Glasses tapping softly together.

Conversations overlapping into meaningless static until every sound started crashing into the inside of my skull at once.

I hated it.

Jesus Christ, it was so loud.

I felt like I was suffocating inside my own skin.

My chest tightened sharply as heat crawled up the back of my neck, restless energy suddenly surging through my body hard enough that sitting still became impossible. The lights felt too bright now too, golden reflections smearing across polished marble and wine glasses while my thoughts spiralled over each other so quickly I couldn’t grab onto a single one long enough to steady myself.

Fuck this.

Without looking Luca in the eye again, I stood abruptly from the table and walked away before I could embarrass myself further by having an actual psychological breakdown beside the fucking lobster linguini.

Very dignified of me.

I pushed through the restaurant doors quickly, cold night air hitting my face almost violently the second I stepped outside, but even that didn’t fully help. My lungs still felt tight, breaths coming too shallow while the city blurred around me in streaks of white and gold and distant sirens.

I didn’t go all the way to my motorcycle, even though part of me wanted to just leave entirely and save Luca from having to deal with this version of me at all, but I made it halfway down the sidewalk before stopping near an empty bench beneath one of the streetlights.

I stayed standing.

Couldn’t really do anything else.

My hands shook faintly while I dragged one harshly through my hair, trying to calm the noise in my head enough to think straight.

Freak.

The word echoed ugly and familiar through me.

Too unstable. Too wrong.

I laughed once quietly under my breath, though there wasn’t anything funny about it. Of course this happened. Of course the second Luca got close enough to see all the ruined parts of me properly, I fell apart like a malfunctioning machine in the middle of dinner.

God, I wanted a cigarette.

Or six.

“Roman.”

I froze immediately.

Luca stood a few feet away near the edge of the sidewalk, illuminated by the pale glow of the streetlights and the restaurant windows behind him, curls shifting slightly in the wind while concern sat openly across his face. And somehow, impossibly, he still looked at me gently. Not annoyed that I’d walked out. Not scared. Just worried. That nearly undid me more than the panic itself had.

“You didn’t have to follow me,” I muttered, staring somewhere over his shoulder because eye contact still felt dangerous right now.

“I know.”

The softness in his voice made my chest ache.

A few seconds passed quietly before Luca stepped a little closer, careful and slow in that way people approached frightened animals.

“I’m not scared of you,” he said gently.

I immediately scoffed under my breath.

“You should be.”

“No,” Luca answered quietly, firm enough this time that it made me finally glance at him properly. “I shouldn’t.”

The wind moved through the street between us softly, carrying distant city noise with it while Luca looked at me like he was trying to hold me together through sheer force of affection alone.

He really was an angel.

Not in the innocent sense.

In the biblical sense.

Something impossibly beautiful showing up exactly when everything inside me felt ruined.

He walked closer slowly after that, careful with me in a way that made my chest ache harder because Luca had always treated damaged things gently, even when they snapped at him for trying.

Then, before I could pull away or make up some excuse to leave entirely, he reached for my hand softly and laced our fingers together.

I looked down at our joined hands for a second, momentarily stunned by how naturally he still touched me after everything.

“Come here,” Luca murmured quietly.

And somehow, against all logic and self-preservation, I listened.

He tugged me gently toward the abandoned bench nearby before sitting down first and pulling me down beside him, close enough that our knees brushed immediately beneath the dim glow of the streetlight overhead.

The city rushed around us endlessly, yellow taxis sliding past slick pavement while distant sirens echoed somewhere further downtown, but sitting beside Luca like this made the noise feel farther away somehow.

Luca kept holding my hand between both of his, thumb brushing slowly against my knuckles while he looked at me with that same soft unbearable expression he always wore whenever he thought I was hurting.

“Nothing about being diagnosed with a mental condition makes you weird, Roman,” he said gently.

I laughed sharply under my breath and pulled my hand halfway free before catching myself.

“Luca, did you not hear that?” I snapped, finally looking at him properly now, though the second I did I almost regretted it because he was looking at me too softly again, too gently, like he still saw something worth saving sitting in front of him despite everything I’d just admitted. “I’m a fucking freak!”

The word echoed louder than I meant it to against the sidewalk, but I couldn’t seem to control the volume of my own voice anymore, couldn’t control anything right now, because suddenly my thoughts were moving too fast again, overlapping into each other violently enough that it felt like my skull was too small to contain them all. So much for staying calm.

Freak.

The word repeated instantly.

Broken. Wrong. Violent. Too much. Too unstable.

I could practically hear the voices from the orphanage all over again, sharp and disgusted and tired.

That boy isn’t normal.

There’s something wrong with him.

Watch the other kiddos around him, yeah?

And God, maybe they’d all been right.

Maybe there really had always been something rotten inside me from the beginning.

“Do you know what that means?” I exploded, my throat already burning painfully around the words because I was dangerously close to crying now and I hated crying almost as much as I hated myself in this moment. “Everything anyone’s ever said about me was true!”

Luca stood up quickly from the bench.

“Roman-”

“My brain is fucking broken!” I shouted over him, louder now, my chest tightening so badly it hurt to breathe properly. “I like hurting people sometimes! I love it sometimes, Luca!”

The confession ripped out of me raw and ugly. And the worst part? It was true.

Violence felt good sometimes. Control felt good. Adrenaline felt good. Sometimes anger burned through me so hot and fast that destruction felt like relief, and now there were actual clinical terms for all of it apparently, neat little diagnostic labels confirming every horrifying suspicion I’d ever had about myself.

I laughed once sharply under my breath, though it sounded dangerously close to a sob.

“What kind of fucking person enjoys that?” I demanded helplessly, dragging both hands harshly through my hair while panic crawled violently beneath my skin. “What kind of person feels better after hurting somebody!?”

You know what kind.

The thought came instantly.

A monster.

My breathing was getting uneven now, quick shallow breaths tearing through my lungs while the city lights blurred around me into streaks of gold and white.

God.

I felt like I was losing my fucking mind.

“What if I hurt you?” I asked finally, voice cracking apart halfway through the sentence. “What if one day I lose my shit during one of those episodes they were talking about and suddenly you realise everybody was right about me all along?”

I could barely hear myself over the noise in my own head anymore. It just kept getting louder.

You ruin people.

You ruin everything.

There’s something wrong with you.

I pressed the heels of my palms hard against my eyes for a second because I genuinely thought I might scream otherwise.

“I don’t want to be this person anymore,” I admitted shakily, the words scraping painfully out of my throat. “I don’t want my brain anymore, Luca, I’m so fucking tired.”

That was the real truth underneath everything. Not anger. Not violence. Exhaustion. Pure miserable exhaustion from fighting my own head every single day of my life. From never feeling normal. From always being too much or too detached or too angry or too empty. I looked at him again then, tears finally spilling over despite how hard I tried to stop them.

“I’m scared,” I whispered brokenly.

That seemed to hit Luca harder than all the shouting had.

His face crumpled instantly. Then suddenly he crossed the distance between us quickly and grabbed my shoulders firmly before I could pull away again.

“Hey,” he said urgently, shaking me once gently when I wouldn’t fully look at him. “Hey, look at me.”

I couldn’t breathe right. Could barely think.

“I’m a fucking freak,” I choked out helplessly. “Everyone was right.”

“No.”

“Yes they were!” I shouted immediately, tears running hot down my face now while years and years of self-hatred finally tore themselves open all at once. “There’s something wrong with me! I’m unstable and violent and fucking insane and you deserve better than this, better than me-”

“Roman.”

His hands tightened slightly on my shoulders.

“Breathe.”

I laughed shakily through tears. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I fucking can’t!”

Luca’s expression softened into something so heartbreakingly tender it almost made me collapse right there.

“Come back to my place,” he said gently. “Please.”

I shook my head immediately.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll ruin your night.”

“Puh-lease. The only reason I’m not bed-rotting while binge-watching Brooklyn 99 for the 5th time is you.”

“You just watched me have a breakdown on a sidewalk.”

“And now I want to take care of you.”

The sincerity in his voice nearly destroyed me completely.

I looked away quickly again, jaw trembling violently while I tried and failed to pull myself together.

“You can leave later if you still want to,” Luca continued softly, thumbs brushing lightly against my shoulders grounding me enough to stop the full spiral. “But right now you need somewhere quiet, and I made pasta.”

That almost fucking killed me.

Because somehow, despite everything I’d just confessed, despite the ugliness spilling out of me in waves, Luca was still standing here asking me to come home with him like I was something precious instead of terrifying.

LUCA:

Roman was currently curled up in my bed wearing a faded Tame Impala sweater and a pair of my oversized shorts while eating a bowl of spaghetti pomodoro I’d made earlier that morning, and if the circumstances surrounding this entire situation weren’t so emotionally catastrophic, I probably would’ve found the image hilarious.

Mostly because Roman had never actually met Yves before tonight, seeing as I’d only adopted the little menace recently, and somehow within less than an hour my cat had already decided Roman was his favourite person alive.

Actually, favourite was putting it lightly.

Yves was fully draped across Roman’s lap right now like a Victorian woman dying dramatically on a chaise lounge, purring loud enough to vibrate through the mattress while Roman absentmindedly scratched behind her ears between bites of pasta, and the little traitor looked so blissfully content you’d think she’d been waiting her entire life for this exact moment.

Meanwhile whenever I picked her up, she usually tolerated me with the exhausted expression of a landlord dealing with unpaid rent.

I narrowed my eyes at the cat from where I stood leaning against my bedroom doorway.

“You’ve known him for like forty minutes,” I informed her accusingly.

Roman looked up from the bowl in his hands slowly, jet black strands messy from running his fingers through them a thousand times earlier that night while he spiralled apart on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

“…I like animals,” he answered quietly.

His voice still sounded rough from crying.

That hurt me in ways I didn’t entirely know how to explain yet.

Because Roman always sounded a little rough around the edges naturally, all gravelly sarcasm and sleepy annoyance and sharp humour, but tonight there was something fragile underneath it too, like his voice itself had exhausted all its strength trying to hold him together.

Looking at him now made guilt curl sickly in my stomach.

How the fuck had I not noticed sooner?

How had I spent nights wrapped up in my own grief while the person taking care of me was silently falling apart too?

Because suddenly all these little moments from when we were together kept replaying differently in my head now that I knew.

The nights Roman stayed awake with me after my nightmares even when he looked exhausted himself.

The weird stretches where he seemed almost too alive somehow, talking too fast and sleeping too little and leaving early in the morning to go do some strange bullshit.

The days afterward where he’d go quieter, softer, looking at the world like everything weighed too much. And through all of it, he’d still taken care of me. Even while his own brain was apparently clawing itself apart underneath the surface.

The realisation sat unbearably heavy in my chest now. Because I should’ve noticed. I should’ve realised there was a difference between someone being eccentric and someone actively drowning in their own mind.

Roman looked over at me again then, his brows pulling together slightly.

“You’re staring,” he murmured.

“I’m thinking.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“Shut up.”

That earned the faintest little smile out of him, small enough most people probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, but I did.

I noticed everything about Roman.

The way his shoulders loosened slightly every time Yves purred louder against him.

The way he kept curling instinctively inward whenever conversations turned toward himself, like he physically expected rejection.

The way he still looked vaguely stunned every single time I touched him affectionately, as though some part of him genuinely couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to.

I finally pushed myself off the doorway and walked over to the bed before climbing onto it beside him, the mattress dipping beneath my weight immediately while Yves cracked one eye open briefly before deciding I wasn’t important enough to interrupt her new emotional support human arrangement.

“Wow,” I muttered. “I raise her, feed her, clean her litter box, and suddenly she meets one very attractive man and forgets I exist.”

Roman huffed softly through his nose.

“I like her.”

The silence settled between us again.

I watched the smile fade from Roman’s face almost immediately afterward. There it was again. That heaviness. That fear. He looked back down at the bowl in his hands for a few seconds before speaking quieter this time.

“…I’m sorry I crashed out earlier.”

My chest tightened painfully.

“Roman-”

“No, seriously.” He swallowed hard before continuing, eyes fixed stubbornly on the pasta instead of me. “I don’t know what’s going on with me lately.” He laughed once weakly under his breath, though there wasn’t anything funny about it. “The doctor said I’m having an ‘episode,’ which sounds fake by the way.”

Despite everything, despite the sadness sitting heavy between us, I smiled a little. But then his expression softened again afterward into something quieter. More vulnerable.

“I just…” He exhaled slowly through his nose. “I spent my whole life thinking something was wrong with me, Luca, and now there’s paperwork confirming it.”

The way he said that nearly shattered me.

He wasn’t angry or sad or dramatic or furious at all. My baby was just tired. He genuinely believed this diagnosis had proven every cruel thing ever said about him correct. I reached over gently and took the bowl from his hands before setting it on the bedside table beside us, then turned back toward him fully.

Roman immediately tensed. Like some part of him genuinely expected me to pull away now. Instead I moved closer.

“Hey,” I said softly.

He wouldn’t look at me.

“Roman.”

“I’m trying really hard not to scream again.”

That sentence hurt so badly I almost started crying myself so I reached out carefully and took one of his hands between both of mine. Warm. Shaking slightly.

“You are not your diagnosis,” I murmured.

Roman laughed quietly under his breath.

“That sounds like something written on an inspirational mug.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He finally looked at me then, eyes exhausted and painfully open in a way Roman’s almost never were. “You heard me earlier, Luca. You heard the shit I admitted.” His jaw tightened slightly. “Normal people don’t enjoy hurting others sometimes.”

I held his gaze carefully.

“You know what I heard earlier?”

He looked away immediately.

“I heard someone terrified of becoming cruel because he values kindness so deeply.”

“That sounds wrong.”

“I don’t care.”

Roman’s expression twisted faintly at that, somewhere between heartbreak and disbelief.

“You should care.”

“Why?”

“Because what if they’re right about me?”

The question came out so quietly it nearly broke me in half.

I moved even closer until our knees pressed together beneath the blankets.

“Roman,” I said gently, “bad people don’t sit outside restaurants crying because they’re scared of hurting somebody they love one day.”

His eyes flickered slightly at the word love. I noticed. Of course I noticed.

“They don’t spend hours taking care of someone else’s trauma while silently dealing with their own either,” I continued softly.

Roman blinked rapidly a few times after that.

“I should’ve noticed something was wrong,” I admitted quietly then.

His head snapped up immediately.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You were going through your own shit.”

“That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have seen yours too.”

Roman stared at me for a long moment after that before shaking his head faintly.

“You know what’s funny?” he murmured quietly. “I never once thought you were selfish for not noticing.”

That hurt, because of course he hadn’t. Roman gave grace to everyone except himself.

I reached up slowly then and brushed his hair back away from his forehead, fingers lingering there gently.

“You took care of me while your own brain was screaming at you.”

Roman’s face softened immediately, something sad and tender flickering through his expression.

“You needed me.”

The simplicity of the answer nearly destroyed me.

Like loving me had never once felt burdensome to him even while he was drowning himself.

I looked at him for a second longer before finally leaning forward and wrapping both arms around him tightly.

And the second I felt Roman physically melt against me in exhausted relief, burying his face against my shoulder like he’d been holding himself upright through sheer force of will all night, I realised something that made my chest ache.

Nobody had ever held this man gently enough before.

“…They put me on pills. Two different ones,” Roman murmured after a while, his voice quiet and rough around the edges and even now he still wouldn’t fully look at me while he spoke, like admitting he needed help somehow embarrassed him.

“What?”

Roman exhaled softly through his nose before glancing down toward his lap where Yves was still sprawled dramatically across him like he’d personally adopted Roman within the last two hours.

“Pills to help me,” he clarified quietly, fingers fidgeting absently with the sleeve of the sweater pooled over his hands. “They gave me Xanax for my nervous system because apparently I operate like I’m seconds away from being hunted for sport at all times, and then some other one I can’t remember the name of because I checked out halfway through the explanation.” A small humourless laugh slipped out of him afterward. “It just makes me drowsy.”

Something inside me twisted painfully at the exhaustion in his voice. He was still trying to process the fact that someone had finally put names to the chaos inside his head and he didn’t quite know what to do with that yet.

“Oh,” I murmured softly.

Roman nodded faintly before going quiet again for a moment, his gaze fixed somewhere toward the blankets while the city lights outside my apartment painted soft gold streaks across his face.

“I am sorry, though.”

I frowned slightly.

“For what?”

His brows pulled together faintly, like the answer should’ve been obvious.

“For yelling at you earlier,” he admitted softly. “I didn’t mean to.”

God.

The guilt in his voice nearly broke my heart all over again.

Because Roman had spent the last several hours actively falling apart at the seams, terrified of himself, terrified of hurting people, terrified of becoming something monstrous, and somehow he was still more worried about whether or not he’d upset me.

I reached over immediately and intertwined our fingers together carefully.

“I know you didn’t, baby,” I murmured gently. “It’s okay.”

Roman finally looked at me then, and Christ, the vulnerability in his expression hit me like a punch straight to the ribs.

“Luca…?” he asked after a moment, voice quieter now.

“Mhm?”

He hesitated long enough that I could practically see him fighting with himself internally over whether or not to say whatever came next.

“If you’re sure you want this,” he said eventually, words slow and careful like they physically hurt to speak aloud, “want me…just know I’ll try really fucking hard.” His throat bobbed slightly when he swallowed. “To keep you safe. From everything.”

From me.

He didn’t say the last part out loud but he didn’t have to. I could hear it anyway in the fear woven through his voice so tightly it almost sounded like shame. It hurt me sometimes how deeply Roman feared himself. How thoroughly the world had convinced him he was dangerous before it ever taught him he was worthy of being loved.

I shifted closer beside him until our knees brushed beneath the blankets and squeezed his hand gently.

“Of course I want this,” I said softly, watching his expression carefully as the words settled over him. “Hell, I think I want this more than anyone’s ever wanted anything ever before.”

Roman blinked at me.

“Oh.”

I smiled despite myself.

“Yeah,” I murmured warmly. “Oh.”

And he was blushing.

Actually blushing.

Pink slowly spread across his cheeks while he immediately looked away from me afterward like eye contact had suddenly become unbearable, and something inside me melted so aggressively I genuinely thought I might dissolve into glitter.

He was so cute it made me sick.

Roman let out a quiet exhale through his nose before finally laying back against my mountain of unnecessarily comfortable pillows, looking completely exhausted now that the adrenaline from earlier had finally drained fully out of his system.

The second he moved, Yves immediately climbed directly onto his chest and settled there like a warm furry paperweight.

Traitor.

I climbed into bed properly beside him afterward, stretching out on my side so I could look at him while he stared tiredly up at the ceiling, one hand absently scratching beneath Yves’ chin.

“You know,” I said after a moment, “you need to find a nickname for me.”

Roman looked over slowly.

“What?”

“Well,” I explained patiently, “I have nicknames for you. Technically two, though I mostly only use one out loud.”

He narrowed his eyes slightly in suspicion.

“What nickname?”

I smiled instantly.

“Baby.”

Roman’s ears turned even redder somehow.

Oh my God.

This man could threaten somebody with a crowbar and still blush like a maiden being handed flowers.

“And,” I continued proudly, “in my mind I think of you as a phantom because you look like one.”

Roman blinked slowly.

“…A phantom.”

“Yes,” I said confidently. “You’re all pale and lanky and mysterious-looking and you appear unexpectedly in places.” I tilted my head thoughtfully. “Actually wait, that sounds cool in Italian. I should start calling you mio fantasma.”

