Chapter 29 Roran
Roran
Something is definitely weird with this family. No joke.
One moment, he’s pulling his sister into that locked room from earlier, and the next, a bright blue light flashes from under the door, spilling into the hallway like a warning.
Kayla bolts out of it seconds later, panic all over her face.
She grabs my arm just as the other man—Chris’s father—grabs her and drags her toward the entrance. Both of them vanish.
My heart hammers in my chest, and a familiar ring starts up in my ears—a sound I’ve begged not to hear again.
No.
It hasn’t been two weeks since my last dose. It can’t be starting again.
Not here.
Not now.
No. No. No.
“Water… hel—”
Another whisper, crying and guttural.
“Bloody...”
So many voices push their way inside my head at once that I tear Kayla’s hand off my arm and slap both hands over my ears.
“Go away! Leave me alone!” I scream, my voice ragged and feral. My eyes clamp shut against the blur, against the madness.
I’ve been taking my medicine like clockwork these past few years. I haven’t collapsed in so long.
So why is this happening?
Why now?
When I open my eyes again, the black marble corridor is spinning. Kayla’s in front of me, moving her mouth, but I can’t make out her words. The noise is too high-pitched, too loud—like static scraping against my brain. Mariano and Chris are gone.
What the hell is happening?
“Mom!”
The scream isn’t mine—it erupts inside my head, but the agony feels personal. A voice not mine, but too close, too deep, too raw. It rips through my skull like claws, echoing on every surface, and I bite down on my lower lip just to stay grounded. Tears spill from my eyes, uninvited and hot.
“Roran!”
I finally hear Kayla’s voice—only my name, the rest still swallowed by the roar.
“I can’t hear you,” I grit, trying to focus on my breath. “I can’t—”
“Help me!”
Another voice—another cry, raw and pleading.
My pulse spikes, my skin damp with sweat and the heat of my panic. I don’t even feel the tears now. They’re just… falling.
Hands touch my waist from behind, firm and grounding, nudging me toward the elevator at the end of the corridor. I can’t make sense of what’s happening until the elevator doors open and someone bursts out—
Bay.
She’s running, frantic, but slows when her eyes lock on me. Then her gaze darts to Kayla, sharp and searching. They exchange words, but I can’t hear them over the noise, and honestly, I don’t care.
“I need my medicine,” I manage, voice hoarse. “Please. Please!”
Someone grabs my arm—Kayla, I think, still at my side—but Bay has already rushed inside.
“What medicine?” Kayla asks, and for a second, I can actually hear her.
“My father—” I start, but then something else takes over.
A sudden flare of violet light erupts from behind me—only for a second or two—and just as quickly disappears. I freeze.
And then—
Silence.
The voices are gone.
Gone.
Just like that.
What the actual fuck is happening?
I suck in a shaky breath and straighten slowly, still shaking, and glance at Kayla. Her expression mirrors mine—disbelief, confusion, and just a little bit of fear.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “A little lapse. I’m… sick.”
I don’t even finish the sentence. I don’t have the energy.
I need my medicine.
I need my sister. I shouldn’t have left with her that day to meet Vlad. I fight a tear, my chest tightening at the reminder.
And I need to know what the hell is happening to me.
I thought I had more time—just a little more time—but why did it stop so suddenly? It’s never stopped like that. It’s always dragged on for hours… not cut off in a blink.
“I think we’re okay now,” Kayla says softly, glancing back toward the entrance before sighing in what sounds like honest relief.
“What happened?” I ask, my voice still trembling.
She doesn’t answer. Just shakes her head and gives me a weak smile. “Nothing. It’s okay now.”
She doesn’t believe that.
Neither do I.
“Let’s go back inside.”
I glance around as we walk, still searching for a sign, a whisper, some shadow of an answer—anything that could tell me what the hell is wrong with me, or with this place. But everything is still now. Silent. Too silent.
Kayla’s hand loosens around my arm as she leads me gently back into the apartment.
“Wasn’t I supposed to stay with Chris?” I ask quietly, remembering that much from earlier.
“She’ll be back. You can stay with me for now.”
I glance around the apartment’s entrance again, my eyes drifting back to that door—the one Maleciandro took Kayla into before everything spun sideways.
It’s still locked, but now the hallway is quiet, not glowing under the door.
Too quiet. Like the silence after a scream. Like the world’s holding its breath.
That door must be soundproof. I can’t hear a thing from behind it—not a breath, not a footstep. Just the low hum of the AC brushing against my skin, cool and constant, fitting the shadowed evening pressing against the high glass walls.
There’s a single sofa near the far wall, angled toward the glass.
A matching stool sits beside it like it’s waiting for someone’s tea cup.
If I weren’t a Morozova—if I weren’t me—maybe I’d let myself curl up there with a blanket and pretend I belong in a place like this. Somewhere warm. Somewhere still.
I close my eyes for a moment longer than I should. I haven’t slept more than three hours a night in over six years. That truth only stings in silence, in spaces where no one’s screaming and no hands are dragging me back.
“I texted Chris. She’ll be back soon,” Kayla says gently, walking ahead of me toward the sofa. “She’s grabbing you some better-fitting clothes.”
Her smile is soft, almost apologetic. But her eyes—those give her away. She’s looking at me like she sees something broken. Like she already knows.
