Chapter 15 Rose
ROSE
The first thing I see when I reach the bottom of the stairs is a black ball of fur.
For half a second, my brain refuses to process it. Then the small, battered black shape shifts, ears twitching, and lets out a scratchy little sound that I’ve heard a hundred times in alleyways and fire escapes.
My breath catches. “Nori?”
He blinks at me, and then promptly lets out an inquisitive, “Mrrowr?”
I laugh. I actually laugh.
The sound bursts out of me before I can stop it. I drop to my knees and hold out my hands. “Come here, troublemaker.”
He hesitates for exactly one second before hobbling toward me with the lopsided swagger of a cat who has lived too many lives already. He smells like antiseptic and clean fur instead of city grime. Someone’s treated the old wounds on his flank. Someone’s fed him.
Someone cared. Without a doubt, I know who someone is.
Warmth floods my chest so fast it almost hurts.
I scoop Nori up carefully, mindful of the scars, pressing my cheek to his scruffy head. “You’re okay,” I whisper. “You’re actually okay.”
Behind me, footsteps pause on the last stair.
“I take it the reunion is a success,” Matteo says.
I look up at him, smiling so wide my face aches. “You found him.” My voice wobbles. “You found him.”
“Had my people keep an eye out around your old building,” he says, as if that’s the sort of favor one performs casually. “He showed up last night. Stubborn little bastard tried to bite the guy who picked him up.”
“That would be me,” Ottavio pipes up from the doorway. “I was the guy.”
“That sounds about right,” I half-laugh, half-sob, burying my face in Nori’s fur again. My throat tightens. “Thank you. Both of you. Sorry,” I also add with my gaze pointing to Ottavio.
Matteo shrugs, but there’s softness in his eyes. “You asked for him.”
From the doorway, Wasabi emits the world’s most offended growl.
He stands rigid in the hall, tail puffed, one good eye narrowed at the intruder now clutched to my chest. Nori answers with a bored blink, which somehow makes it worse. A low hiss vibrates through Wasabi like an existential crisis.
“Boys,” I sigh. “We are not starting a turf war before breakfast.”
Wasabi flicks his tail as if to say watch me and retreats three dignified inches. Which, for him, counts as compromise.
Nori curls deeper into my arms and pretends none of this concerns him.
I look back at Matteo, laughter still tangled with gratitude in my chest. “You didn’t have to do this.”
He studies me for a moment, like he’s committing the expression on my face to memory. “I wanted to,” he says simply.
The words land deeper than they should.
He steps closer, careful not to spook the feline standoff happening at my feet. His hand finds my waist, warm and familiar, and he leans in to brush a quick kiss against my lips. Soft, brief, more promise than heat.
“I have to go back to the city,” he murmurs. “Work.”
A tiny pang tugs at me, part longing, part worry. “Be careful.”
His mouth curves. “Always.” Then, lower, meant only for me: “Tonight, I’ll make it up to you.”
The way he says it sends a flush through me, anticipation curling warm in my stomach.
I nod and bite back a smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”
He presses one more kiss to my mouth, lingering a second longer this time. Then straightens, suit jacket settling across his shoulders like a mantle he can’t ever put down.
“Stay inside the grounds,” he says gently. “Ottavio will be nearby if you need anything.”
“I will.”
He gives Nori a dry look. “Try not to add another cat to the collection while I’m gone.”
“No promises.” I grin.
He leaves a minute later, footsteps fading down the hall, the house swallowing him back into its quiet.
The silence that follows isn’t empty or cold, though. It hums with contentment. With cats glaring at each other across polished floors, sunlight spilling through tall windows, the echo of a kiss that still lingers on my lips.
And beneath all that, threaded through the warmth like a hairline crack in glass, is guilt.
I settle on the couch with Nori in my lap and Wasabi sulking two cushions away, and the feeling creeps back in. The one I keep trying not to look at too closely.
My name isn’t Rose Brown.
It never was.
I chose it. I built a life around it. I buried the girl my family wanted and planted this one in her place. Every day since, I’ve told myself I had to. That secrecy was safety. That reinvention was survival.
But now…
Now there’s a man who kisses me goodbye on staircases and rescues the stray cats I worry about in the middle of the night. A man who has given me shelter and safety and something dangerously close to hope.
And I’m lying to him.
Maybe this is love. Maybe it’s the closest I’ve ever come to it. But what kind of love hides its roots? What kind of love isn’t honest?
I run my fingers through Nori’s fur and stare out across the bright, endless garden.
If I’m going to stay—if I’m going to let myself want this—then at some point, the truth is going to have to surface.
And when it does…
God. I pray he’ll still love me after.