Roman stared at me for a second longer before mumbling, “You’re strange.”

“And yet you’re in my bed.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Anyway,” I continued, ignoring him completely, “the point is that you need a nickname for me now.”

Roman visibly tensed at the assignment like I’d just handed him an exam paper.

“Uh…”

I gasped dramatically.

“You don’t have one?”

“No one’s ever demanded I create pet names under pressure before.”

“That’s because no one else in your life has been this charming.”

“That’s one explanation.”

I narrowed my eyes at him while Roman tried very hard not to smile.

“No, seriously,” I insisted, propping my chin up against my hand while watching him think. “You have to pick one.”

Roman groaned softly and dragged a hand down his face while Yves continued purring happily against his chest.

“This feels like a setup.”

“It is.”

He sighed heavily, though I could already see amusement flickering faintly through the exhaustion in his expression now.

Then quieter, almost shyly, “Can I not just call you baby as well?”

I gasped softly in offense.

“No.”

His brows pulled together slightly while Yves continued purring on his chest like he’d personally chosen sides in this argument already.

“Why not?”

“Because,” I explained patiently, “I started it. I called dibs. You cannot copy my homework this early into the relationship.”

Roman stared at me for a second.

“…This feels unnecessarily strict.”

“It’s called creativity.”

“It’s called dictatorship.”

I ignored him completely.

“Find something original.”

Roman sighed dramatically and tipped his head back further into the pillows like I’d handed him an impossible philosophical dilemma instead of a flirting assignment.

“Okay,” he muttered eventually. “Then you have to help me.”

My face lit up immediately.

“Fine.” I shifted onto my stomach beside him so I could look at him properly, chin propped against my hands while I considered the situation with appropriate seriousness. “Can you speak anything other than English? Non-English nicknames are hot.”

Roman’s expression shifted faintly at that, not bad exactly, just thoughtful.

“Uhhh…” He rubbed absentmindedly at Yves’ back while he thought. “I know some Portuguese.” Then, after a second, “And a teensy bit of Russian.”

“Oh?” I perked up immediately. “That’s random.”

Roman hesitated for the briefest second before answering quieter this time.

“I need it to communicate with other…uhm, groups.”

Mafia branches.

The realisation settled quietly between us.

It still startled me sometimes, how easily Roman could say things like that in the softest voice imaginable while lying in my bed wearing my clothes with a cat sleeping on his chest.

Like yes, sweetheart! Tell me more about your criminal networking abilities while cuddling my cat.

The thing was, though, Roman always sounded strangely…intense when talking about that side of his life. Like it was something he belonged to. Something he lived for.

I watched him carefully for a moment, noticing the way his expression had dimmed slightly after mentioning it.

So instead of lingering there too long, I reached over and poked lightly at his side.

“Well, Russian nicknames are super attractive,” I informed him confidently.

Roman snorted softly.

“You don’t even speak Russian.”

“I don’t need to. I have vibes.”

“That isn’t how language works.”

“It is, however, how flirting works.”

That finally earned another real smile out of him, small and tired but warm enough that my chest immediately squeezed painfully around it.

I missed this.

Missed him.

Even now, with everything messy and uncertain and emotionally catastrophic around us, being near Roman still felt like sunlight filtering through stained glass somehow, warm and beautiful and a little bit holy.

Roman looked at me quietly for a second longer before speaking again.

“…What would I even call you?”

I blinked dramatically.

“Oh my God, you genuinely don’t know.”

“I’m trying.”

“No, now I’m fascinated.” I shifted closer across the mattress immediately. “What’s your internal thought process right now? Are there categories? A ranking system?”

Roman looked deeply exhausted by my existence.

“I’m attempting not to say something horrible.”

“That’s so sweet.”

“That wasn’t intended romantically.”

“Everything you do feels romantic because you’re tragically in love with me.”

Roman’s cheeks turned pink instantly.

Ha.

Got him.

He rolled his eyes immediately afterward, though I could practically feel the embarrassment radiating off him now.

“You’re insufferable.”

“And yet,” I said smugly, inching even closer until I was practically half laying across him now, “you’re letting me lay on top of you.”

“You’re heavy. It’s not like I can move you.”

“Still counts.”

Roman sighed softly through his nose, though there was affection underneath it now instead of exhaustion alone.

“There are options,” Roman murmured after a moment, his voice still soft with exhaustion while Yves purred heavily against his chest like he’d already accepted Roman as part of the household. “Like, luchik, or solnyshko, but they mean similar things.” He paused briefly, eyes drifting toward the ceiling while he thought. “There’s also mishka, or volchonok. Or lenochka. Or moya dusha.” His mouth twitched faintly afterward. “The only nickname I know in Portuguese is amor, but that’s what my brother calls his wife so it’d be weird.”

I stared at him for a second, trying very hard to process the fact Roman apparently knew romantic Russian pet names while simultaneously looking like he belonged in an expensive gothic painting somewhere.

Actually unfair.

“What do they mean?” I asked immediately, scooting closer across the mattress until I was practically halfway laying on top of him now. “The Russian ones.”

Roman sighed softly through his nose, though there was something fond hidden underneath the exhaustion now, like he was already regretting giving me access to this information because he knew I was about to become deeply annoying about it.

“Luchik means ray of light,” he explained quietly while absentmindedly scratching behind Yves’ ears. “Solnyshko means sunshine, I think. Mishka means bear, volchonok means little wolf, I think-”

“I should call you that.”

Roman blinked slowly.

“What?”

“Little wolf,” I repeated confidently. “That’s literally you.”

He frowned immediately.

“How exactly am I a wolf?”

I gasped softly in disbelief.

“Roman, you stalk around New York dressed entirely in black looking emotionally haunted while chain-smoking cigarettes and glaring at people like a curse.”

“That feels rude.”

“It’s accurate.”

Roman rolled his eyes slightly, though I caught the tiny smile threatening the corner of his mouth anyway before he continued.

“Lenochka means bright light,” he murmured. “And moya dusha means…”

He trailed off suddenly.

I blinked at him.

“What?”

“Shut up,” he muttered immediately, looking vaguely offended now. “I’m trying to remember.”

“You paused dramatically.”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did. It looked like your brain blue-screened.”

Roman narrowed his eyes at me while I grinned smugly.

Then, after another few seconds-

“Oh,” he said quietly. “It means my soul.”

I stopped moving for a second.

Roman, meanwhile, seemed completely unaware he’d just psychologically assassinated me because he looked more focused on trying to remember vocabulary than on the fact he’d casually said one of the most devastatingly intimate phrases I’d ever heard in my life.

“My soul?” I repeated weakly.

Roman finally looked over at me properly then and immediately seemed to realise how hard the words had landed because his entire face started turning pink.

“…It sounds less intense in Russian.”

“No, I actually think that might be worse.”

“It’s literally just a phrase.”

“Roman,” I whispered dramatically, clutching my chest, “you cannot lie in my bed looking like a sad gothic prince and casually tell me there’s a Russian nickname that means my soul.”

His ears turned even redder.

“You’re making this weird.”

“I’m making this romantic.”

“That’s worse.”

I smiled so hard my face hurt.

He was so painfully adorable when he got embarrassed.

Especially because Roman embarrassed so rarely. Most of the time he carried himself with this detached kind of confidence, all dry sarcasm and sharp edges and tired amusement, but every now and then I’d say something affectionate enough to crack directly through all that armour and suddenly there he was underneath it all.

Just some shy sweet boy trying very hard not to combust because someone liked him openly.

And honestly?

That version of Roman might’ve been my favourite thing in the entire world.

I shifted even closer beside him afterward until my head rested lightly against his shoulder while Yves remained sprawled between us like a furry chaperone.

“I think moya dusha is the prettiest one,” I murmured softly.

Roman made a quiet noise somewhere between embarrassment and suffering.

“Your Russian is terrible.”

I gasped softly from where I was half laying on top of him, immediately lifting my head to glare at him in exaggerated betrayal.

“That’s the first time I’ve spoken it, okay?”

Roman looked entirely unmoved by my suffering.

“I could tell.”

“Wow. Encouraging.”

“You sounded like you were trying to summon a ghost.”

“At least I tried.”

“That made it worse.”

I narrowed my eyes at him while he fought back the faintest smile, exhaustion still lingering around the edges of his face but softer now, less sharp and panicked than it had been earlier when he’d looked like he was drowning inside his own head.

Now he just looked tired. Warm. Curled up in my bed wearing my sweater with Yves asleep on his chest like he belonged there. Which he did.

“How come you never speak Italian?” Roman asked after a moment, voice quieter now while his fingers lazily scratched through Yves’ fur. “Like, it’s your native language, right? And you clearly speak it well, so…”

I blinked slightly.

“What?”

Roman shrugged one shoulder against the pillows.

“I’ve just noticed you barely ever use it,” he explained. “Not even accidentally.”

“Oh.”

The answer settled in my chest immediately after that, though saying it out loud suddenly felt strangely embarrassing for some reason.

I shifted slightly beside him, pulling one of the blankets tighter around my legs while I tried figuring out how to explain something that mostly just felt emotional and stupid inside my own head.

“I guess…” I hesitated slightly before laughing softly under my breath. “This is going to sound dumb.”

Roman looked at me immediately.

“It won’t.”

The certainty in his voice made my chest ache a little. I don’t think he even realised how gently he treated me sometimes.

I looked down at the blanket for a second before continuing quieter now.

“We used to go to Italy every summer for like two months,” I explained softly. “Me and Dante. Ever since we were kids.” A small smile tugged faintly at my mouth despite myself. “And I loved it there so much it hurt to leave every single time.”

Roman stayed quiet, listening carefully.

“It just felt…” I searched for the words slowly. “Alive.”

The second I said it, I knew that was it exactly.

“Everyone there feels alive all the time,” I continued, voice softer now while memories bloomed warm and aching in my chest all at once. “People yelling across streets at midnight, old men arguing over Ferrari’s game strategy outside cafés, music playing out apartment windows, giant family dinners where everybody talks over each other at once and somehow still understands everything being said.” I laughed quietly to myself. “Even the silence there feels alive somehow.”

Roman’s eyes stayed fixed on me the entire time. And God, the way he listened made me feel like every thought I had mattered.

“It’s one of the only places I’ve ever been where I actually felt…” I hesitated briefly before admitting it anyway. “At home, I guess.”

The words sat quietly between us afterward and immediately afterward I felt stupid for saying it out loud. I laughed softly under my breath and rubbed at my face.

“See? Dumb.”

Roman’s expression changed instantly.

“No,” he said quietly. “Not dumb.”

I shrugged lightly anyway.

“It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud,” I admitted. “Like wow, Luca discovered emotional attachment through pasta and cobblestone streets while old ladies yelled to each other from their balconies because they want more gelato.”

That finally earned a real laugh out of Roman, low and rough and tired but warm enough that my chest squeezed painfully around it.

“You’re so dramatic,” he murmured.

“I’m right though.”

“No.” Roman shook his head slightly against the pillows. “I get it.”

Suddenly I realised he actually did get it, maybe better than most people would. Because Roman knew what it felt like to move through the world detached from almost everything in it, always slightly outside of everyone else somehow, always restless, always searching for places or people that finally made the void in your chest fill.

“I think,” he said after a moment, voice softer now, “when you spend most of your life not feeling attached to places, the ones that finally do feel like home become…” He paused briefly. “Sacred, almost.”

There he went again. Accidentally saying beautiful things like he didn’t even notice he was doing it. I stared at him for a second too long. Roman noticed immediately.

“What?”

“You say the prettiest things when you’re sleepy.”

His face immediately flushed faintly pink.

“I absolutely do not.”

“You literally just described emotional attachment like a tragic poet.”

“That was not poetry.”

“It absolutely was.”

Roman rolled his eyes softly, though I caught the embarrassed little smile threatening the corner of his mouth anyway before he looked away again.

Then quieter, “Say something in Italian.”

The request hit me unexpectedly hard for some reason, maybe because no one had ever really asked before. Italian always felt tucked away somewhere private inside me, tied up in summers that smelled like ocean air and cigarette smoke and espresso and Dante laughing somewhere nearby while church bells rang through old streets at sunset.

It felt too personal sometimes. Too much like home. But Roman looked at me so softly when he asked that I couldn’t really deny him anything.

So after a second, I smiled faintly and murmured, “Mi sento a casa con te.”

Roman’s eyes flickered slightly.

“What does that mean?”

I looked at him quietly for a moment before answering.

“It means…” My voice softened unconsciously around the words. “I feel at home with you.”

And the way Roman looked at me afterward, like I’d just reached directly into his chest and held something fragile there with both hands, made my heart ache so badly I thought it might split open.

And then he leaned forward and kissed me, softly at first, and I kissed him back immediately, my fingers sliding into the curls at the nape of his neck while his hand came up carefully to cup my jaw like he still couldn’t fully believe he was allowed to touch me like this. For a few seconds it stayed slow. Tender.

Roman kissed like someone handling something precious for the first time in his life, careful and aching and devastatingly sincere all at once, and I could feel every horrible lonely thing inside him softening beneath the warmth of it.

And then he cracked open.

Suddenly the kiss deepened, Roman pulling me closer with a quiet frustrated sound against my mouth like gentleness alone wasn’t enough anymore, like all the fear and relief and want sitting inside him had finally overflowed into something desperate and consuming.

There he was.

That ferocious beautiful thing hidden underneath all the sharp edges and sarcasm and exhaustion.

He kissed me harder now, messier, like I was the only thing grounding him to the planet, one hand tangled tightly in my hair while the other gripped my waist hard enough to pull me nearly into his lap. There was something almost frantic underneath it, not lust alone but emotion, years worth of loneliness and self-hatred and yearning pouring out of him all at once now that he’d finally let himself have something soft.

And honestly?

I kissed him back just as desperately.

Because I needed him to understand.

Needed him to feel chosen.

He bit down hard on my lip, blood pooling there slightly. It stung a bit, but jesus fucking christ, I swore saw fucking stars when he licked it all up, moaning against my mouth.

Okay, dick, calm down, I scolded myself.

We lost our tops soon enough, and after fucking and making out for a while and very likely traumatising Yves for life, we eventually just dissolved into laughter against each other’s mouths instead of continuing anything remotely serious.

Which, honestly, felt very us.

Roman was still half sprawled over me, hair a complete mess now while I could barely breathe from laughing, and Yves sat at the end of the bed staring at us with the kind of judgment usually reserved for disappointed parents.

“She hates you now,” I informed Roman very seriously.

Roman glanced over his shoulder toward the cat. “That’s fine. I don’t give two flying fucks.”

Yves blinked slowly.

“Oh my God,” I gasped. “Don’t bully my child.”

“Your child watched me inhale your spaghetti.”

“And now she’s watching you be a bottom.”

Roman blushed a tad and let out one of those rare real laughs then, the kind that escaped him before he could stop it, low and rough and warm enough to make my chest ache.

He flopped down onto the bed, burrowing slightly into the pillows and blankets until he was practically swallowed whole by them, his dark hair disappearing against the white bedding while his skin looked so pale beneath the warm apartment lights that he almost blended into the sheets entirely.

Oh, my ethereal phantom.

The thought drifted lazily through my head with so much affection attached to it that my chest physically hurt a little.

I immediately flopped down on top of him, wrapping my arms around his waist while resting my chin against his chest, and Roman let out a small grunt beneath me from the impact before adjusting automatically, one hand settling against my back and rubbing slowly up and down in absentminded motions that made warmth spread through me instantly.

We stayed like that for a while without speaking, the apartment quiet except for the distant hum of New York outside the windows and Yves occasionally snoring at the foot of the bed like an old man.

Roman looked exhausted.

Not in a bad way exactly, just completely worn out, his eyes heavy-lidded and curls messy against the pillows while the freckles scattered beneath his eyes and over the bridge of his nose stood out softly against his pale skin.

Honestly, I was a little proud of myself. I wore him the fuck out.

Woohoo!

“You should come to dinner with me in two days,” I murmured eventually.

Roman blinked slowly down at me.

“What?”

“Dinner,” I repeated patiently. “With my brother’s family.”

His answer came immediately. “No.”

I laughed softly. “Why not?”

Roman looked deeply unimpressed already.

“…Your brother hates me.”

“He doesn’t.”

“When we got you to the hospital after saving you,” Roman reminded me tiredly, “he glared at me the entire time like he was considering homicide.”

“He was stressed,” I defended immediately. “And protective. Dante’s whole thing is being terrifying when he cares about someone.”

“That is not reassuring.”

I grinned against his chest while he sighed dramatically toward the ceiling.

“And Vivian’s making dumplings and noodles,” I continued, refusing to let this go. “And Josie’ll hopefully be awake this time.”

Roman’s brows furrowed slightly.

“The baby?”

“Yes.”

“She’s gonna hate me.”

I lifted my head immediately to stare at him in disbelief.

“Roman, she’s six months old.”

“Babies can sense evil.”

I burst out laughing so hard I nearly slid off him completely before Roman automatically tightened one arm around my waist to keep me from falling.

“You are insane,” I informed him fondly.

Roman’s mouth twitched faintly despite himself.

Then quieter this time, softer, “…What if they don’t like me?”

The question caught me off guard a little.

Not because of what he said, but because of how quietly he said it.

Roman almost never sounded uncertain out loud. Angry, sarcastic, exhausted, grumpy, emotionally constipated beyond belief? Constantly. But uncertain? That was rarer.

I tilted my head slightly so he’d actually look at me.

“I like you,” I said simply. “And they like me, so they’ll just have to cope with it.”

Roman huffed softly through his nose at that, though I caught the tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“That’s not how families work.”

“It is in mine.”

He looked at me for another long second before finally sighing dramatically in defeat.

“Okay,” he muttered tiredly. “Okay, I’ll goooo…”

The last part dissolved into a huge yawn, his eyes squeezing shut briefly afterward while I immediately lit up.

“Really!?” I pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before he could change his mind. “You’re the best, baby. They’ll love you, I promise.”

Roman yawned again, clearly halfway unconscious at this point.

“Now go to sleep,” I ordered softly before reaching for my phone off the bedside table. “It’s-” I checked the screen. “…Jesus Christ, it’s 3:15 AM.”

Roman made a sleepy noise of acknowledgment beneath me.

“How long were we fucking for?” I asked in horror.

“Shut up,” he muttered immediately, eyes still closed.

“You little demon!” I yelped as Josie grabbed a fistful of my hair for what had to be the fiftieth time that evening.

She stared at me for a second with giant blue eyes, smiled her weird little gummy smile, and then tugged harder.

“VIVIAN!” I cried dramatically. “Your child yearns for violence!”

From the kitchen, Vivian laughed. “She likes you.”

“Well, I don’t like her right now.”

That was a lie. I adored her. Unfortunately.

Josie let out a delighted squeal from where she sat in my lap, tiny hands still tangled in my hair while I slumped further into the couch like a man moments away from succumbing to his injuries.

I’d come to Dante and Vivian’s place for dinner tonight.

Dante invited me.

Which maybe sounds normal if you weren’t me, but considering the past few years of weird distance and polite conversations and both of us pretending not to notice how different things had become between us, it felt borderline revolutionary.

And after everything I’d told him last week-

God.

I still couldn’t really think about that conversation too hard without wanting to crawl out of my own skin. Because I’d told him everything. Not the edited version. Not the funny version. Not the version where I turned everything into a joke before it could become real.