I sit on the larger couch in the center of the entrance space, following her lead. She joins me without hesitation, resting her hand lightly on my thigh.
The fabric of the shorts grates against my skin—too tight, unfamiliar, rubbing raw against old scars. The pale light catches the mess of marks across my legs: raised, faded, fresh.
Shame, worn like skin.
The rough fabric presses against the tender spots near my hip, and the familiar ghost pain prickles up my spine. Burning, stinging, itching like it did when it first happened. My muscles tense before I even notice, and my hands instinctively brush over my legs, pushing hers away without thinking.
The echo of my own screams still rattles somewhere inside me, as if they never stopped. Even now, the memory of cold metal pricks my skin the moment my fingers graze my thighs. A chill spreads up my arms.
“Your father gave you those?” Her voice is quiet as her gaze follows my hands. No judgment. Just... ache.
I freeze. My head snaps toward her.
She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t recoil.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through,” she adds, softer now. “It’s horrible.”
How does she know?
Did they run a background check on me? No way. My father never even acknowledged me. Not legally. Not publicly. I exist only under my mother’s name, the one everyone whispered about, the one they called the “unstable crazy woman.”
Even her hospital bills were dumped under mine. Nothing should tie me to him.
Unless someone really dug.
Unless he did.
It hasn’t even been a full day. Could Maleciandro know that much already?
Panic bites the back of my throat. I force a small, trembling smile and nod because I don’t know what else to do.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “But I’m okay. I just... I just need my sister. Please.”
Her eyes stay on me, careful, as if she’s peeling back the layers I’ve worked so hard to hide. A flicker of light glints in her gem-like eyes—something sharp, resolute—but she says nothing more. Not yet. Not about that.
She’s worried.
Not suspicious. Not scared. Just… worried.
She doesn’t know me, she doesn’t owe me anything.
But she’s showing more kindness than people who’ve lived next to me my whole life. This is strange. I'm not used to people looking at me like that. It has always been just me and Diana.
“You mentioned medicine earlier?” she asks suddenly, her voice cutting through my thoughts. The question catches me off guard.
Before I can respond, the quiet door opens behind us.
We both turn.
Maleciandro and Bay step out, their shoulders heavy, their faces shadowed like they’ve just come back from war. Bay exhales the second she sees Kayla. Then her gaze flicks to me—and her expression softens.
Tired.
But warm.
She gives me the kind of smile people reserve for strangers they want to be good.
“What did I miss?” Alessio’s voice booms from the front door, still hanging open behind him. We all turn. He’s grinning, bright as sunlight, completely oblivious to the tension clogging the room. “You look like you just came from a funeral.”
If chaos had a little brother with a caffeine problem, it’d be him.
No tact detected.
“Roran,” Maleciandro says, completely ignoring Alessio’s tone as he steps into the room, “I’m leaving with Bay and Alessio. You’ll stay with Chris and Kayla in the meantime.”
I nod without thinking, eyes back on him. But then the realization slams into me like a wave to the chest.
“Wait. When will you be back? You promised to bring my sister.”
He smirks and strides toward the sofa, closing the distance one steady step at a time. Each footfall feels like a small quake—only it isn’t the sort you flee from. It’s the kind that holds you frozen, waiting for the ground to decide how hard it means to shake you.
“Missing me already?” he murmurs.
My pulse spikes. My skin feels like it’s fighting itself just to lean closer. Everything in me sparks like I’ve touched a live wire—and yet I’m standing still. No. He’s no ordinary man. And I hate that some part of me doesn’t mind.
I snort. Or try to. It comes out shaky. Too shaky.
“Missing my sister,” I say, correcting him, because I can’t—for the first time—come up with anything better. I want to stand just to escape the weight of his gaze, especially when I remember how he looked at me earlier. At my legs. My scars.
He chuckles, low and worn out, as if he’s too tired to fully tease. “Pedro’s handling your sister. He’ll find her. But you and I have other things to discuss when I get back.”
“Other things?” I blink. Once. Twice. What things?
Is this the moment he tells me I’ll be working some of his mafia-adjacent job in stilettos and shame?
You dug your grave, now lay in it, Roran.
“Your father. The drug. Your sickness,” he says quietly. “Don’t think I’ll let it go, Ror.”
The nickname knocks me sideways—nobody uses it but my sister. It feels intimate, a door swinging open before I’m ready.
I draw a breath, nodding even though my heart thuds hard enough to bruise. Still, a thought pushes out before I can swallow it, giving me the courage to ask.
“About the drug… can Pedro help with that, too?” I don’t know when the next lapse will hit. I can’t let today happen again.
Something flickers behind Maleciandro’s eyes—concern. Or calculation? I can’t decide. He straightens, glancing at my legs.
“We’ll handle it,” he says, and for a moment the weight in his voice feels like a promise. Then he turns, calling for Bay and Alessio, and the three of them disappear down the hall, leaving only the echo of his promise—and the ghost of that sparking tension—behind.
Kayla slips onto the sofa beside me, silent, watchful. Outside, the sky has fallen fully into night, and for one brief heartbeat, the apartment feels as still as the darkness in the basement.
I hold on to that hush, pray for my sickness to hold, and wait for Pedro’s name—my sister’s name—to come through the door next.