Of course he will. He’s Matteo. He fucks you six ways from Sunday every day and kisses you like you’re the most important thing in the world.
He loves you. He’ll love your past, too.
Nori chooses that exact moment to launch himself out of my arms.
He slips free in a blur of black fur and bad decisions, streaking down the corridor with Wasabi hot on his tail, spitting fury and indignation in equal measure.
"Nori!" I scramble to my feet. "Wasabi, don’t you dare—!"
They vanish around a corner.
My heart leaps into my throat. I bolt after them, the echo of my footsteps ricocheting off marble and stone. Every turn feels longer than it should, every hallway stretching ahead like it’s trying to swallow me whole.
And then I realize where we are.
The air changes first. Cooler, quieter, like the house itself is holding its breath. The corridor narrows. Light softens. The world goes still in a way that prickles down my spine.
The west wing.
I stop at the threshold, pulse pounding in my ears.
I shouldn’t be here. The door is supposed to be closed. I shouldn’t have been able to get in here.
Someone must have left it open.
I want to turn back and put as much distance between myself and this place as possible. Because Matteo asked me not to set foot in here, and I am not about to betray his trust.
But a faint scrabble of claws and a muffled, offended yowl carry from somewhere up ahead, and all my promises crumble beneath the much more immediate terror of two territorial cats potentially clawing each other’s eyes out.
"Guys," I whisper, bracing myself. Murmuring, I say, “please don’t be human trafficking. Anything but that. I can handle drugs. Please, God, let it be a million pounds of cocaine and not people."
I search the place for my two idiot cats. If they get out of here alive, I’ll turn them both into hats myself.
But I can’t hear yowling anymore. The one time I needed Wasabi to be raising hell, he’s choosing to be quiet as a mouse. Fucking figures.
Then, I see it—a door up the hall, slightly ajar.
The gap is small, but cats can get anywhere. They’re famous for it. And then there’s that saying about curiosity and cats that I really wish wasn’t pounding at the walls of my skull right now.
My hand hovers over the wood for a beat too long. My breath goes shallow. Something tightens in my chest—dread, shame, guilt—and none of it stops me.
I push the door open.
The first thing I notice about the room is how warm it is.
Soft lamplight spills across shelves of books and framed photographs. Medical equipment hums gently in the corner beside a breathing machine. The air smells faintly of antiseptic and paper—and something like tea.
Nori sits contentedly in the lap of an older man in a wheelchair, purring like he’s known him his entire life.
Wasabi is in the corner, puffed up and hissing at existence.
The man looks up at me, surprised. His face is lined and pale, eyes sharp and kind all at once.
“Well,” he says, voice roughened by age and strain, but warm with humor. “If I’d known I was going to have visitors, I’d have dressed better.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. “I—I’m so sorry. My cats— I didn’t mean to—”
He lifts a gentle hand. “It’s quite all right. They have excellent taste in company.” He scratches Nori’s chin. Nori melts like butter. “As does my son, apparently. I believe you’re his guest?”
I hover just inside the doorway, heart still racing. “You’re… Matteo’s father?”
He smiles softly. “Guilty as charged. My name is Moreno. You must be the woman whose lovely voice I keep hearing in the halls. It’s good to know my ears haven’t started to go yet.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Matteo’s doing, no doubt.” He strokes Nori as he speaks. “He thinks a gust of wind will knock me down. Always overthinking things, that boy. Guess he got all the brains his big brother didn’t.”
“Matteo has a brother?”
“Had.” His smile stays, but his eyes turn sad. “Heart was Marco’s thing. Big feelings. Too big, sometimes. And far too much speed in acting on them.”
My hand goes to my chest. “I—”
“Please, don’t apologize.” He waves it off, like the ghosts of the past are the company he keeps everyday and, for once, he doesn’t feel like entertaining them.
“He died a hero. I can’t be angry at him for that.
Just sad he left before I could. Fathers are meant to make their big exit before their boys, are they not? ”
“I wouldn’t know.” I force a small smile. “My dad isn’t exactly the affectionate type.”
“Pity. You seem like a wonderful daughter to have.” His eyes crinkle at the corners. “Some men don’t realize how lucky they are.”
Lucky. It’s the first time anyone said my dad was lucky to have me.
The memories of my childhood home flood me. The silences, the cold, the endless expectations. And then, that day—
“Meet your future husband.”
I’m still standing there, throat tight, when the air behind me shifts.
Footsteps.
A shadow in the doorway.
I turn just as Matteo steps inside, his expression freezing the second he sees me there.
“Rose.” His voice is ice. “What are you doing here?”
Shit.