Everything.

And he hadn’t looked at me differently afterward. That was the part my brain still didn’t fully know how to process.

The apartment smelled like garlic and fresh bread and whatever expensive candle Vivian always had burning, soft music playing quietly somewhere in the background while rain tapped against the windows, and it all felt so painfully warm and normal that it almost made my chest ache.

Normal.

I missed normal.

“Need help?” Dante asked as he walked back into the living room carrying two drinks.

I looked up automatically and there it was again. That look. This quiet attentiveness now, like he was subconsciously checking on me every thirty seconds without wanting me to notice.

It should’ve made me uncomfortable.

Instead it made something awful and emotional tighten in my throat.

“No,” I answered quickly, trying to sound light again. “I’m currently locked in combat with your daughter.”

Dante’s mouth twitched slightly as he sat beside me. Mostly because Josie was currently trying to consume my left hand.

“Sweetheart,” I informed her seriously as she shoved three of my fingers into her mouth, “this is cannibalism.”

“She’s teething,” Dante said, completely unhelpful.

“Exactly. Get her therapy before it escalates.”

“She’s winning,” he observed calmly.

“She fights dirty.”

“She’s six months old.”

“And already corrupted.”

Dante huffed out a quiet laugh under his breath, and the sound hit me strangely hard because I hadn’t realised how much I missed hearing it directed at me. Not polite amusement or distracted acknowledgment.

Just…my brother laughing with me again.

It made me feel warm in a way that was honestly a little embarrassing.

I looked down at Josie as she climbed halfway onto Dante’s chest, babbling nonsense while he steadied her automatically with one arm.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, my brain betrayed me completely.

Roman would’ve loved this.

Not openly.

God no.

He would’ve acted deeply inconvenienced the entire time while secretly becoming emotionally attached to the baby within twenty minutes.

I could practically picture it.

Roman sitting exactly where I was now with Josie on his lap, pretending to be annoyed while letting her grab onto his rings and suit jacket anyway. Roman standing silently in the kitchen beside Dante while Vivian cooked, stealing pieces of bread when he thought nobody was looking. Roman existing inside all this warmth and domesticity like he’d been starving for it his entire life without even realising.

The thought hurt so suddenly I almost physically recoiled from it.

Because I missed him.

Constantly.

In every stupid little moment.

“Luca.”

I blinked quickly, realising Dante was looking at me now.

Concerned. Again.

“…Hm?”

His expression softened slightly.

“You disappeared for a second.”

Oh.

Right.

Dissociating.

Fun new personality trait unlocked by trauma!

I forced a smile onto my face automatically.

“Sorry,” I muttered lightly. “My brain went on a little side quest.”

Dante didn’t laugh this time.

Instead, quieter now, he asked, “Bad one?”

That almost broke me all over again.

“Not rea-” Before I could finish speaking, my phone suddenly started ringing in my pocket, the sound cutting through the warm apartment atmosphere so abruptly that I nearly jumped a little. Frowning, I carefully shifted Josie into Dante’s arms before pulling my phone out, already half distracted, but the second my eyes landed on the screen, my entire body went still.

Roman.

Oh.

My heart did something so painfully pathetic it actually annoyed me.

For a moment, I just stared at his name glowing against the screen while every emotion I’d spent the last month trying to suppress immediately came rushing back all at once, messy and overwhelming and horribly alive again. Because despite everything he’d said, despite the way he’d ended things, despite how angry and hurt I’d been afterward, some stupid unbearable part of me had still been waiting for him to come back.

Dante noticed the shift in my expression immediately, because apparently older brothers developed supernatural emotional perception the second they had children.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, concern softening his voice.

I swallowed hard and stood a little too quickly from the couch.

“…I gotta take this.”

His eyes flickered briefly toward the screen, and I watched the exact moment he saw Roman’s name, but to his credit he didn’t react beyond a small furrow between his brows before simply nodding once, calm and understanding in that new gentler way he’d been treating me ever since I told him everything.

I escaped onto the balcony before I could lose my nerve.

Cold night air immediately wrapped around me, sharp against my skin after the warmth inside, while the New York skyline stretched endlessly ahead in glowing white and gold lights scattered across the dark like stars trapped beneath glass. Somewhere far below, traffic hummed softly through the streets, distant sirens echoing every now and then, but all of it faded into background noise as I answered the phone.

“What the fuck do you want, Roman?” I asked, trying very hard to sound annoyed instead of devastatingly relieved.

Because I was angry at him. I wanted him to know that. No matter how much I lov - liked him.

There was a pause on the other end before he finally spoke, his voice so quiet and rough around the edges that it hit me straight in the chest.

“…Hi.”

The wind rushed loudly past him through the phone speaker, and for some reason that detail alone made my stomach twist because I could picture him so clearly: standing somewhere high up and isolated, cigarette between his fingers even though he technically quit weeks ago, coat open despite the cold because Roman treated basic self preservation like a personal insult.

“You don’t get to just say hi,” I muttered, gripping the balcony railing tighter than necessary as I stared out over the city lights. “You vanished for a month.”

“I know.”

“And you broke up with me.”

“I know.”

I closed my eyes briefly.

Because that was the problem with Roman. The second he stopped acting cold and untouchable and let even the slightest bit of genuine feeling slip through, it became almost impossible to stay angry at him properly.

I hated that.

I hated him.

I hated how much I missed him.

I hated how happy he made me.

I hated how much I wanted him.

“So?” I asked eventually, quieter now despite myself. “Why are you calling?”

For a few seconds all I could hear was the wind around him and faint traffic somewhere in the distance, and I wondered briefly if he’d changed his mind, if maybe he’d called impulsively and was now regretting it.

Then he finally exhaled shakily into the phone and admitted, so quietly it almost got swallowed by the night, “…I miss you.”

And just like that, every defensive thought I’d carefully built over the past month collapsed immediately and completely, because apparently all it took to ruin me was Roman Davenport sounding sad on a rooftop somewhere.

“And uh…” he continued after a moment, suddenly sounding strangely hesitant, which was deeply unsettling considering this was Roman and I’d literally watched him threaten people with a completely straight face before. “I wanted to see how you were doing. Like…if you’re mentally okay and uh, stuff.”

The awkwardness of the sentence should’ve been funny, but instead it made something in my chest ache painfully, because underneath all the fumbling words and rough edges, I could hear how genuine the concern was.

I tightened my grip slightly around my phone and stared out across the city again, watching headlights blur below like streams of gold.

“I’m fine,” I answered automatically, the lie slipping out on instinct before I could stop it.

Then, after a second, quieter, “I started seeing a therapist.”

There was a brief silence on the other end before Roman spoke again, and somehow he sounded genuinely surprised.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed tiredly at my eye with the heel of my hand. “Her name is Shannon. She’s like ninety years old and gives me cookies every session.”

To my immense relief, Roman let out the faintest huff of laughter under his breath.

The sound hit me so hard emotionally it was honestly embarrassing.

“Does it help?” he asked softly.

And the thing was…he sounded careful asking it. Not dismissive, not mocking. Like he genuinely wanted the answer.

“Yeah,” I admitted quietly. “Actually, yeah. More than I thought it would.”

Another small silence settled between us then, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it felt fragile, like both of us were standing at the edge of something neither of us fully knew how to approach anymore.

“Okay,” Roman said eventually, and there was something oddly relieved in his voice that made my chest tighten all over again.

The wind rushed loudly past him again through the speaker before he spoke once more, quieter this time.

“…I’m glad.”

That almost hurt more than if he’d said something cruel.

“I’m, uh…” Roman started again after a long silence, and immediately I could tell from his tone that whatever he was about to say was costing him an unreasonable amount of emotional effort. “I’m going to a doctor tomorrow.”

My eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“What for?”

There was the sound of wind again, harsher this time, and I imagined him running a hand through his hair the way he always did when he was uncomfortable and trying to hide it.

“Uhm, I spoke to my brother,” he admitted quietly. “Dominic convinced me to go and…have my brain checked out, I guess.” He let out a weak breath of laughter that didn’t sound amused at all. “Said I needed to stop putting it off because it would be better if I knew what was wrong instead of just trudging through it.”

I leaned back slightly against the balcony railing, my expression softening immediately.

“He’s not wrong.”

“Yeah, well,” Roman muttered awkwardly, “that’s deeply unfortunate for me.”

Despite everything, a small smile pulled at my mouth.

There was a pause before he spoke again, quieter this time, like he almost regretted saying any of this out loud already.

“Uh, Dom thinks I could have BPD,” he said slowly. “Or be bipolar. He said ASPD’s also apparently still on the table, so…” He exhaled shakily through his nose. “Yeah.”

For a second I just stood there silently, the city wind brushing cold against my face while my heart quietly cracked open all over again.

Because underneath the casual tone and awkward phrasing, I could hear it.

The fear.

Roman was scared.

Not of being mentally ill, necessarily, but of being defined by something. Of somebody looking inside his head and confirming all the worst things he already secretly thought about himself.

And God, suddenly I wanted to hold him so badly it physically hurt.

“Roman,” I said softly.

He went quiet immediately.

“You know none of those things would make you a bad person, right?”

Silence.

“You say that now.”

“I mean it now.”

Another silence settled between us, heavier this time.

Then, so quietly I almost missed it, “…What if they explain too much?”

The question hit me straight in the chest.

Because that was Roman, wasn’t it?

Not scared of monsters. Scared of understanding himself enough to realise he’d been one all along.

I closed my eyes briefly.

“Hey,” I said gently, gripping the phone tighter against my ear. “Even if there is a reason your brain works the way it does, that doesn’t suddenly erase all the good parts of you.”

“But what if…” Roman started, only for the sentence to fracture halfway through like the words themselves were too heavy to hold properly. When he finally spoke again, his voice sounded rough and unsteady beneath the howl of wind rushing past him. “What if I am a psycho or something and all of a sudden everyone I know hates me?”

Something in my chest twisted so sharply it genuinely hurt.

“What if they put me on drugs,” he continued quietly, the words spilling faster now in uneven pieces, “or tell me to stay away from people, or—or they just prove those stupid orphanage ladies right and say I’ve been a freak all my life?”

That one sentence alone nearly shattered me.

Because suddenly all I could picture was Roman as some exhausted angry little boy, carrying all this chaos around inside his head while adults looked at him like he was difficult instead of hurting.

I felt my throat tighten sharply.

“Roman…” I said softly.

The city lights blurred slightly in front of me before I realised, with genuine annoyance, that my eyes had filled with tears.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

I blinked hard and quickly rubbed beneath one eye with the sleeve of my sweater before the tear could properly fall, suddenly grateful Roman couldn’t actually see me right now.

I closed my eyes tightly for a second because hearing fear in his voice felt fundamentally wrong somehow, like hearing a cathedral crack apart or watching the moon fall from the sky. Roman was never supposed to sound breakable. He was all sharp corners and locked doors and bite with no bark.

But right now he sounded like he was standing alone somewhere high above the city trying very hard not to fall apart completely.

And God.

I missed him.

I missed him in ways language genuinely did not know how to contain. I missed him like oceans missed storms, like stars missed the dark, like every lonely thing in the world instinctively reached toward the thing that once made it feel less alone.

Another stupid tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.

I wiped it away quickly, staring hard at the glittering New York skyline spread out before me while my heart quietly tore itself to pieces.

“You are not evil because your brain hurts,” I whispered.

The wind roared loudly through the speaker for a second, and beneath it I could hear his breathing hitch faintly, uneven and shaky in a way I’d almost never heard before.

“And honestly?” I continued, my voice gentler now despite the ache lodged in my throat, “if those people looked at a traumatised little boy and decided he was broken instead of helping him, then they failed you. Not the other way around.”

Silence answered me. Long and heavy.

Then he spoke. “…You make me sound softer than I am.”

That one hurt too.

Because the thing was, Roman was soft. Not obviously, not in the easy warm way people expected softness to look, but in all the hidden places that mattered most. In the way he remembered every tiny thing about the people he loved. In the way he stayed awake after my nightmares because he didn’t want me waking up alone. In the way he carried tenderness around like a guilty secret.

I pressed my lips together hard.

“You are soft,” I said quietly, another tear burning hot against my skin. “You just hide it behind guns and glaring.”

That earned the faintest breath of laughter from him, weak and watery around the edges like he was crying too and trying desperately not to let me hear it.

And suddenly all I could think about was him.

Roman half asleep with his face buried in my chest. Roman standing silently beside me in the park shamelessly checking me out when he thought I wasn’t looking. Roman’s rare genuine smiles, small and fleeting like seeing sunlight in winter.

I missed him more than the stars must miss the moon whenever dawn stole it away.

“Roman,” I said softly, and this time his name came out sounding dangerously close to come home to me, “bad people don’t spend this much time terrified of hurting others.”

The line went completely silent after that.

After a long shaky inhale that sounded heartbreakingly close to a sob, he said, “…I miss you so fucking much.”

That nearly killed me.

“And I’m so sorry for how I handled everything,” Roman whispered suddenly, his voice rough and uneven enough that I could practically hear him forcing the words out one by one. “I should’ve been better.”

I pressed my lips together hard.

Because hearing Roman apologise felt like watching something ancient and wounded crack open at the seams. He wasn’t good at this. At vulnerability. At letting people see the softer bleeding parts of him without immediately trying to stitch himself back together afterward.

And somehow that only made it hurt more.

“You make me want to be better,” he admitted quietly.

That did it.

My vision blurred completely as another tear slipped free, hot against my cheek, and I let out one shaky breath that sounded mortifyingly close to a sob before quickly covering my mouth with my hand.

Oh my God.

I was actually about to start crying on my brother’s balcony over him.

But God, hearing Roman say something like that so openly felt like being handed his heart bare and bruised and still beating.

The city lights shimmered through my tears while I tried desperately to regain emotional composure and failed terribly.

Then I heard him swallow hard on the other end of the phone, followed by the soft crackle of a cigarette being inhaled.

Ah.

So we were really emotionally unstable tonight.

“So…” he started again, and for maybe the first time since I’d met him, Roman Davenport sounded genuinely nervous. “Maybe we could meet up?”

I closed my eyes immediately.

“To talk it out better?” he continued quickly, almost tripping over the sentence now. “Or-or not even talk, I just…” He exhaled shakily, smoke curling through the speaker with his breath. “I don’t know. I just want to see you.”

And there it was again.

That unbearable softness he kept insisting didn’t exist inside him.

My chest ached so violently it felt holy somehow, like grief and love had tangled together so tightly inside me they no longer knew where one ended and the other began. I leaned further against the balcony railing, pressing my forehead briefly against the cold metal while a wet laugh escaped me despite the tears still slipping down my face.

“You are so unbelievably bad at this,” I whispered shakily.

Roman let out a weak huff of laughter.

“I know.”

“No, you’re catastrophic,” I continued, smiling helplessly now through tears. “You broke up with me for my own safety and then called me a month later sounding like a widow dying of tuberculosis.”

That earned an actual laugh from him this time, rough and breathless and still painfully fragile around the edges.

“Please,” he muttered. “I’m trying to have an emotional moment.”

“You’re smoking on a rooftop while apologising to me,” I informed him tearfully. “You’re basically one rainstorm away from becoming gothic literature.”

I’d missed this. Missed him. Missed the strange fragile thing that existed between us, where even sadness somehow became threaded with warmth the second we were together again.

The silence that followed felt softer now.

Hopeful, maybe.

This was the worst idea I’d had all week, which was saying something considering I’d spent most of the last month making consistently terrible decisions and then refusing to acknowledge them afterward like that somehow made them less real.

Still, there wasn’t really a version of this where I turned around.

I stood outside the window of Dominic’s room for a moment longer than necessary, watching through the glass as he slept beside his wife, his breathing slow and even in a way that looked almost insulting when compared to how loud my own head had been for days, like his body had the audacity to function properly while mine couldn’t seem to decide what it was doing from one minute to the next.

He wasn’t my biological brother, not technically, but that had never really mattered in the ways that counted, because we’d grown up under the same name, the same system, the same expectations, and somewhere along the way we’d started treating each other like the only reliable constants in a life that didn’t have many.

So I picked the lock on the window. Quietly. Carefully.

Like I hadn’t done this exact thing a dozen times before for reasons I never fully explained.

And then I climbed through the window without thinking about it too much, landing softly inside the room with all the precision of someone who’d done far too many things like this in far too many states of mind, before making my way over to the bed where Dominic was still asleep.

I stood there for a second. Just looking at him.

Because there was something about seeing other people sleep that always made everything feel a little too still, a little too normal, like the world outside my head was continuing without me in a way I couldn’t quite access properly anymore.

Then I reached out and shook his shoulder gently.

“Dom,” I muttered. “Wake up.”

It took him exactly half a second to process that something was wrong and then another half a second to scream like a man whose entire existence had just been personally insulted.

“Calm down,” I hissed immediately, stepping back slightly as he shot upright in bed. “It’s just me.”

“Roman what the fuck!” he snapped, fully awake now, already reaching for something that I sincerely hoped was not a weapon.

Behind him, Alessandra shifted in the sheets, groaning softly as she sat up, hair messy, blinking at the scene like she’d already accepted that her life was just like this now.

When she saw me, she didn’t even look surprised. Just tired. She gave me a small wave.

“Hi, Roman,” she said calmly, like I was a mildly inconvenient piece of furniture that had wandered into the wrong room. Then she turned slightly toward Dominic. “Can you boys take this to the kitchen? I need to sleep.”

“Of course, Amor,” Dominic replied instantly, voice softening in a way that made me want to be slightly sick.

And just like that, like nothing had happened at all and he hadn’t just been violently awakened by an intruder through his window, he climbed out of bed, grabbed me by the sleeve, and started dragging me out of the room while I didn’t resist nearly as much as I should have.

We moved through the hallway in silence for a few seconds before he finally spoke again, still half-whispering so as not to die at the hands of his wife.

“You broke into my house,” he said flatly.

“I prefer ‘entered urgently’,” I replied.

“You picked my window lock.”

“It was already half unlocked.”

He stopped walking for a second just to look at me. I could feel it.

That pause where he was deciding whether or not I was currently stable enough to be worth arguing with.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered eventually, dragging me into the kitchen and letting go of my sleeve like I was someone else’s problem now. “What happened?”

And for a second, I didn’t answer. Because my brain felt…wrong.

Too loud and too quiet at the same time, like everything was happening behind glass and I was just watching it instead of participating in it properly, like I was here but not fully here, like I’d been functioning on instinct alone for so long that actual conversation felt like something I’d forgotten how to do correctly.

I leaned back against the counter slightly.

“I need advice,” I said finally, voice flatter than I intended, “or help. Maybe both. But first decide if you want to kick me out because if you don’t, you’re going to have a lot of information unloaded on you in the next few minutes.”

Dominic stared at me again. Longer this time. Then he rubbed his face with one hand like he was physically trying to reset his entire existence.

“Fantastic,” he muttered. “So it’s one of those nights.”

I didn’t respond, just leaned back against the counter, arms folded loosely because I didn’t know what else to do with them, watching the kitchen tiles like they had answers I was missing.

Finally, he pulled out a chair and sat down opposite me, slower now, more serious in a way that made the air shift slightly.

“Alright,” he said carefully. “Start talking.”

And for a second, I didn’t because starting meant making it real. But then my mouth opened anyway, like it had decided before I did.

“I met someone,” I said.

Dominic didn’t interrupt, didn’t even react, just waited. And that, annoyingly, made it worse.

So I kept going.

“I met someone,” I admitted, fidgeting with my fingers so badly it was actually irritating me, because apparently my body had decided the best time to lose all motor function was during the most humiliating conversation of my life.

Dominic just looked at me from across the kitchen table, tired but attentive.

“Okay…”

“And, uh,” I continued awkwardly, already hating every second of this, “it wasn’t supposed to be anything, but it became something. I ended it because my world isn’t safe for them and they deserve better and I don’t want them getting hurt for knowing me again.”

That last part came out quieter, more honest than I intended. Dominic’s expression shifted slightly.

“Oh.”

“And I don’t know what to do,” I added quickly before I lost momentum entirely, “because I really, really, really like him, but he isn’t safe with me. Or around me. Or near my life in general.”

Dominic blinked once.

“…Him?”

Shit.

I went completely still.

For one awful second all I could hear was the refrigerator humming behind us while my brain attempted to evacuate my body entirely.

“…Uhm,” I started intelligently.

Dominic’s eyebrows lifted slowly.

I looked away immediately, rubbing aggressively at the back of my neck.

“So,” I muttered, voice dropping lower with every word, “I recently discovered I’m queer.”

Silence.

Why did saying it out loud feel like stepping off a building.

“Late,” I added weakly. “I know. In my defence, I had other things going on. And I’m probably aroace or demi since ive only like 2 people and one guy.”

Dominic continued staring at me with the deeply focused expression of someone trying to process how the conversation had escalated this quickly at three in the morning.

“But uh,” I continued awkwardly, because apparently I believed digging myself deeper into this conversation would improve it somehow, “I love-shit-” I pressed the heels of my hands briefly into my eyes. “I like this guy a lot.”

A pause.

Then Dominic leaned back slightly in his chair.

“Oh,” he said again, calmer this time. “Alright.”

I frowned immediately. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked flatly. 

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Maybe act slightly more shocked.”

“You broke into my house through a window tonight,” he replied. “My standards for surprising behaviour are already very high.”

I stared at him. He stared back.

Then, somehow managing to sound completely normal after I’d just accidentally come out in his kitchen, he asked, “Anyway, first of all, what’s his name?”

And for some reason that made me infinitely more nervous than the actual coming out part.

I looked away again immediately.

I looked away again immediately, rubbing at the back of my neck like I could physically smooth the embarrassment out of myself if I tried hard enough.

“He makes me want things,” I admitted quietly.

Dominic’s expression softened slightly. “What kind of things?”

I stared very hard at the kitchen counter.

“Normal things,” I muttered. “Domestic things. Stupid things.”

A tiny smile tugged at his mouth. “Such as?”

I groaned softly because unfortunately now I actually had to elaborate.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Like…coming home to somebody. Making food together. Listening to him ramble about whatever insane thing happened during his day while he follows me around the apartment.” Despite myself, I felt my mouth twitch slightly. “I wanted to buy him things whenever I saw something he’d like. I wanted him sleeping in my bed all the time. I wanted him around my people.”

Dominic stayed quiet, listening carefully.

“And I actually wanted to be around him,” I added awkwardly, like that part offended me personally. “Like all the time. Which was weird.”

“That’s usually how liking someone works.”

I ignored him.

“I liked taking care of him,” I admitted more quietly. “And I…” I hesitated briefly, already regretting where this sentence was heading. “I actually wanted to fuck and enjoyed it-”

Dominic’s eyes narrowed immediately.

“Roman.”

I grimaced. “I’m trying to explain this properly.”

“You absolutely do not need to explain that part properly.”

“I’m just saying,” I muttered defensively, “I’d never actually wanted that with somebody before. Not really. And then suddenly there’s Luca and apparently my brain decides that’s the person we’re attached to now.”

Dominic rubbed a hand over his face slowly.

“I did not need to hear that.”

“You asked.”

“I asked about feelings, Roman, not your psychological awakening.”

I frowned slightly. “Well they seem connected.”

He pointed at me without looking up. “Stop talking.”

For the first time that night, I laughed properly. Small and brief and tired, but real enough that Dominic immediately noticed.

And annoyingly, his expression softened again because of it.

“What's so funny?” a soft voice asked from the doorway, warm and honey-sweet with sleep.

I looked up to see Alessandra walking into the kitchen wearing one of Dominic’s old t-shirts and a pair of white sleep shorts, her hair slightly messy from bed and one eye still half closed like she’d only woken up enough to investigate whether her husband was dying or just being dramatic again.

Okay. This was a bit weird.

Dominic looked over at her immediately, his entire expression softening in that quiet instinctive way it always did around her.

“Roman figured out he’s queer,” he summarised calmly, like this was a completely normal family discussion to be having at an ungodly hour, “and he’s in love with Dante’s brother, but since he’s an asshole he broke it off because he thinks his world is too dangerous for Luca.”

“Dominic,” I muttered flatly.

“What?” he replied innocently. “That’s what happened.”

Alessandra’s brows lifted slightly as she walked over to him, slipping an arm around his waist automatically while he rested a hand against her hip without even looking, like their bodies had memorised each other a long time ago.

“Oh?” she said softly, glancing toward me with immediate curiosity rather than judgment. Then her expression gentled further. “Roman…”

I immediately looked away because for some reason being perceived kindly by women always made me feel vaguely ill.

Alessandra and I didn’t know each other too well, not really, but she was…good. Genuinely good in that terrifyingly sincere way some people were. Warm without being fake. Soft without being weak.

The first time I met her, she’d smiled at me like she already knew me and said so this is my little brother without hesitation.

I’d genuinely never recovered from that.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted quietly after a moment, staring down at the counter again because somehow it felt easier than looking at either of them directly. “I just know I miss him all the time now and my brain won’t shut up about it.”

Alessandra’s expression softened immediately.

“And he loves you too?” she asked gently.

I laughed weakly through my nose.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “That’s kinda the problem.”

Dominic snorted quietly under his breath while Alessandra looked like she physically wanted to shake both of us.

“Oh, you poor emotionally constipated men,” she sighed softly.

“That feels targeted,” I replied.

“It was,” she said sweetly.

Dominic nodded in agreement. “Very accurate assessment, actually.”

I glared at both of them slightly, which unfortunately only seemed to amuse them more. Then Alessandra looked back at me, softer now.

“Roman,” she said carefully, “do you really think Luca would rather lose you completely than have the choice to stay?”

That made me go quiet, because unfortunately that question hit somewhere uncomfortable immediately.

I frowned slightly at the counter.

“I don’t know,” I admitted after a long pause. “I just know I couldn’t stand something happening to him because of me again.”

Alessandra’s face softened in that painful understanding sort of way that made me feel strangely exposed.

“So instead,” she said gently, “you hurt both of you preemptively.”

Ow.

I visibly grimaced.

Dominic looked at me sympathetically for about half a second before immediately betraying me.

“She’s right.”

“You are both deeply irritating people,” I informed them flatly.

And for the first time in weeks, the warmth that followed the words didn’t feel entirely fake.

I leaned back against the counter, then forward again, then just gave up trying to act like standing still was something my body knew how to do anymore, because every nerve in me felt restless lately, like my brain had been stuck between static and exhaustion for weeks and my body didn’t know which one to follow anymore.

Dominic noticed immediately.

“How are you actually doing?” he asked quietly, all the teasing from earlier gone now as he watched me carefully from the kitchen table, that steady older-brother concern settling over his face in a way that instantly made me want to avoid the conversation entirely.

I let out a slow breath through my nose.

“I don’t know,” I muttered honestly. “One of those…periods again.”

That got an immediate reaction from him, not confusion or surprise, just recognition.

“Oh,” he said softly. 

I glanced at him briefly.

He leaned back slightly in the chair, looking tired now more than anything else, like hearing that answer exhausted him because he’d heard versions of it from me my entire life.

“Is it too loud?” he asked gently after a second. “Or too empty?”

I went still for a moment before giving a reluctant nod.

“…Both,” I admitted quietly.

Dominic sighed softly through his nose and rubbed a hand over his jaw while Alessandra, who’d stayed tucked against his side the entire conversation, looked at me with immediate concern.

“Roman,” she said gently, “how long has it been bad this time?”

I shrugged one shoulder weakly.

“A week.”

“Which means too long,” Dominic translated flatly.

I frowned at him. “You’re very irritating tonight.”

“You broke into my house through a window.”

“Details.”

Dominic ignored that entirely.

“I told you years ago to get it checked properly,” he said instead, calmer this time, not lecturing me, just sounding tired of watching me force myself through the same cycles over and over again. “You’ve been like this since you were a kid.”

My jaw tightened immediately.

“No,” I said too quickly. “I don’t need all that.”

Alessandra tilted her head slightly. “Why does the idea upset you so much?”

I looked away immediately.

“It just does,” I muttered. “I don’t want somebody analysing my brain and deciding there’s something wrong with me.”

“Oh, honey,” Alessandra said softly, and God, that tone alone nearly made me want to crawl into traffic. “Finding out something’s wrong doesn’t create the problem. It just gives the problem a name.”

I rubbed a hand down my face tiredly.

“I deal with it.”

Dominic raised a brow slightly. “By not sleeping for three days and then barely functioning afterward?”

“…Possibly.”

“That’s not dealing with it, Roman.”

I exhaled sharply through my nose, annoyance flaring mostly because they weren’t being cruel about any of this, which made it much harder to dismiss.

“I don’t want pills,” I muttered stubbornly.

Neither of them laughed at me.

Dominic just leaned forward slightly, forearms resting against the table now.

“It’s not about forcing medication on you,” he said carefully. “It’s about maybe making things easier for you instead of harder all the time.”

“And if medication did help,” Alessandra added softly, “that wouldn’t mean you failed somehow.”

I frowned slightly at the counter.

“It feels weak.”

Immediately both of them looked at me like I’d said something genuinely ridiculous.

“Roman,” Dominic said quietly, “if somebody had a heart condition and took medication for it, would you think they were weak?”

“No.”

“Then why are you applying different rules to yourself?”

I opened my mouth.

Then closed it again.

Because annoyingly, I didn’t actually have an answer.

The kitchen fell quiet for a moment after that, warm and still around us while my brain kept moving too fast beneath my skin.

“I just don’t want to become…” I hesitated slightly. “Different.”

Dominic’s entire expression softened then.

“You’ve been carrying this alone since you were a kid,” he said gently. “Nobody’s trying to change who you are, Roman. We just want things to stop hurting so much for you.”

Alessandra reached over then, resting her hand lightly against my wrist for a second.

“You deserve help too, you know,” she said softly.

I stared down at her hand quietly.

Then after a long pause, I exhaled slowly through my nose.

“…What if they tell me it’s something bad? Like, what if I’m a psycho?” I asked, voice quieter now.

Dominic didn’t hesitate for even a second.

“Then we deal with it,” he said simply.

We.

Not you.

We.

And somehow that tiny difference made something tight in my chest loosen just a little.

I looked away quickly after that, jaw tight again.

“…Fine,” I muttered eventually.

Dominic raised a brow slightly. “Fine as in you’ll actually go?”

“I said fine, didn’t I?”

A small smile tugged at Alessandra’s mouth while Dominic looked so relieved it was honestly irritating.

Shannon was right. This did help. Not perfectly, not in some magical life-changing way where suddenly all the awful feelings disappeared and I became mentally stable overnight, but enough that my thoughts didn’t feel quite as loud while my hands were busy doing something familiar.

So now I was sitting on the seat beside my piano in the corner of my living room, absently playing some old piece I’d written years ago while simultaneously trying to stop Yves from launching herself dramatically across the keys every thirty seconds like a tiny furry menace possessed by demons.

“Yves,” I sighed as she smacked one singular piano key repeatedly with her paw, “that isn’t helping the composition.”

She blinked at me with absolutely no remorse whatsoever.

Little psycho.

The apartment itself felt quieter than usual tonight, but not in the suffocating way it had the past few weeks. More expectant, almost. Nervous. Because somehow, against every instinct in my body screaming at me not to, I’d actually listened to Shannon and texted Dante earlier.

Not the full truth. Absolutely not. But enough. I just said I needed company for a bit.

And apparently that had been all it took because he’d immediately called asking if he could come over.

Which now meant I’d spent the past hour catastrophically overthinking every possible outcome of this interaction like a deeply mentally ill Victorian woman waiting for tragic news from sea.

Dante had said he’d be here ten minutes ago, but I still hadn’t heard the door open yet.

And yes, I’d left it unlocked for him because somehow opening the door myself felt too formal and awkward, like inviting a distant relative inside instead of my brother.

Which honestly probably said something deeply concerning about our current relationship dynamic.

I kept playing quietly anyway, fingers moving automatically across the keys while Yves finally settled herself across my lap dramatically like she’d personally exhausted himself from committing crimes all evening.

The second I stopped playing, slow clapping echoed through the apartment behind me, and because my nervous system apparently interpreted every unexpected noise as a direct assassination attempt nowadays, I startled so violently that I slipped clean off the piano bench and hit the floor with an alarming amount of force.

“OW—Jesus Christ!”

Yves bolted immediately, abandoning me in my suffering like the little coward she was.

Still clutching the back of my head dramatically, I looked up in a daze only to find Dante standing near the wall with his hands tucked loosely into the pockets of his coat and the faintest smile pulling at his mouth, like watching me nearly die via furniture had genuinely improved his evening.

“How long have you been there!?” I demanded in horror.

“A while,” he answered easily with a shrug. “I didn’t say anything because you would’ve stopped playing.”

Something about that made my chest ache unexpectedly, because he was right. I probably would have.

And then quieter this time, with something softer hidden underneath his voice that I hadn’t heard directed at me properly in a long time, he added, “I miss hearing you play.”

The words settled somewhere deep inside me in this awful tender way because suddenly I was fourteen again sitting at the piano in our old house while Dante half-worked beside me just for company, occasionally telling me when something sounded good without ever making me feel stupid for caring about music so much.

For a second I just stared at him.

Meanwhile Dante finally pushed himself off the wall and walked further into the apartment with that same calm composed aura he always carried around him, like every movement had already been thought through three steps ahead, before sitting down on the sofa and loosening his coat slightly while Yves immediately climbed into his lap like a tiny opportunistic traitor.

“Wow,” I muttered. “Can’t believe my own daughter would betray me like this.”

Dante scratched absently underneath Yves’ chin before glancing toward me again.

“Oh, I ordered some pizza here for dinner, by the way,” he said casually. “Just letting you know.”

And embarrassingly enough, I felt myself smile immediately.

Because Dante used to do that all the time when we were younger, randomly showing up with food because he knew I forgot to eat whenever I got stuck inside my own head too long.

“You’re the best,” I informed him sincerely.

“You are 32 years old, the flattery is unnecessary,” he replied flatly.

“And yet my statement remains correct.”

That earned the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth before his attention drifted back toward the piano while my fingers absentmindedly brushed over a few quieter notes again, softer now, slower, and the apartment settled into this strange gentle calmness I hadn’t realised I’d missed so badly until now.

And somehow, sitting there with Dante on my couch and music filling the room again, it suddenly didn’t feel quite so impossible to believe that maybe not everything between us had disappeared after all.

I laid down across the sofa opposite him a moment later, stretching out dramatically in a way that mirrored Yves almost exactly as I let out a long sigh and rested my head against the armrest.

“Thanks for coming,” I said quietly after a moment, fiddling absently with the sleeve of my hoodie. “Means a lot.”

For a second neither of us spoke, the piano notes still lingering softly through the apartment like the room hadn’t fully settled yet. 

Dante glanced toward me, and something about his expression softened slightly around the edges in a way that made him look less like the composed intimidating businessman everyone else saw and more like my big brother again. “Of course I came,” he answered simply, like there’d never really been another option That alone made something ache painfully in my chest. Because I’d genuinely spent the entire afternoon half-convinced he wouldn’t.

Silence settled again afterward, though this one felt easier somehow, less awkward than the quiets we’d shared recently.

Then eventually I spoke again.

“How’s Vivi?” I asked softly. “Josie?”

Immediately Dante’s entire face changed in that subtle unmistakable way people did whenever they talked about someone they loved completely.

“They’re good,” he answered, leaning back slightly into the couch while Yves remained sprawled across his lap like she paid rent here now. “Josie’s started laughing properly.”

I smiled immediately.

“No way.”

“Yeah,” Dante murmured, and for the first time all evening he looked genuinely tired in that soft affectionate parent way instead of his usual perfectly controlled self. “Mostly at absolutely nothing. Or at three in the morning when neither of us have slept.”

“That’s because she enjoys psychological warfare.”

“She’s your niece,” he deadpanned.

“Exactly.”

That earned the faintest huff of amusement from him before his expression softened again.

“She’s started recognising people now,” he added quietly. “Gets excited when Viv walks into rooms.”

Something about the way he said it made warmth bloom painfully in my chest.

I could picture it so clearly too - tiny little Josie with dark curls and sleepy eyes reaching up toward her parents while Dante secretly melted over it despite pretending to stay emotionally composed all the time.

“…I miss her,” I admitted quietly after a moment.

Dante looked toward me immediately then, his brows pulling together slightly like the answer genuinely confused him.

“Luca,” he said carefully, “you know you can come over whenever you want, right?”

And somehow hearing him say it that casually, that naturally, made embarrassment twist sharply through my chest because apparently I’d spent months convincing myself I was slowly becoming unnecessary to him while meanwhile he was sitting here acting like my place in his life had never changed at all.

“I-uh, I don’t want to intrude on your guys’…time,” I muttered, fiddling absently with the sleeve of my hoodie while avoiding looking directly at him. “And I’ve been busy with my own…affairs.”

The second the words left my mouth, my smile faded slightly.

Because unfortunately the word affairs immediately made Roman flood through my brain again in that awful aching way he always did now.

Dante noticed instantly, of course he did.

“Right,” he said quietly, leaning back slightly into the couch while Yves remained sprawled across his lap like he belonged there now. Then after a moment, his expression softened into something gentler, something older and familiar in a way that made my chest tighten unexpectedly.

“How’s my little brother doing?” he asked softly. “Tell me everything.”

That almost destroyed me immediately.

Because suddenly all I could think about was being little again, sitting beside Dante on the kitchen counter while he split snacks with me behind grandfather’s back, or being sixteen and sneaking into his room after nightmares because he’d always leave the lamp on for me even when he pretended not to notice.

And maybe the worst part was realising I’d spent so long convincing myself I didn’t really fit into his life anymore that hearing him call me his little brother with that same easy certainty almost made me cry on the spot.

I laughed weakly instead, mostly because if I didn’t laugh I was pretty sure I’d genuinely embarrass myself.

“That is an incredibly dangerous thing to ask me,” I muttered. “You know I monologue.”

“I’m prepared to take that risk.”

A tiny smile pulled at my mouth despite everything.

Silence settled for a second afterward while I stared up at the ceiling, my fingers twisting nervously inside the sleeves of my hoodie.

I could still back out right now.

I could still say I was fine.

I could still make a joke and redirect the conversation somewhere safer and easier and less terrifying.

But then Dante waited.

He didn’t interrupt.

Didn’t push.

He just sat there quietly looking at me with this patient steady sort of attention that made something painful unravel slowly in my chest because suddenly I realised I hadn’t actually let somebody take care of me in a really long time.

So instead of lying, I swallowed hard and spoke quietly.

“I need to tell you something,” I said quietly, suddenly unable to sit still anymore as I curled further into the sofa and tugged the sleeves of my hoodie down over my hands. “Um…no one knows. Only Roman does.”

Dante frowned slightly at that, his posture shifting almost immediately into something more attentive.

“Dom’s brother?”

“Yeah.”

Even hearing his name out loud made something twist painfully inside my chest, but I pushed through it anyway because if I stopped now I genuinely didn’t think I’d be able to force the words out again.

“Look,” I muttered weakly, staring hard at the ceiling because I physically could not look directly at him for this part, “this might change the way you see me, but I just really need to get it off my chest.”

For a second Dante stayed quiet, watching me carefully in that unreadable older-brother way of his that used to terrify people when we were younger.

Then softer now, calmer, he said, “Yeah…yeah, okay. Tell me.”

And so I did.

Not neatly or gracefully or in some emotionally mature organised way either, because the second I started talking it felt like everything I’d been desperately trying to hold inside for weeks came spilling out all at once in this horrible tangled mess of words and memories and shame.

I told him about Roman first because somehow every road in my brain seemed to lead back to him eventually, about the way we met and how completely bizarre he’d seemed from the beginning, all sharp edges and awkward silences and violence wrapped up inside this deceptively calm person who somehow still remembered people’s favourite snacks and made me hot chocolate after nightmares like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And God, even just talking about him hurt.

But I kept going anyway.

I explained the Brotherhood and the danger surrounding him, how I got dragged into all of it, how I ended up kidnapped because somebody wanted leverage against Roman, and slowly the apartment around us seemed to get quieter and quieter the more I spoke, until the only thing filling the room was my own unsteady voice.

At some point I stopped being able to look anywhere except my hands because saying it all out loud made everything feel horrifyingly real in a way my brain still hadn’t fully processed yet.

“I genuinely thought I was gonna die,” I admitted quietly at one point, my throat tightening painfully around the words.

The second I said that, something in Dante’s expression changed sharply, his jaw tightening hard enough for me to notice even through my own spiralling thoughts, but I kept talking before he could interrupt me because if I stopped now I knew I’d lose my nerve entirely.

So I told him about the woman. About her hands and what she did. I couldn’t say the proper words out loud, though.

She. Raped. Me.

I told him bout Roman staying beside me through all of it even when he looked half out of his mind with guilt and exhaustion.

And then eventually the words started coming out quieter, shakier, more ashamed.

I told him about the nightmares and panic attacks, about how sometimes I completely lost track of time because my brain got trapped replaying everything over and over again until I couldn’t separate memory from reality anymore, and how afterward I’d suddenly realise hours had passed while I’d just been sitting there dissociating without even noticing.

“I feel disgusting sometimes,” I admitted finally, my voice cracking slightly now while I stared down at my trembling hands. “Like there’s something wrong with me now.” I laughed weakly through the humiliation clawing up my throat. “I scrub my skin so hard in the shower sometimes that it ends up red because I still feel her touching me afterward and I just want it gone.”

The apartment stayed completely silent.

Heavy awful silence.

But now that I’d started, I physically couldn’t stop anymore.

So I told him about the roof too, about standing near the edge the other night after a nightmare got too overwhelming and how terrifying it felt afterward realising that for a second my brain had gone completely quiet up there in a way that scared me more than the thoughts themselves ever had.

And somewhere during all of it my voice started shaking properly.

“I just…” I swallowed hard, wiping angrily at my face when I realised tears had started falling without me noticing. “I also just miss Roman all the time and I can’t even fully hate him for leaving because I understand why he did it, which honestly makes me feel pathetic because he broke my heart and somehow I still just…” My breath hitched weakly. “I still want him.”

Still Dante said nothing.

And God, the silence was becoming unbearable now, panic starting to crawl steadily higher inside my chest the longer he stayed quiet.

“I know this is a lot,” I whispered quickly, words tumbling over each other now. “I know I probably should’ve told you earlier, I just didn’t want to become this exhausting traumatised burden you had to deal with on top of everything else because you already have Vivi and Josie and your own life and-”

“Luca.”

His voice cut through mine immediately, sharp enough to stop me spiralling but not angry. Just firm. Grounding. I finally looked up then. And instantly froze.

Because Dante looked devastated.

Not uncomfortable.

Not disgusted.

Devastated in this quiet horrible way like hearing all of this had physically hurt him somehow.

“Come here,” he said softly.

For a second I didn’t move, because my brain genuinely short-circuited on the idea of doing anything at all that required coordination while I was still half-drowning in everything I’d just said, but Dante didn’t repeat himself, he just stayed there in front of me like he was waiting, not demanding, not pushing, just…there.

So eventually I did move.

Slowly at first, like my body wasn’t fully convinced this was safe, and then all at once in that messy way where I basically collapsed off the sofa and into him, catching onto the front of his shirt as soon as I reached him like I was afraid he’d disappear if I didn’t hold on properly.

Dante immediately wrapped his arms around me.

Not tightly in a suffocating way, not awkward or uncertain, just steady and solid and warm in a way that made something inside me crack even further because I hadn’t realised how badly I needed that until I had it.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly, his hand coming up to rest at the back of my head, holding me there like I was something fragile but not broken. “You’re okay.”

And I wanted to argue, I really did, because I didn’t feel okay at all, I felt messy and heavy and exhausted in a way that had been building for weeks, but the second he said it my throat just tightened instead and I pressed my face harder into his shoulder like I could physically hide inside the words if I tried hard enough.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I mumbled, voice muffled against him. “I didn’t want you to look at me differently.”

Dante exhaled slowly, like the idea itself frustrated him more than anything else I’d said.

“I’m looking at you exactly the same,” he said.

I let out something that was almost a laugh, but it broke halfway through.

“That feels like a lie.”

“It isn’t,” he replied immediately, firmer this time, and I could feel it in his chest when he spoke, the way he grounded himself into the moment like he was making sure I actually heard him. “Luca, you are my brother. You could tell me the worst thing in the world and it would still just mean you’re my brother who’s hurting.”

Dante didn’t let go.

He just stayed there holding me like it was the most natural thing in the world, one hand steady at the back of my head and the other firm against my upper back, grounding me in a way that made everything I’d been holding together for weeks start to feel dangerously loose at the edges.

At first I just stood there frozen in it, breathing unevenly into his shoulder, like my body didn’t quite trust the fact that I was allowed to fall apart while someone was still holding me up.

“It’s okay,” he said again, quieter this time, almost like he was talking directly into the space inside my chest rather than to me. “You’re safe. You’re home. You’re with me.”

And that was the thing.

That was what did it.

Because it wasn’t dramatic or intense or anything I could’ve pointed at and said that’s what broke me, it was just the simple certainty in his voice, like he meant it without question, like there wasn’t even a version of reality where I wasn’t allowed to be held like this.

My breath hitched.

Then again.

And suddenly my hands were clutching the back of his shirt harder than I realised, fingers curling into the fabric like it was the only stable thing left in the room.

“I tried,” I whispered, but it came out cracked and uneven, like it barely made it past my throat. “I tried so hard to be okay, I swear I did, I just-”

My voice broke completely and that was it.

That was the moment everything I’d been holding back just…collapsed.

It didn’t come out neatly. It didn’t come out in sentences or explanations or anything that made sense anymore.

It came out in shaking breaths and broken sounds I couldn’t control, in my shoulders tightening against him as I finally stopped trying to hold it in at all, because once it started there was no stopping it, like something inside me had been waiting too long for permission to fall apart.

Dante held me tighter immediately, not panicked, not overwhelmed, just steady, like he’d decided he was staying right here no matter what happened next.

“Hey,” he murmured, his hand moving slowly over my back in a slow, grounding motion. “It’s alright. Let it out. I’ve got you.”

And that just made it worse.

Because I didn’t just cry then.

I broke.

My breath turned uneven and messy as sobs started properly tearing through me, sharp and uncontrollable, like my body had finally caught up to everything my mind had been carrying for months. I pressed my face harder into his shoulder, trying and failing to hide it, but it didn’t matter because Dante didn’t flinch away even once.

“I hate it,” I choked out between breaths I couldn’t steady, voice barely audible now. “I hate feeling like this, I hate not being able to fix it, I hate that it’s still in my head all the time and I— I just want it gone, I want it gone, I want it to stop, I want it—”

My words dissolved into another broken sob.

Dante’s grip tightened slightly, just enough to make sure I could feel him there.

“I know,” he said softly, and there was something so quietly certain in his voice it made my chest ache harder. “I know. But you don’t have to carry it alone anymore, alright? You don’t have to fight it by yourself.”

I shook my head against him instinctively, because I didn’t believe that part, not fully, not yet, but I couldn’t even argue properly anymore because I was crying too hard, too deeply, like something had finally cracked open in a way that couldn’t be sealed back up.

Dante just stayed with me through all of it. Holding me. Letting me fall apart.

ROMAN:

I really fucking missed him. Concerningly. Embarrassingly. Pathetically.

It had been a month.

An entire fucking month, and somehow my apartment still felt wrong without Luca in it, like somebody had quietly removed all the warmth from the place while I wasn’t paying attention. The silence annoyed me the most. No music drifting faintly from the living room, no rambling conversations that somehow jumped between six topics in under a minute, no dramatic commentary during movies, no Luca wandering into the kitchen at two in the morning because he “couldn’t sleep” when really he just hated sleeping.

The penthouse had gone back to feeling like it used to.

Clean. Quiet. Cold.

I hated it.

Which was deeply inconvenient considering I was the one who caused the problem.

I felt both full and empty these days somehow, stuck in this constant state of bleakness and overwhelming emotion that made it hard to think properly. Everything felt too heavy lately, and my brain was so loud sometimes that it genuinely hurt. Thoughts crashed into each other constantly until it felt like my skull couldn’t contain them anymore.

I knew this feeling. It happened sometimes.

Periods where emotions became too much at once and Mara had to take my place on missions because apparently having me out in the field while mentally unstable was, in her words, “a catastrophic fucking idea.”

And then there were the worse episodes.

The ones where my thoughts became dark and violent and sharp, where I couldn’t think straight because my mind felt coated in black fog and every tiny thing irritated me until I wanted to either hurt someone or scream loud enough to tear my throat apart.

There was something wrong with me.

I’d known that since I was a child.

And lately, without Luca around, it’d gotten worse again.

“You’re staring at that email like it insulted your mother.”

I glanced up flatly from my laptop to find Morana standing in the doorway holding an iced coffee and looking significantly too awake for somebody existing before noon.

“My mother didn’t want me,” I muttered. I wasn’t sensitive about being an orphan and joked about it a lot.

Morana narrowed her eyes slightly before walking fully into the office.

“No, this is your Luca face.”

“I don’t have a Luca face.”

“You absolutely do.” She dropped into the chair opposite my desk before pointing at me accusingly. “You get this weird exhausted expression like a divorced father that shat himself in a meeting.”

“I’m going to fire you.”

“You said that yesterday too.”

I looked back down at the email open on my laptop.

Unfortunately, the email had stopped making sense around twenty minutes ago because my brain kept drifting toward Luca again against my will.

I wondered if he was sleeping properly now.

If he was eating enough.

If he still got nightmares.

If he’d started talking to a therapist like I suggested or if he was still trying to survive everything alone.

The thoughts came automatically now, constantly, like my brain had rewired itself around worrying about him.

Disgusting behaviour honestly.

Morana watched me silently for a second before sighing dramatically.

“Oh my God.”

I already hated that tone.

“You’re still in love with him.”

“I’m not.”

Morana stared at me blankly.

I avoided eye contact.

Morana leaned back in her chair before studying me more carefully now, amusement fading slightly around the edges.

“You look awful.”

“I always look awful.”

“No,” she corrected calmly, “usually you look emotionally detached and vaguely maniac. Now you just look sad.”

I physically recoiled slightly at the word.

“Don’t say things like that.”

“Roman.” Her voice softened a little. “It’s been a month.”

I rubbed tiredly at my face. The worst part was that she was right.

A month should’ve been enough time for this to settle into something manageable.

Instead somehow it’d gotten worse.

Because at first there’d still been adrenaline underneath everything, Brotherhood business, convincing myself I did the right thing, forcing myself to focus on literally anything else.

But now?

Now there was just absence.

And Christ, Luca left traces of himself everywhere.

There was still a stupid little ceramic frog beside my sink because he said it “matched my energy.” One of his hoodies was still mixed into my laundry because he kept stealing mine and accidentally left his behind.

Everything reminded me of him, which honestly felt borderline malicious at this point.

“You know,” Morana said carefully, “he probably thinks you stopped caring.”

Something sharp twisted unpleasantly in my chest. Because that was the worst possible part of this entire situation. Luca probably thought I ended things because I didn’t want him enough. When the reality was almost the complete opposite.

I wanted him too much. 

Enough that it scared me. Enough that some instinct inside me had immediately started building a future around him without permission.

I’d catch myself thinking about things accidentally sometimes. Luca asleep beside me permanently instead of temporarily. Luca in my kitchen every morning. Luca holding my hand in public without me instinctively checking exits and surveillance cameras every thirty seconds.

Stupid things. Dangerous things. Things people like me weren’t supposed to want.

Because eventually people like me ruined everything we touched. That was how this life worked.

And no matter how badly I missed him, no matter how many nights I spent lying awake replaying the sound of the apartment door shutting behind him, I still couldn’t shake the image of Luca tied up in that basement again.

Couldn’t stop remembering how terrified he looked afterward.

How small.

How broken.

The idea of something even worse happening to him because of me made me feel physically sick in a way I didn’t know a human being could survive.

So yeah.

I missed him enough to feel it in my bones.

But somehow I still missed him less than I’d hate myself if he got hurt again.

LUCA:

I couldn’t do it anymore.

A month. One entire month and I’d completely fucking caved like the pathetic lovesick idiot I apparently was. 

Turns out I was absolutely terrible at being alone. Like, genuinely horrific at it.

The silence in my apartment drove me insane now, especially at night when everything got too quiet and my thoughts started wandering into places I didn’t want them to go, replaying memories over and over until my chest physically hurt. So naturally, instead of coping like a normal emotionally mature adult, I’d gone and adopted a kitten.

Because apparently my solution to emotional devastation was acquiring tiny dependents. In my defence, though, I really didn’t have anyone right now. All my friends had their own relationships and busy lives and jobs and things to focus on, Dante was permanently occupied with family stuff half the time, and my parents…

Yeah. That situation remained deeply psychologically damaging and best left unpacked for another century.

So enter Yves. Yes, as in Yves Saint Laurent. My new best friend.

He was this tiny black kitten with ridiculously soft fur and bright green eyes that stared into my soul with intense judgement constantly, and okay, maybe subconsciously I’d adopted a cat that looked exactly like Roman if Roman was two pounds smaller and screamed for food at three in the morning.

Which honestly felt a little humiliating once I realised it.

“You’re just him reincarnated,” I informed the kitten while he sat on my kitchen counter knocking blueberries onto the floor one by one. Yves blinked slowly at me before continuing his crimes. I sighed dramatically before scooping him up into my arms, and immediately he started purring against my chest while I carried him back toward the couch.

God. I was so lonely.

And the worst part was that I still understood why Roman left. That was what made it impossible to fully hate him for it.

Because after everything that happened in that basement, after waking up terrified every night for weeks afterward, after seeing blood on Roman’s hands and realising exactly what kind of world he actually lived in…

Part of me understood.

But another part of me still missed him so bad.

I missed his stupid awkwardness and the way he hovered around me pretending not to. I missed hearing him complain under his breath while still doing sweet things anyway. I missed the warmth of him beside me on the couch and the weird little softness hidden underneath all the violence and emotional constipation.

Yves suddenly bit my hoodie string viciously.

“You’re right,” I told him sadly.

One of the worst parts about being alone, though, was that I had nobody to fight the bad thoughts with anymore.

When Roman was around, somehow he made my brain quieter without even trying. But now, when the memories hit, there was nobody there to pull me out of them, so sometimes I’d completely lose track of time sitting on my apartment floor replaying the feeling of being grabbed and trapped over and over again until hours passed without me even noticing.

It was like my brain got stuck. Like I wasn’t fully in the present anymore.

And showering had become this whole nightmare too because no matter how much I scrubbed at my skin, I still felt disgusting afterward, like her hands had permanently stained me somehow. A couple times I scrubbed so hard my skin actually went red and sore afterward, which apparently was “not healthy coping behaviour” according to Shannon.

Last night was probably the worst it’d gotten, though.

I’d had this horrible nightmare about everything again, one so vivid that when I woke up I genuinely couldn’t breathe properly for a minute, and without really thinking, I’d ended up wandering onto the roof of my building and standing near the edge for a while.

I didn’t fully know why I was there.

I just knew everything hurt really badly in that moment and I wanted the feeling to stop somehow.

But eventually I snapped out of it and practically sprinted back downstairs afterward, shaking so hard I nearly dropped my keys trying to unlock my apartment.

Which was how I ended up getting a therapist.

Her name was Shannon, she was this sweet older woman with giant cardigans and an office full of plants, and weirdly enough, she always gave me cookies at the beginning of sessions like I was a nervous stray animal she was trying to earn the trust of.

Talking to her actually helped a little too.

Apparently I had PTSD now, which honestly sounded deeply fake and dramatic until she explained that, no, Luca, getting kidnapped, abused and raped does in fact traumatise people.

So that was lovely information to receive.

She also explained that the weird zoning-out thing I kept doing was called dissociating, which basically meant my brain was trying to protect me from overwhelming memories and emotions by mentally disconnecting for a while. That was why sometimes I suddenly felt detached from everything around me or got trapped replaying memories so vividly that the present stopped feeling real for a bit.

Honestly, my brain sounded deeply exhausting from a scientific perspective. I haven’t told her about the woman in the basement, though. I sorta want to trust her more before that.

And because I was apparently a hungover invasive pest with absolutely no boundaries, I’d also asked Shannon “for a friend” if she could tell me possible conditions this “person” might have.

She looked suspicious immediately.

Especially after I started awkwardly explaining things like emotional detachment, violent impulses, the way fighting seemed to make him feel weirdly alive sometimes, and how calmness apparently made him restless in a way that almost seemed painful. I also carefully mentioned the roughness thing and the blood thing as vaguely as possible because, genuinely, what a horrific conversation to have while eating oatmeal cookies in a therapist’s office.

And then quieter this time, I told her about the orphanage.

About how this person had almost been sent to a psychiatric facility as a child because his violent tendencies scared people, and how instead he started hurting himself so the adults around him would think he was “fixing” the problem.

That part made Shannon visibly sad.

“He’s also really awkward socially,” I added. “Like…he can act normal if he has to, but sometimes it feels like he learned social interaction manually instead of naturally.”

Shannon stayed quiet for a moment after that before speaking carefully.

“Well,” she said gently, “first of all, whatever happened to your ‘friend,’ it sounds like he experienced severe childhood trauma.”

I nodded slightly.

“And I need to stress that I can’t diagnose someone I’ve never met,” she continued, “especially secondhand like this. But some of what you’re describing could overlap with things like PTSD or complex PTSD, particularly the emotional dysregulation, hypervigilance, dissociation, self-harm, and violent survival instincts.”

I swallowed slightly.

“But,” she added carefully, “depending on the intensity of the mood swings and emotional instability, it could also potentially overlap with disorders like bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.”

That made my chest tighten a little.

“And the emotional detachment, aggression, difficulty with empathy expression, and history of violence could resemble antisocial personality disorder in some people,” she continued gently, “but trauma can mimic personality disorders sometimes, especially in people who grew up in survival mode for most of their lives.”

I stared quietly at the floor while she spoke.

“The important thing,” Shannon added softly, “is that mentally ill or traumatised people are not automatically bad people. A lot of deeply hurt people develop unhealthy coping mechanisms because nobody ever taught them safer ones.”

And weirdly enough, hearing someone describe Roman as hurt instead of monstrous made something ache painfully inside my chest.

Ugh, I couldn’t do it.

“Okay, uhm, I can’t do this anymore,” I said suddenly, laughing weakly through the lump already forming in my throat. “I’m just going to be honest, but I might start crying, which is humiliating, so…yeah.”

Shannon looked at me gently over the top of her glasses and somehow that made this worse, because she looked so patient about it.

“So,” I continued nervously, wringing my hands together slightly, “I feel like this whole conversation is pointless if you don’t actually know the truth.” I exhaled shakily. “This friend was this guy I…dated? I think?”

A tiny smile tugged at Shannon’s mouth, but she stayed quiet.

“And we got really close really quickly,” I continued softer now, “but then he broke things off last month because he said what he does is too dangerous and that our worlds don’t fit together and that he could never be what I need and I really miss him and I just…”

My voice cracked suddenly.

God.

I looked down at my lap immediately, blinking hard.

“I’ve never felt so connected to someone in my life,” I admitted quietly. “Like genuinely ever.” I laughed shakily through the tears burning behind my eyes. “He’s this amazing enigma of a person and somehow every second around him felt intense in the best way possible, and I feel like some of the happiest moments of my life happened with him and, ugh, God, I don’t know…” I choked out a bit, feeling the tears start to come.

“I just - I miss him all the time,” I whispered, and immediately my throat tightened because somehow those five words still didn’t even come close to explaining the feeling properly, didn’t come close to explaining how Roman had somehow woven himself into every quiet part of my life so completely that now even existing without him felt wrong in this strange aching way I couldn’t escape from no matter how hard I tried. My stubborn little phantom had somehow slithered his way in between my ribs and made himself the beat to my fucking heart.

Ugh.

Now I was crying.

Not cute movie crying either, unfortunately. Proper silent tears dripping down my face while I stared furiously at the carpet like it had personally betrayed me somehow.

“This is humiliating,” I muttered thickly, wiping at my face for probably the fiftieth time that session.

Shannon, to her credit, did not laugh at me.

She just watched me quietly for a moment with this soft sad sort of understanding that honestly made me feel worse because it meant she could probably tell how serious this actually was for me.

“Oh, Luca,” she said gently, “I don’t think there’s anything humiliating about loving someone deeply.”

I let out a weak watery laugh. “Yeah, well, tell that to my rapidly deteriorating dignity.”

A tiny smile tugged at her mouth before fading again.

“What you’re describing,” she continued softly, “sounds like attachment formed during an incredibly emotionally vulnerable period in your life.” She tilted her head slightly. “And those bonds can feel extraordinarily intense because the person becomes connected not only to love, but also to safety, comfort, survival, healing…”

Roman.

Shannon watched my expression carefully before continuing.

“And from everything you’ve told me, this relationship also seems to have given you something emotionally corrective.”

I frowned slightly through the tears.

“You were hurt very deeply by people who were supposed to care for you,” she explained gently. “Then suddenly there was someone who protected you, comforted you, stayed with you through fear instead of abandoning you because of it.” Her voice softened further. “Of course your heart attached itself strongly to that.”

Oh.

“But,” Shannon added carefully now, “I also think it’s important that you don’t turn him into the sole thing keeping you emotionally afloat.”

I blinked slightly.

“You miss him,” she said gently. “You may even love him. But Luca, your healing cannot depend entirely on another person staying.”

That one stung a little, not because she was wrong, but because some part of me knew I’d already started doing exactly that.

“So what do I even do?” I asked quietly after a while, curling the sleeve of my hoodie over my hand. “Because I genuinely feel like I’m losing my mind a little.”

Shannon watched me carefully for a moment before speaking.

“I think you should tell your brother.”

I physically recoiled.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

“Luca-”

“No,” I interrupted immediately, shaking my head. “Nope. Horrific idea. Next suggestion.”

Shannon sighed softly, though there was something almost amused in her expression now.

“Why is it a horrific idea?”

Because how was I even supposed to explain this properly without sounding insane?

I laughed weakly instead, staring down at my hands.

“Because Dante already has enough going on,” I muttered quietly. “And we’re not even…like that anymore.”

Shannon frowned slightly.

And before I could stop myself, the words started spilling out anyway.

About how Dante and I used to fit together so naturally once, how he’d always been steady where I wasn’t, how somewhere over the past few years things had shifted quietly without either of us really acknowledging it. I explained how he had this whole stable beautiful life now, a wife and child and future and structure, while I still felt like this messy unfinished thing hovering awkwardly around the edges of everyone else’s lives.

And the more I talked, the more pathetic it sounded out loud.

“I just think…” I swallowed hard. “Maybe I mattered more to me than I did to him.”

Shannon’s expression softened immediately.

I laughed weakly through the embarrassment clawing up my throat. “See? This is why I can’t tell him about any of this. I’ll just become this exhausting traumatised burden he has to deal with.”

“Luca,” Shannon said gently, “there’s a very big difference between needing support and being a burden.”

I looked away slightly.

“You experienced something horrific,” she continued softly. “And right now, you are isolating yourself because you’re afraid your pain will inconvenience the people who love you.”

Hearing it phrased that plainly made my chest ache.

“And I think,” she added carefully, “that you’ve spent so long feeling emotionally unnecessary that you assume needing people automatically makes you too much.”

That one hit disturbingly hard. Maybe that was exactly it.

“But your brother loving his family and building a life does not mean he stopped loving you,” Shannon continued gently. “Relationships change as people grow older, Luca. They become quieter sometimes. That doesn’t mean they become less real.”

I swallowed hard.

“And honestly?” she added softly. “He may have no idea how alone you’ve been feeling.”

Silence settled between us for a second. 

Then quieter now, Shannon said again, “I really do think you should tell him.”

I rubbed tiredly at my face.

“Maybe,” she continued gently, “not every detail immediately if that feels overwhelming. But enough for him to understand that you’re struggling.”

The idea terrified me slightly. Because what if Dante looked at me differently afterward? What if I really did become exhausting?

Shannon seemed to read that fear straight off my face.

“The people who truly love you,” she said softly, “would almost always rather know you’re hurting than lose you quietly.”

My throat tightened immediately.

“And outside of that,” she added gently after a moment, “I also think you need to start reconnecting with yourself again.”

I frowned slightly.

“You told me you paint. Draw. Play music.”

“Badly.”

“That isn’t the point,” she said, smiling softly. “Trauma narrows people down into survival mode. Doing what you love helps widen the world again.”

My mind immediately flashed to sketchbooks shoved untouched beneath my coffee table. To my dusty piano. My guitar sitting abandoned in the corner of my room.

“So when your thoughts get loud,” Shannon continued gently, “instead of sitting alone spiralling inside them for hours, try putting those emotions somewhere else. Paint badly. Play piano badly. Draw nonsense. Let yourself exist as a person again instead of just someone trying to survive.”

And honestly, for the first time in weeks, that sounded maybe a little possible.

“Uhm, we’ll talk next week, okay?” Shannon said gently, glancing toward the clock on the wall before offering me a small reassuring smile. “Time’s up, but I’ll see you soon.”

The fact therapy sessions had time limits genuinely felt evil.

I let out a weak laugh while standing slowly from the couch, wiping one final time at my face in what I hoped looked subtle and not like I’d just emotionally imploded in front of an elderly woman for an hour straight.

“Cool,” I muttered. “Can’t wait to come back here and cry again.”

That earned a soft laugh from her.

“You did well today, Luca.”

The sincerity in her voice made my chest ache a little. Because honestly? I didn’t feel like I’d done well.

I felt scraped raw and exhausted and weirdly hollowed out, like someone had reached inside my ribcage and reorganised everything without warning me first.

Still, as always, I managed a tiny smile before grabbing my jacket from the chair nearby.

“Thanks,” I murmured quietly.

Shannon walked me toward the door before pausing slightly.

“And Luca?”

I looked back.

“Try not to spend tonight alone inside your own head.”

Unfortunately, she’d figured me out far too quickly.

“I’ll try,” I promised weakly.

Then I stepped out into the hallway, the door clicking softly shut behind me, and immediately the quiet hit differently out here, colder somehow, emptier in a way that made my chest tighten unexpectedly as I shoved my hands deep into my pockets and headed toward the elevator.

We found Emma’s dad about fifteen minutes later near one of the entrances to Central Park, pacing around frantically while talking to a police officer.

The second Emma spotted him, she gasped dramatically and launched herself forward so fast Roman physically had to catch the hood of her jacket before she ran into traffic.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, hauling her back slightly while she wriggled violently. “Tiny psychopath.”

“DADDY!”

Her father turned so fast he nearly tripped over himself before rushing toward us, relief crashing across his face so hard it actually made my chest ache a little.

“Oh my God, Emma, where did you go?!” He scooped her up instantly, checking her over like she might disappear again if he blinked too long.

“I saw a weird pigeon,” Emma defended.

Roman stood beside me with both hands shoved awkwardly into his pockets while Emma’s dad thanked us approximately eight thousand times in increasingly emotional tones.

And bless his soul, Roman visibly had no clue how to react to gratitude.

“N-no problem,” he muttered eventually, shoulders weirdly tense like he’d rather fistfight somebody than handle this conversation. Then Emma’s dad dug around in his pocket before pulling out a crumpled five dollar bill.

“For helping her.”

Roman stared at the money.

I stared at Roman.

Because this terrifying organised crime boss who probably had people assassinated professionally was now standing in Central Park being tipped five dollars for babysitting. And somehow the situation got even worse when Roman awkwardly accepted it.

“…Thanks.”

Emma pointed at him dramatically from her dad’s arms. “Bye bye!”

I physically had to turn away so they wouldn’t see me laughing.

By the time we got back to Roman’s building, the city had gone dark outside, rain beginning to streak softly against the windows while headlights blurred gold across the streets below.

Roman disappeared almost immediately after we stepped inside. “Need to deal with something,” he muttered while grabbing some knives. Which, in Roman-language, could’ve meant literally anything from a meeting to murder.

I was too exhausted to ask.

So I changed into one of Roman’s hoodies, curled up on the couch, and put on some random baking show because I needed noise in the background before my thoughts got too loud again.

For a while, I just stared at the television blankly.

People laughed. Music played. Someone burned a cake. But slowly, piece by piece, the room around me started feeling farther away. My thoughts drifted somewhere dangerous before I even fully realised it was happening.

The basement.

Cold concrete beneath my shoes.

Being dragged down those stairs.

My breathing slowed strangely. Not calmer. Wrong.

I stared forward at the television while the memories replayed again.

And again.

And again.

Hands grabbing me.

Being pinned down.

The feeling of helplessness crushing the air from my lungs.

Her voice.

The smell of blood in the room.

The horrible trapped feeling of knowing nobody was coming.

I blinked slowly, but the apartment around me barely registered anymore. It felt like I was underwater. Like part of me was still back there no matter how much time passed. I remembered lying on the basement floor afterward staring at nothing because my brain physically couldn’t process what had happened anymore.

I remembered feeling disgusting in a way I didn’t know how to explain properly. Not dirty exactly. Worse.

The television kept playing. Hours passed without me noticing. Outside, the rain got heavier.

At some point I think tears started slipping down my face quietly, but even that felt distant somehow, like it was happening to somebody else.

I didn’t move. Didn’t think.

Just sat there replaying everything over and over until the memories blurred together into one endless loop of fear and pain and helplessness.

The apartment door finally opened sometime later. I didn’t react. Didn’t even register it properly at first. Footsteps crossed the apartment. Then stopped.

Silence.

“Luca?” Roman’s voice, it was close. Sharp with concern instantly. I still didn’t move.

A second later he stepped fully into view in front of me, and even through the haze in my head I noticed the blood first.

It streaked across the collar of his black shirt and down one side of his throat, smeared over bruised knuckles and drying against his jaw. His hair was damp from rain, expression exhausted and tense at the same time, but the second he really looked at me, everything in his face changed.

“Hey.” His voice dropped immediately.

I stared through him for a second before my eyes slowly focused. Roman crouched in front of the couch, brows pulling together harder the longer I didn’t respond.

And quietly, almost cautiously, he asked, “How long have you been sitting here?”

I blinked.

The television screen reflected faintly across the windows behind him now, the room almost completely dark except for the soft light from the TV.

Hours.

Oh.

Roman followed my gaze toward the windows, then back to me, his jaw tightened instantly. “Jesus Christ.”

I swallowed hard, throat aching strangely.

The second I properly came back into myself enough to realise how long I’d been gone, panic clawed sharply through my chest.

My breathing hitched.

Roman noticed immediately.

“Hey,” he said quickly, moving closer. “No, don’t do that. Breathe.”

I tried. But suddenly I could feel everything all at once again.

The hoodie against my skin. The tears drying on my face. The memories still clawing around inside my head like they wanted back out. My chest tightened painfully.

Roman’s expression shifted instantly into something softer despite the blood still staining his hands.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

I laughed weakly, not because anything was funny, just because I didn’t know how to explain that my own brain had held me hostage for hours.

“I don’t know…I just…zoned out,” I whispered finally.

Roman went completely still and God, the look on his face then, not pity, never pity, but this awful furious sadness like if he could’ve ripped the memories out of my head with his bare hands, he would’ve. He reached up hesitantly before brushing his thumb gently beneath one of my eyes, wiping away another tear I hadn’t realised fell.

“You’re here now,” he murmured quietly. “You’re safe.”

My throat tightened painfully. Roman glanced toward the television still playing mindlessly in the background before looking back at me again.

“…Did you eat anything?”

I shook my head slightly, of course I hadn’t. Roman exhaled softly through his nose like he was trying very hard not to lose his temper at the situation itself, then he stood abruptly.

“I’ll be back.”

A minute later he returned carrying water, cookies, and a blanket draped awkwardly over one arm while still looking like he’d personally crawled out of a violent crime documentary.

He handed me the water first and our fingers brushed briefly. Warm. Real. Grounding.

I looked down at the blood still staining his knuckles.

“You’re bleeding.”

Roman glanced at his hands like he forgot entirely.

“…Not mine.”

“That’s supposed to, what, reassure me?”

“Someone did something they shouldn’t have.”

“Oh. Okay.” He went for around ten minutes to shower and change, and somehow just knowing he was somewhere else in the apartment kept me from slipping back into my own head again. I could hear faint movement from down the hallway every now and then, drawers opening and shutting, the muffled sound of running water, Roman swearing quietly at something under his breath at one point, and weirdly enough, those tiny noises grounded me more than anything else had all evening because they reminded me I wasn’t alone with the memories anymore.

When he finally came back out, his hair was still damp and messy from the shower, dark strands curling slightly at the ends while he rubbed tiredly at the back of his neck. He’d changed into loose dark sweatpants and a black t-shirt that hung lazily off his frame, and despite the bruises still shadowing his knuckles and the faint cut near his jaw, he somehow looked softer now, less like the terrifying leader of a criminal organisation and more like some exhausted insomniac college student who accidentally wandered into several felonies.

He sat beside me again afterward, close but not too close, leaving enough space between us that I immediately knew he was trying not to make me uncomfortable, even though I don’t think he realised the distance itself made my chest ache a little.

Because Roman did that constantly now.

Hovered carefully around me like he was terrified of pushing too hard or touching me wrong or somehow making things worse.

And maybe it should’ve annoyed me. But honestly? It just made me want him closer.

So, being the clingy pest I naturally was, I immediately wrapped an arm around his slutty little waist and tugged him directly against my side without warning.

Roman made a quiet sound of surprise as he got pulled sideways into me, one hand instinctively catching himself against the couch while I held onto him stubbornly beneath the blanket.

“There,” I muttered tiredly. “That’s better.”

Roman blinked at me once.

Then twice.

“Uhm-”

“Shhhh, baby, just enjoy it.”

Roman looked genuinely offended.

I snorted softly against his shoulder while he settled beside me properly after a second, still acting vaguely annoyed despite the fact he very obviously melted into the contact almost immediately.

Honestly, Roman pretending he didn’t like affection was becoming embarrassing for both of us at this point.

His arm eventually slid around my shoulders with this hesitant sort of casualness, like he wanted to hold me but also didn’t want me to think too hard about the fact he wanted to hold me.

Which, unfortunately for him, only made it more obvious.

“Why do you call me that?” he asked suddenly.

I blinked up at him from where I was half-curled against his side beneath the blanket. “Call you what?”

Roman’s expression stayed completely straight, though there was something faintly awkward underneath it now, the kind of awkwardness he only ever got when conversations drifted anywhere near feelings.

“Baby,” he muttered reluctantly. “Why on earth do you call me baby?”

I looked at him for a second like the answer was incredibly obvious.

“You are my baby.”

Roman was stunned.

“What?”

“You’re all awkward and shy and soft when necessary,” I explained matter-of-factly, counting points off on my fingers now while he stared at me in visible horror. “And you get nervous anytime we do something remotely romantic.”

“I do not.”

I snorted before continuing immediately.

“And,” I added smugly, “you’re younger than me, so it’s acceptable.”

Roman looked genuinely offended now.

“You’re older than me by four years.”

“Still older.”

“That isn't enough of an age gap to establish dominance.”

“It is too.”

Roman stared at me like he was reconsidering every life choice that led him here.

Meanwhile I was trying not to laugh at the fact this terrifying organised crime boss looked genuinely flustered over being called baby.

I looked at him innocently for approximately half a second before saying, “Also, I’m pretty sure I was top when we fucked at my place.”

Roman choked. Actually choked. 

His entire face went blank afterward while I immediately started laughing into his shoulder.

“Luca,” he said after a long moment, sounding deeply traumatised, “you cannot just say things like that with no warning.”

“But am I wrong?”

Roman stared straight ahead at the television now like he was trying to leave his own body spiritually.

“I’m choosing not to participate in this conversation anymore.”

“Aww,” I cooed immediately, pinching his cheek before he could stop me, “look how grumpy my baby gets.”

Roman caught my wrist instantly. Not roughly.

His eyes narrowed slightly at me while I tried not to smile too hard as he began to speak.

“Also, haven’t we only had sex-”

Roman’s phone suddenly started ringing loudly from somewhere beside him, cutting himself off mid-sentence.

He frowned immediately, clearly annoyed at the interruption, before pulling the phone from his pocket and glancing down at the screen.

His expression flattened almost instantly.

“Sorry,” he muttered, already standing up from the couch. “Gotta take this.”

I watched him disappear down the hallway while rain continued tapping softly against the windows, and for some reason, the second he left the room, the apartment felt colder again.

Roman was gone for a while this time. Long enough that the baking show ended and another episode started. Long enough that I started picking anxiously at the loose thread on the blanket draped across my lap. And when he finally came back, something about him felt different immediately. Subtly different. But enough that my stomach tightened anyway.

His shoulders looked stiffer somehow, jaw tighter beneath the warm apartment lighting while he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

I sat up slightly.

“You okay?”

Roman nodded once automatically, too quickly.

“Yeah.” He paused briefly before adding, “So, uh…good news.”

I blinked at him.

“What?”

“My men think you can go back to your place now.” He kept his eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder instead of directly at me. “There haven’t been any attempted break-ins or movement around your apartment building for days now, so…” He shrugged slightly. “It should be safe.”

“Oh.”

Something weird twisted in my chest immediately, not because I wanted to stay terrified forever, but because somehow, without noticing it happening, Roman’s apartment had started feeling more like home than mine did. Well, not his place, but him.

Still, as always, I forced a smile anyway.

“Oh…great!”

Roman nodded once. Silence settled awkwardly afterward. And suddenly he looked almost uncomfortable standing there now, hands shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants while tension sat weirdly in his posture.

“So, uh…that’s probably the end of this, I guess.”

I frowned immediately.

“End of what?”

Roman finally looked at me then.

“Us.”

My entire body went still.

“WHAT?”

Roman visibly flinched at the volume.

“Luca-”

“No, absolutely not, what do you mean us?”

Roman rubbed tiredly at his face before looking away again.

“We don’t fit right.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“What are you talking about?”

“We’ve known each other for, like, a week,” he muttered, sounding increasingly uncomfortable the longer he spoke. “Maybe we’re just being stupid or something.”

“Roman-”

“You almost died.”

“And I survived.”

“That’s not the point.”

His voice sharpened slightly for the first time all evening before he forced it flatter again.

“You got kidnapped because people connected you to me,” he said quietly. “And next time it could be worse.”

Silence crashed between us.

Roman looked away briefly, jaw tight.

“You don’t fit into this life.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“No,” I snapped immediately. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

Roman laughed quietly under his breath, but there wasn’t any humour in it.

“Luca, I run an organised crime group.”

“I know.”

“I have people killed.”

The bluntness of it made my chest tighten.

Roman shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants before continuing quieter now, “The Brotherhood has legal businesses, sure. Most people who know me publicly think I’m just some rich asshole with anger issues.” His mouth twisted slightly. “But that doesn’t change what I actually am.”

I stared at him silently.

“You want normal things someday,” he murmured quietly. “A real future. Stability. Maybe kids.” His throat moved slightly before he added, “I never even let myself think about things like that because people like me don’t get them.”

The sadness in his voice nearly destroyed me.

Roman finally looked at me again then, and God, somehow that made this worse because there was nothing cold in his expression anymore. Just fear. 

“You belong in a completely different world than I do,” he murmured. “You get adored by millions of people for being kind and talented and bright, meanwhile I spend my nights covered in blood half the time.” He swallowed slightly before adding lower, “Eventually someone smarter than the Bratva is going to realise how much you matter to me.”

The words lodged painfully somewhere behind my ribs.

“And when that happens,” Roman continued quietly, “they won’t just hurt you to send a message.”

Something inside my chest cracked a little, because he genuinely believed this was protecting me.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “I do.”

The apartment fell silent except for the rain outside. I stared at him for a long moment before asking quietly-

“So what? That’s it?”

Roman’s expression tightened slightly.

“You deserve better than this.”

“Okay,” I repeated weakly. “Fine.”

Something flickered across Roman’s face then. Regret. Instant and sharp and almost panicked for half a second.

But he said nothing.

So neither did I.

I grabbed my phone and my jacket with hands that didn’t feel fully steady anymore before heading toward the door.

Roman took a small step forward instinctively.

“Luca-”

But I couldn’t do it.

Couldn’t stand there and listen to him explain why loving me was impossible while looking at me like I was already gone.

So I just shook my head once.

I woke up to the smell of pancakes.

Which, honestly, was shocking enough on its own considering the last few times I’d woken up had involved either hospitals, trauma or existential crises.

For a couple seconds, I just lay there staring at the ceiling, tangled in Roman’s blankets while soft morning light spilled through the windows, trying to remember where I was.

Then it hit me all at once.

Roman’s apartment.

The rooftop.

The rain.

The nightmares.

Roman.

And weirdly enough, instead of panic immediately swallowing me whole like it had yesterday, I just felt…tired. Sad, definitely. Still fragile enough that my chest ached strangely every time I thought too hard about the basement.

But safer. Safer than I’d felt in days.

The smell of food drifted into the bedroom again, warm and sweet and painfully domestic, and eventually curiosity dragged me out of bed despite the heaviness still lingering in my limbs.

I shuffled sleepily down the hallway wearing one of Roman’s loose hoodies and absolutely nothing else of dignity, rubbing at my eyes as I followed the sound of sizzling pans into the kitchen.

And immediately stopped dead.

Roman was shirtless.

That was the first problem.

The second problem was that he was shirtless while cooking.

Grey sweatpants hung low on his hips, dark tattoos stretching across his arms and torso while morning light spilled across his skin in a way that genuinely felt unfair to humanity as a whole. One hand held a spatula while the other rested against the counter beside a plate stacked with pancakes and bacon.

I stared.

Unfortunately, my brain also supplied memories. Namely what that chest looked like when pressed over me. Which was deeply unhelpful at nine in the morning.

Then I noticed the woman sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter casually eating batter from the bowl beside him.

Light brown skin, long black curls piled into a messy bun, oversized hoodie, swamp-green eyes.

She looked between me and Roman once before immediately grinning like she’d just witnessed something incredibly entertaining.

“So,” she said dramatically. “So this is the dickmatizing hunk.”

Roman looked seconds away from homicide.

“Morana,” he said flatly.

“What?” She shrugged innocently. “I’ve been hearing about him non-stop for like forever.”

My brain short-circuited completely.

“You talk about me?” I repeated weakly.

“Against my will,” Roman muttered while flipping a pancake aggressively.

Morana hopped off the counter immediately and strutted toward me like we were already best friends.

“Morana Caldwell,” she introduced proudly, extending a hand. “Roman’s Davenport’s un-official sidekick, future dictator and your average mentally ill lesbian.”

I shook her hand automatically.

“Luca Russo.”

“I know.” She looked delighted. “You’re significantly prettier than I expected.”

“Can both of you stop talking?” Roman groaned.

“No,” Morana and I answered simultaneously.

Roman looked genuinely exhausted by our existence already, which honestly felt like bonding.

Morana looked me up and down once before gasping dramatically.

“Oh my God,” she said, clutching my arm suddenly. “You’re wearing his clothes.”

Roman physically froze at the stove.

I blinked. “Uh. Yeah?”

“She’s going to make this unbearable,” Roman muttered.

“She?” Morana repeated in fake outrage. “Roman Davenport, after everything we’ve been through together?!”

“You threatened to stab me last week.”

“And yet here you are. Alive. Be grateful, twink.”

I stared between them slowly while Roman resumed cooking with the expression of a man deeply regretting every life choice leading up to this moment.

The energy between them was weirdly sweet beneath all the insults.

Like siblings who’d survived too much together to bother pretending they didn’t care anymore.

Morana noticed me watching and smirked slightly.

“He acts grumpy,” she stage-whispered conspiratorially, “but he makes pancakes from scratch every saturday.”

Roman pointed the spatula toward her threateningly. “I will throw you off this building.”

“You’re literally in love with him.”

The spatula froze midair.

I think Roman stopped breathing. And suddenly, despite everything, the trauma, the nightmares, the ache still sitting heavy inside my chest, I laughed.

Really laughed.

The sound startled all three of us slightly.

But Roman looked at me immediately afterward, his whole expression softening in that quiet unconscious way he probably didn’t even realise he did around me.

And for the first time since the basement, the world felt a little less horrifying.

So, I’d totally forced Roman into Central Park with me after he claimed Times Square had “irreparably damaged” his mental state in the past, which, according to him, meant we now had to do something quieter and “less loud.”

I understood, mostly. From what I’d observed, Roman didn’t like overly loud areas or crowds. 

I thought he was being dramatic.

Then again, I was the one happily sipping an overpriced hot chocolate while dragging him through Manhattan at sunset like an overexcited golden retriever, so maybe I wasn’t the most reliable judge of normal human behaviour.

The park looked beautiful this time of evening though, all soft amber/purple light filtering through bare fall-winter trees while the city glowed around us in the distance, people wandering along pathways wrapped in scarves and heavy coats as music drifted faintly through the cold air from somewhere farther ahead. The lake reflected the skyline in blurry streaks of gold and silver, and despite the freezing weather, there was something peaceful about the whole thing that made my chest loosen slightly for the first time in days.

Roman walked beside me with his hands shoved into the pockets of his black coat, dark hair falling messily over his forehead while he scanned our surroundings automatically out of habit, his expression carrying that same detached grumpiness he always wore in public even though I’d slowly begun noticing all the tiny cracks in it.

Like how he subtly slowed his pace whenever I lagged behind.

Or how every time crowds got too close and loud unexpectedly, he instinctively reach out for my hand.

“You’re staring again,” he muttered eventually without looking at me.

“You have very pretty eyelashes.”

Roman sighed deeply like I was a burden specifically designed by God to test him spiritually.

“That is a deeply unsettling thing to say to somebody.”

“I’m serious.”

“You sound like you’re planning to taxidermy me.”

I snorted loudly into my drink, nearly choking on whipped cream.

And then, before I could reply, a tiny voice interrupted us.

“Hi?”

Both of us looked down at the same time.

A little girl stood a few feet away clutching a stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold while tears gathered dangerously in her eyes. She couldn’t have been older than six or seven, and the second I noticed the panicked little tremble in her lip, my heart cracked directly down the middle.

“Oh no,” I whispered instinctively, immediately crouching down slightly so I wasn’t towering over her. “Hey sweetheart, what happened?”

“I can’t find my dad,” she sniffled.

Beside me, Roman’s entire posture shifted almost imperceptibly.

It wasn’t dramatic enough for most people to notice, but I did. The tension in his shoulders softened slightly, his voice lowering automatically when he lowered himself to his haunches and spoke to her next.

“What’s your name?” he asked gently.

The little girl looked at him uncertainly for about two seconds before visibly relaxing.

Which honestly fascinated me.

Adults were usually intimidated by Roman immediately. They saw the cuts on his face, the tattoos on his hands, the unreadable expressions and instinctively stepped away from him like prey recognising a predator. But kids never seemed afraid of him. If anything, they were weirdly drawn to him, probably because children noticed things adults ignored, like the way Roman paid attention constantly, or how careful he became around vulnerable people without even thinking about it.

And Roman, despite pretending otherwise, was ridiculously good with kids.

Watching him beside this little girl made something warm ache painfully in my chest.

“My name’s Emma,” she mumbled.

“Okay, Emma,” Roman said calmly, like this was the most important conversation in the world. “Can you tell us what your dad looks like?”

“He has glasses,” she whispered. “And a dark red hat.”

Roman nodded seriously. “Good. That helps.”

Emma glanced sadly at the hot chocolate in my hand.

“Oh,” I said softly, “Emma, would you like hot chocolate while we search for your father?”

Roman looked at me flatly. “You can’t just offer sugar to random lost children.”

“She’s emotionally distressed.”

“She’s six.”

Emma looked up at Roman with giant watery eyes.

And horrifyingly, Roman folded almost immediately.

“…Fine,” he muttered reluctantly.

I stared at him in delight. “You’re so soft.”

“She looked upset.”

“You’d survive maybe ten minutes as a father before becoming emotionally attached.”

Roman visibly recoiled from the sentence while Emma slipped her tiny hand into his automatically as we started walking through the park searching for her dad.

And that…that was genuinely the beginning of the end for me.

Because Roman immediately tightened his grip around her hand carefully, slowing his pace instinctively so she could keep up beside him while he asked her questions in that same low patient voice I’d only ever heard him use with me when I was panicking.

Meanwhile, my brain betrayed me entirely. I started imagining Roman as a father. Not even on purpose either, which somehow made it worse.

I could suddenly picture it so vividly that it physically hurt; Roman standing in a kitchen at seven in the morning making pancakes while some tiny child sat on the counter rambling endlessly beside him, Roman pretending to be annoyed while secretly remembering every single thing they said anyway. I imagined him teaching a kid how to ride a bike with the same terrifying concentration he applied to everything else in life, or kneeling beside scraped knees and broken hearts with that awkward gentleness he carried around like a secret nobody else noticed.

And God, the worst part was that I knew he’d be good at it.

Not perfect, obviously, because Roman was still Roman, emotionally repressed and traumatised beyond belief, but safe. He’d love fiercely, protect obsessively and probably scare the shit out of any teacher who upset his kid. He’d make hot chocolate after nightmares and stand between them and every ugly thing in the world until it killed him.

The image settled somewhere deep inside my chest and stayed there.

“You okay?” Roman asked suddenly, glancing sideways at me.

I blinked rapidly. “Mhm.”

“You look emotional.”

“I’m experiencing visions.”

“That explains nothing.”

I looked over at him walking beside little Emma beneath the glow of the park lights, her tiny hand still wrapped around his larger one while snow-like drizzle fell softly around us, and felt something inside me give way completely.

Because somehow this terrifying, grumpy, slightly murderous man had become the safest thing I’d ever known.

LUCA:

“You really are quite pretty when you cry,” she whispers, kissing the inside of my thigh before biting the tip of my dick once again as she sucks me off. I’d tried getting her to stop multiple times, First, I’d bit her while she gave me a handjob as an attempt to get her arm to recoil, then I’d shifted in the chair as she forcefully rode me, trying to get her to fall off. 

But now, I’m not bothered enough to try and make her stop.

Thats the part that hurts me most. not even the fear itself but the exhaustion of it. My skin feels filthy stretched over me, too tight, too wrong, like I could scrub myself raw and still never feel clean again, while the sharp metallic smell lingering in the air wraps itself around my lungs every time I breathe.

Bodies litter the room around me, blurred and indistinct through the haze in my head, and somewhere in the distance somebody is still screaming, though the sound feels strangely far away now, like I’m underwater listening to the world happen above me.

I sit there and realise, slowly, painfully, that I’m still alive.

And somehow that hurt too.

Her hand tightens against my jaw, nails digging painfully into my skin as she forces my head downward again, smiling up at me like this was some kind of game, some kind of performance she was enjoying.

“Look at me,” she murmured.

I didn’t want to.

God, I didn’t want to.

But my body has long since stopped belonging to me, reduced to something bruised and exhausted and barely functioning, and the harder I try to disappear inside my own head, the more trapped I feel inside myself instead.

The room smells sickeningly metallic.

Blood. Sweat. Something burnt.

I can still hear voices somewhere behind her, laughter echoing faintly through the haze in my head while my pulse hammers violently against my ribs hard enough to hurt.

And then she leans closer-

I woke with a violent gasp, shooting upright so fast the room spun around me instantly.

For a second I didn’t know where I was.

My chest heaved painfully, panic clawing its way up my throat while I scrambled backward on instinct, hands shaking so badly I nearly fell straight off the bed before reality slowly forced its way back into focus.

Dark room. Rain against windows. Soft lamp light glowing faintly from the hallway.

Roman.

Roman was asleep beside me, one arm still stretched across the mattress where I’d been lying moments ago, his face slackened slightly by sleep in a way I’d never seen before. Even unconscious, he somehow looked tense, brows faintly furrowed like his body had forgotten how to fully rest years ago.

The sight grounded me enough to breathe again. Barely.

I pressed the heel of my hand hard against my mouth, trying to quiet the uneven sounds escaping me while my whole body shook violently beneath the spare clothes roman had lended me.

I couldn’t stay here right now. I couldn’t breathe here.

Carefully, slowly, I slipped out of bed.

Roman stirred faintly at the movement, something low and tired leaving his throat as he shifted toward the warmth I’d left behind, but he didn’t wake.

Good. Because I didn’t know how to explain this.

Didn’t know how to explain that my skin still felt contaminated from the inside out, or that every time I closed my eyes I could still smell blood in the air and feel hands grabbing at me all over again.

So instead, I left quietly.

The apartment was dark and silent as I moved through it, the city lights outside casting pale reflections across the floor while I searched for somewhere - anywhere - that felt less suffocating than that bedroom suddenly did.

Eventually I found the stairwell leading upward.

To the roof.

The cold night air hit me instantly the second I pushed open the heavy metal door, sharp enough to sting my lungs as I stepped out onto the rooftop overlooking Manhattan.

Rain drizzled softly from the sky.

The city stretched endlessly below me, glowing gold and white beneath the darkness like something unreal.

And for the first time since waking up, I could finally breathe without feeling trapped inside my own skin.

Rain clung lightly to my hair and clothes, the cold wind biting against my skin hard enough to make my eyes water, but somehow it felt good too, because at least this kind of pain made sense. It was clean pain. Honest pain. Not the kind that stayed trapped beneath your ribs long after the bruises faded, rotting quietly inside you where nobody else could see it.

I lowered myself onto the ledge surrounding the rooftop and stared out across New York, letting the drizzle settle against my face while the city glowed beneath me in blurred golds and whites. From up here, everything looked distant enough to survive. The screaming in my head dulled beneath the sound of rain hitting concrete, and for the first time since waking up in that basement, I managed a full breath without feeling like I was choking on it.

My skin still didn’t feel like mine.

That was the worst part.

Not even the memories themselves, but the feeling they’d left behind, like fingerprints pressed permanently beneath my flesh no matter how hard I tried to scrub them away. Every time I closed my eyes, I still felt trapped in that room again, still smelled blood thick in the air, still heard laughter somewhere behind me while I sat there trying desperately to disappear inside my own body.

But the rain…

God, the rain helped.

It slid down my face and neck in cold little streams, soaking through my clothes until I was shivering slightly, and somehow it almost felt cleansing, like the sky itself was trying to wash the memory of her hands off me piece by piece. Rationally, I knew trauma didn’t work like that. I knew I’d carry this with me long after tonight.

But still.

For these few quiet minutes beneath the storm, I let myself pretend the rain was taking it from me.

The panic.

The dirtiness.

The horrible, hollow feeling sitting inside my chest.

I tilted my head back slightly, eyes closing.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The wind moved through my hair softly, and slowly, painfully slowly, I started feeling human again.

Then the rooftop door creaked open behind me.

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t panic. Because somehow I already knew it was him.

Roman stepped out onto the roof wearing grey sweatpants and a black hoodie thrown hastily over his shoulders, dark hair messy from sleep while concern lingered openly across his face before he smothered it back into something calmer.

He looked at me for a second.

Really looked.

Probably noticing the wet cheeks, the trembling hands, the fact that I looked seconds away from falling apart all over again.

But he didn’t push. Didn’t ask questions.

He just walked over quietly before sitting beside me on the ledge, close enough that our shoulders brushed together lightly.

Warm.

Steady.

Safe.

“You disappeared,” he muttered eventually, voice rough with sleep.

“Sorry.”

“You weren’t in bed.”

“I had a bad dream.”

Roman exhaled quietly through his nose, gaze fixed out over the skyline instead of directly at me.

For a while, neither of us spoke. And strangely, the silence didn’t feel awkward. It felt protective.

The rain continued falling around us softly, city lights flickering below while Roman sat beside me like some silent guard dog pretending not to care that I’d run away in the middle of the night. I shifted slightly closer toward him without thinking.

Immediately, his shoulder pressed more firmly against mine in response.

No hesitation. No comment. Just there.

Like he understood I needed grounding without me having to say it out loud.

And God, that almost hurt worse than the nightmare itself.

Because after everything that had happened, after all the ugliness clawing around inside my head, Roman still looked at me like I was something worth protecting instead of something ruined.

“You know,” I murmured quietly after a while, voice softer now, “this is kinda romantic.”

Roman looked deeply unimpressed.

“We’re sitting in the rain at four in the morning because you had a trauma-induced need yo run into the rain.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Cinema.”

ROMAN:

Getting Luca back inside had been significantly harder than getting him onto the roof in the first place.

Mostly because now he was cold, exhausted, traumatised and weirdly clingy all at once.

Not that I minded the clinginess.

That was a separate issue entirely.

By the time we made it back into my place, Luca was shivering slightly beneath the blanket I’d thrown over his shoulders, hair damp from the rain while his eyes looked heavy in that distant sort of way they got whenever he started slipping too deep into his own head.

So I made him hot chocolate.

Which felt absurdly domestic considering I’d killed three people less than twenty-four hours ago.

Luca sat cross-legged in the middle of my bed while I handed him the mug, sleeves hanging over his hands as he accepted it carefully.

“…You made me cocoa,” he murmured softly.

“It’s cold outside.”

“You put marshmallows in it.”

I frowned slightly. “I thought you’d like it.”

Something small and tired softened across his face then.

Not a full smile. But close enough.

The sight settled unpleasantly warmly somewhere beneath my ribs.

I sat beside him against the headboard afterward, keeping enough distance not to crowd him while he held the mug between both hands for warmth. The room stayed quiet for a while. Rain tapped softly against the windows. Luca stared down into the drink like he was trying to find answers in melted chocolate.

Then, without even thinking, I offered the stupidest distraction at the expense of my own dignity.

“I think I might be demisexual. Or maybe aromantic.”

Silence.

Luca blinked slowly.

“…That is not what I expected you to say.”

I stared forward at the wall, immediately regretting opening my mouth at all, but I knew he needed something to focus on, so I just kept talking.

“I, um, did some…research, I guess is the word, and those two match what I’m like the best. I think.” I rubbed awkwardly at the back of my neck. “Being demisexual means you don’t feel sexually attracted to people unless you really like them and have a deep emotional connection with them. Which I guess is possible for me to be, because I never really feel attraction when I, uh, hook up with people.”

I paused.

“Well. Women.”

Luca stayed quiet beside me, listening carefully enough to somehow make this even more humiliating.

“But,” I continued awkwardly, “I also might not be demisexual because I was attracted to you from the start. So.” I gestured vaguely at absolutely nothing. “That complicates things.”

A smile tugged faintly at Luca’s mouth.

Unfortunately, that made me more nervous.

“So I could be aromantic because of the whole no-attraction thing,” I muttered, staring aggressively at the wall now like it had personally caused this conversation, “or maybe I’m just gay. Or bisexual. I don’t really know yet, but I am trying to figure it out.”

Fantastic.

I sounded like I’d swallowed a psychology podcast.

“I’m serious,” I muttered flatly before he could laugh at me. “I’ve never…felt like this before. Well, I have…once. With a girl called Melody. But that ended soon enough”

Luca stayed quiet, listening. Which somehow made this worse.

“I’ve slept with girls,” I continued reluctantly, each word feeling physically painful to admit out loud. “But it was never because I actually wanted them specifically. It was just-”

I frowned slightly, trying to explain something I’d barely understood myself until recently.

“Convenient,” I settled on eventually. “Detached. I didn’t care afterwards. Didn’t think about them when they left. I didn’t ever feel satisfied or yearning for more, really. I didn’t feel anything.”

But Luca…

Christ.

Luca had climbed into my life less than a week ago and somehow turned my entire nervous system against me.

Now every room felt wrong when he wasn’t in it.

Luca took a small sip of his cocoa before glancing sideways at me carefully.

“But with me it’s different?”

The question came softly.

I hated how easy the answer was.

“Yes.”

His expression shifted slightly at that, something warm flickering there before he looked back down at the mug again.

“You know,” he murmured after a moment, “you don’t necessarily have to label it.”

I looked over at him.

Luca shrugged one shoulder lightly beneath the blanket.

“Like, maybe you’re demi,” he said. “Or maybe you’re bi. Or gay. Or maybe you just really unfortunately fell in love with one incredibly attractive man.”

“I did not say love.”

“You basically did.”

“I absolutely did not.”

“You made me hot chocolate at four in the morning after rescuing me from the Russian mafia.”

“That proves nothing.”

“It proves everything.”

I groaned quietly, dragging a hand over my face.

Luca laughed softly into his mug, the sound tired but genuine enough to loosen something tight in my chest.

Then his expression softened again.

“Seriously though,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to figure yourself out immediately.”

I looked at him silently.

“I can tell you’ve spent your whole life surviving,” he continued. “It makes sense that feelings and relationships and sexuality are messy for you. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

Because nobody had ever said something like that to me before without expecting something in return.

Luca just said it gently, honestly, like it was obvious I deserved kindness too. It made my chest ache.

He took another sip of cocoa before mumbling sleepily-

“Also I think un-labeled is hot.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I dunno,” he said, already sinking farther beneath the blankets now. “Mysterious. Brooding. It’s giving if heartsotopper and rina kent gay books had a baby.”

“You consume too much media.”

“And yet you still like me.”

Unfortunately, that was becoming the problem.

Luca finished the last of the hot chocolate slowly, both hands wrapped around the mug long after it had mostly cooled, before eventually placing it carefully on the bedside table beside him.

Then he immediately collapsed backward into my bed like his bones had given up supporting him entirely.

I watched him sink deeper into the blankets, waves spread messily across my pillows while exhaustion softened every sharp edge in his expression until he looked painfully young all over again.

Carefully, I lay down opposite him.

The room stayed dim except for the low amber lamp near the window, rain still tapping softly against the glass while New York glowed faintly beyond it.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

Then Luca shifted slightly closer. And before I could question it, his hand lifted toward my face.

I froze.

His fingertips brushed lightly against my jaw first, hesitant enough that I could’ve moved away easily if I wanted to, before tracing upward along the curve of my cheekbone with unbearable gentleness.

Nobody had ever touched me like that before. Not wanting something, not trying to control me, just touching me softly because they wanted to.

The feeling lodged somewhere deep beneath my ribs and stayed there.

Luca looked at me quietly for a moment before speaking.

“Tell me something depressing you’ve never told anyone.”

I stared at him flatly. “Thats an insane sentence.”

He shrugged sleepily.

“I need a distraction.”

Immediately, the humour faded from my chest.

Right. The nightmares. The panic.

I looked away toward the ceiling for a long moment, trying to think of something harmless enough to offer him instead.

But Luca’s fingers were still moving absentmindedly across my face, tracing little patterns against my skin while he waited patiently, and somehow that quiet patience made lying feel impossible.

So eventually, I spoke.

“When I was a kid,” I said slowly, voice rough around the edges now, “the orphanage I was in thought there was something wrong with me.”

Luca’s hand stilled slightly against my cheek.

“I got into fights constantly,” I continued, staring at the ceiling instead of him. “Not normal kid fights either. I was angry all the time. Violent. One of the workers started saying I needed psychiatric intervention before I seriously hurt someone. They hadn’t gotten me tested, but they were sure I was a psycho.”

“Have you gotten tested now?” I shook my head.

“If there’s something wrong with me, I’d rather not know. And even if I do enjoy being violent, I have multiple ways to do that in my world.”

The words came strangely easily after that.

Maybe because it was four in the morning.

Maybe because Luca was looking at me like I was still human no matter what I said next.

“Anyway. They were gonna send me away,” I muttered quietly. “To some facility.”

Luca frowned softly. “You were a child.”

“Didn’t matter.”

And God, it really hadn’t.

I remembered every second of it.

The whispers.

The fear in the adults’ faces whenever I lost control.

The way people looked at me like I was something dangerous long before I was old enough to understand why.

“So I figured out,” I continued after a moment, “that if I hurt myself to relieve the need instead, they wouldn’t know, they would think I didn’t hurt people anymore.”

Luca’s expression fell completely.

I kept talking anyway.

“It redirected things,” I said flatly. “If I came back bruised or bleeding from hurting myself, they’d focus on that instead of the fact that I wanted to hurt other people too. I thought if they couldn’t see me hurt anyone, they’d think I’d just gotten out of a phase.”

The silence afterward felt enormous.

Rain tapped softly against the windows.

Luca just stared at me, his fingers still resting lightly against my face now like he’d forgotten to move them.

Finally, quietly-

“How old were you?”

I swallowed once.

“Ten.”

The word barely left my mouth before Luca’s face crumpled slightly.

Not pity. Something worse. Heartbreak.

“Oh, Roman,” he whispered.

I immediately regretted telling him.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Look at me like that.”

His brows pulled together softly. “Like what?”

“Like I was something worth saving.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them. Silence filled the room instantly afterward.

I stared at the ceiling, jaw tightening hard enough to hurt while shame crawled unpleasantly beneath my skin for admitting something that pathetic out loud.

But then Luca shifted closer instead of away.

Closer.

Until his forehead rested lightly against mine beneath the dim bedroom light.

“You were ten,” he whispered softly. “You were just a kid.”

Something inside me cracked quietly at the sound of it.

So naturally, I shut the conversation down immediately.

“Okay,” I muttered, staring at the ceiling instead of at him. “Enough depressing shit.”

Luca smiled faintly. “You started it.”

“You asked.” I exhaled through my nose. “Your turn. Tell me something crazy you’ve never told anyone before.”

Luca went quiet.

His fingers still traced lazy little patterns against my face, but slower now, distracted by whatever memory he’d drifted into. Then he laughed softly. Not happy. Just awkward.

“Oh God,” he murmured. “This one’s actually humiliating.”

“That’s usually the best kind.”

“No, it’s weird in a deeply loser-ish way.”

I waited.

Luca stared up at the ceiling for a long moment before finally speaking.

“When I was six,” he said quietly, “I stopped talking as much around people.”

I frowned slightly. “That sounds impossible.”

A tiny smile tugged at his mouth before fading again.

“My grandfather hated how loud I was,” he admitted softly. “Not physically loud, just…me loud. Too many questions. Too much talking. Too emotional about everything.”

Something unpleasant shifted in my chest instantly.

“He especially hated all the stuff I liked,” Luca continued. “Music, painting, romcoms, books. Anything soft, basically.” He laughed weakly under his breath. “One time he walked in on me sketching while listening to ‘don’t dream it’s over’ and he asked me if I ever planned on becoming a serious person.”

My jaw tightened slightly.

“He used to mock everything I got excited about,” Luca murmured. “If I talked too much about a song I liked, I was irritating. If I cried during movies, I was dramatic. If I spent too much time painting, I was wasting my brain on stupid shit.”

The room felt strangely still around us.

“So eventually,” he continued quieter now, “I started trying to disappear around him.”

I swallowed once.

“When he was home, I’d sit quietly and try not to laugh too loud or ramble too much because if he noticed me, he’d always find something wrong with the way I existed.”

His fingers slowed against my cheek.

“And because I still wanted someone to talk to…” He huffed softly at himself. “I made imaginary friends.”

I blinked.

“You had imaginary friends.”

“Three of them.”

“That feels excessive.”

“I had a rich inner world.”

Despite myself, the corner of my mouth twitched faintly.

Luca noticed immediately.

“Don’t laugh,” he warned weakly. “This gets genuinely depressing.”

“I’m already concerned.”

He pulled the blanket slightly higher over himself before continuing.

“I used to sit in my closet with my sketchbooks and headphones and talk to them for hours because it was the only place nobody interrupted me.” His smile turned smaller around the edges. “I figured if I talked to imaginary people instead of real ones, my grandfather wouldn’t get annoyed.”

God.

“They each had personalities and stuff,” Luca continued softly. “One liked astronomy, one was British for some reason, and one was literally just a girl version of Spiderman.”

I stared at him.

“Thats bad.”

“I was 12!”

“You invented British people for emotional support?”

“They were NICE TO ME.”

The words came out jokingly, but there was something underneath them that made my chest ache violently.

Luca looked away slightly.

“The weirdest part is that I knew they weren’t real,” he admitted quietly. “I just…” His fingers paused briefly against my skin. “Wanted to talk without feeling annoying.”

Silence settled heavily between us. Rain tapped softly against the windows. And all I could think about was a six year old kid hiding in closets with headphones on, teaching himself to become quieter and smaller because the adults around him made softness feel shameful.

Something angry curled low in my stomach.

“That man was a fucking asshole,” I said flatly.

Luca smiled weakly. “Yeah. A little.”

“No,” I corrected quietly. “A lot.”

His eyes flickered back toward mine.

“I still feel stupid talking about the stuff I like sometimes,” he admitted after a moment. “Like every time I ramble too much about anything, there’s this tiny voice in my head waiting for people to get annoyed.”

I looked at him silently for a second. 

“I like hearing you talk.”

Luca blinked.

I immediately regretted having vocal cords.

So naturally, I doubled down instead of stopping.

“You explain things like they matter,” I muttered awkwardly. “Most people don’t do that anymore.”

The silence afterward felt fragile somehow.

Luca stared at me with an expression so soft it almost made me uncomfortable.

Then very quietly-

“You don’t think I’m too much?”

The question sounded so painfully genuine it made something twist hard beneath my ribs.

So I reached up and caught his hand gently where it rested against my face.

I kicked open the door to my apartment and stepped inside first, automatically scanning the place before letting Luca follow behind me out of habit more than anything else.

The warmth hit almost immediately.

Not physical warmth exactly, though the heating was on low, but the kind built from soft lighting, worn-in furniture and the faint smell of coffee and cedar lingering in the air. The apartment was bigger than most Manhattan places, spacious enough to breathe in without feeling swallowed by the city, but it wasn’t flashy or sterile the way rich people’s homes were.

It looked lived in. Comfortable. And I was quite proud of how I’d styled the place. Though I didn’t like sharing it. The only person that had ever come inside besides Luca was Morana.

A dark brown couch sat in the middle of the living room with too many blankets thrown over the back of it, books stacked haphazardly across the coffee table beside half empty mugs, low amber lights glowing from the kitchen instead of the harsher overhead ones. There were records near the television, plants near the windows that somehow hadn’t died yet, and rain tapped softly against the glass overlooking the city skyline.

Luca stopped just inside the doorway.

Then he blinked.

“…You live like this?”

I shrugged out of my coat slowly. “Like what?”

“Like somebody’s house husband.”

I stared at him flatly.

“That’s a deeply upsetting thing to say to me.”

“No, because why is your apartment cozy?” he continued, looking genuinely confused now as he wandered further inside. “I thought you’d live in some terrifying billionaire dungeon with, like, black walls and a singular chair.”

“I have multiple chairs.”

“That somehow made it worse.”

Despite himself, he smiled faintly.

It was small.

Tired.

But still there.

Something in my chest loosened slightly at the sight of it.

Luca moved slowly through the apartment, fingertips brushing lightly across the back of the couch as he looked around, though every now and then I caught the way his shoulders stiffened at sudden sounds from outside or how his eyes instinctively tracked exits without meaning to.

His body still hadn’t realised it was safe yet.

I knew that feeling better than I wanted to.

“This is nice,” he admitted eventually, voice quieter now. “Like…really nice.”

“It’s an apartment.”

“No, it’s not.” He glanced toward me. “It feels safe here.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

I looked away before he could notice.

“Most people are too scared to break into a building full of assassins,” I muttered.

“That probably helps, yeah.”

Luca made it approximately five more steps into the apartment before completely giving up on functioning as a human being and collapsing face first onto my couch.

Not gracefully either.

He just dropped.

One second standing, the next dramatically throwing himself across the cushions with a groan like he’d just returned from war.

I stared at him.

“…You alive?”

“Mhm,” came his muffled response from somewhere inside one of my throw pillows. “This couch is weirdly comfortable.”

“That’s because it’s a couch.”

“No, Roman, this is rich people comfortable. I think this thing healed one of my organs.”

Luca stretched himself farther across the couch like a sleepy cat claiming territory.

His sweatshirt had ridden up slightly at the waist, waves messy from sleep deprivation and hospital pillows, bruises still visible against his skin no matter how much I tried not to look at them.

Something dark shifted unpleasantly in my chest again.

I ignored it.

“You should sleep,” I said instead.

Immediately, Luca lifted his head enough to look at me.

“Can we watch a movie first?”

“No.”

“Roman.”

“You’re barely conscious.”

“But I wanna watch a movie,” he whined, dragging the words out dramatically. “Pleaseeeee.”

I stared at him flatly.

Luca blinked slowly up at me with the exhausted determination of a man seconds away from passing out but still committed to being annoying first.

“Please,” he repeated softer this time.

God.

I exhaled sharply through my nose.

“One movie.”

His face lit up instantly.

The effect it had on me was genuinely embarrassing.

“Oh my God, you adore me.”

“I tolerate you occasionally.”

“Uh-huh. You lying, baby?”

I decided not to acknowledge the way that word immediately made my entire nervous system short circuit.

Instead, I grabbed the remote from the coffee table and sat down on the opposite end of the couch.

Luca looked offended.

“What?”

“You sat so far away,” he whined as he rolled his eyes dramatically before scooting across the couch anyway until he was pressed against my side like this had always been normal for us.

It should not have felt this natural.

“What are we watching?” I asked.

Luca brightened immediately. “Okay, so there’s this movie I’ve been wanting to watch forever called Gabriel’s Inferno-”

“That sounds terrible already.”

“Don’t be judgmental.”

“I’m always judgmental.”

He ignored me and grabbed the remote from my hand before searching for the movie himself.

About twenty minutes in, I realised two things.

One, the movie was ridiculous.

And two, Luca was absolutely obsessed with it.

“Oh my God,” he gasped at one point, clutching my arm dramatically. “That was soooo romantic.”

“He literally just stared at her silently for thirty seconds. With lust in his eyes.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s concerning.”

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“I absolutely get it.”

Luca snorted tiredly beside me, the sound softer now, slower around the edges.

The movie kept playing. Some overly dramatic piano soundtrack filled the apartment while the actors exchanged painfully intense eye contact over absolutely nothing.

“This is garbage,” I muttered.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s filmed like a perfume commercial.”

“That’s the appeal.”

I looked over to argue further and stopped.

At some point during his passionate defence of terrible cinema, Luca had fallen asleep against me.

His head rested against my shoulder now, waves falling into his eyes slightly, one hand loosely curled into the sleeve of my shirt like he’d grabbed onto it unconsciously before drifting off.

His breathing had evened out. Finally peaceful.

For the first time since I found him in that basement, he didn’t look scared.

The sight hit me so hard it almost physically hurt.

Carefully, I reached over and lowered the TV volume until the apartment fell mostly quiet except for the rain outside.

Luca stirred faintly when I shifted.

“…Roman?” he mumbled sleepily without opening his eyes.

“Go back to sleep.”

“M’trying.”

Something warm twisted painfully in my chest.

Christ.

I stayed there longer than necessary, just letting him sleep against me while the credits rolled in the background, before finally sighing quietly and moving carefully to pick him up.

He was a bit heavy, but it was bearable.

Luca made a soft noise against my shoulder as I carried him down the hallway toward my bedroom, instinctively curling closer without fully waking up.

And despite everything-

The blood.

The fear.

The absolute catastrophe this man had dropped into my life in less than a week-

I realised, with horrifying clarity, that carrying him like this felt dangerously right.