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Chapter 139 - You Won't Leave

Author: Dchenemi
last update publish date: 2026-04-29 14:21:08

The door opens.

I don't startle — I hear the handle, I have fast reflexes even horizontal — and I turn my head and Lorenzo is standing in the doorway. He takes in the room. Me, Noir, the general state of the window seat and the clothes that took a detour. His expression doesn't change. Not remotely. But his eyes move over us and there is heat in them, and he lets us see it for exactly one second before his face settles back into itself.

"Apologies," he says, not sounding apologetic. "I knocked.
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  • The Black Rose   EPILOGUE

    ELLIEVittorio was never found.That's the thing I've had to learn to sit with — not the clean ending I spent months building toward, just the absence of him. An empty space where the answer should be. Lorenzo says the exposure is its own punishment, that a man like Vittorio can't breathe in the light, that he's somewhere watching everything he built get taken apart brick by brick and there's nothing he can do about it. I believe him. I also know it doesn't feel finished, and I've stopped pretending it does, because pretending costs more than just admitting the truth.You learn to carry things. That's what no one tells you going in. You don't get over them — you just get stronger than they are, and eventually the weight stops being the first thing you feel when you open your eyes in the morning.Eventually.Elijah died on a Tuesday.Lorenzo told me at the kitchen table, hands flat on the surface, eyes on mine, and I knew before he finished the sentence. Hung himself with his sheets. I

  • The Black Rose   Chapter 139 - You Won't Leave

    The door opens.I don't startle — I hear the handle, I have fast reflexes even horizontal — and I turn my head and Lorenzo is standing in the doorway. He takes in the room. Me, Noir, the general state of the window seat and the clothes that took a detour. His expression doesn't change. Not remotely. But his eyes move over us and there is heat in them, and he lets us see it for exactly one second before his face settles back into itself."Apologies," he says, not sounding apologetic. "I knocked.""You absolutely did not knock," I tell him."I thought about knocking." He leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed, and his eyes go from me to Noir and back again, and the heat in them does another slow pass. "I think it's time we go back to Milan."Noir's hand resumes moving in my hair."When?" I ask."Few days. I want to be settled before we move on the next step with Vittorio." Lorenzo's eyes settle on me. "We've been here long enough.""Okay," I say.He looks at me for a moment l

  • The Black Rose   Chapter 138 - Yeah

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  • The Black Rose   Chapter 137 - I Had You Too

    ELLIE Somewhere around the end of the second week, it starts feeling almost like before. Not fully, none of us are pretending it's fully anything, but there are mornings where I come downstairs and Silas is already in Noir's face about whatever meaningless thing he's decided to care about today, and Lorenzo is at the table with a book, and the coffee is already made, and I stand in the doorway and my chest does this small, quiet thing where it loosens. Just a little. Just enough to breathe differently. We fall back into each other the way you find your footing after a bad fall. Carefully first, testing each step, and then less carefully, and then not at all. Silas engineers reasons to be in whatever room I'm in, which is so transparent it should be annoying and isn't. Noir's hands find my waist when he passes me in the kitchen...this two-second press of warmth that goes as quickly as it comes... and I've stopped pretending it doesn't do things to my pulse. Lorenzo reads beside me i

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    ELLIESomewhere around the end of the second week, it starts feeling almost like before.Not fully, none of us are pretending it's fully anything, but there are mornings where I come downstairs and Silas is already in Noir's face about whatever meaningless thing he's decided to care about today, and Lorenzo is at the table with a book, and the coffee is already made, and I stand in the doorway and my chest does this small, quiet thing where it loosens. Just a little. Just enough to breathe differently.We fall back into each other the way you find your footing after a bad fall. Carefully first, testing each step, and then less carefully, and then not at all. Silas engineers reasons to be in whatever room I'm in, which is so transparent it should be annoying and isn't. Noir's hands find my waist when he passes me in the kitchen...this two-second press of warmth that goes as quickly as it comes... and I've stopped pretending it doesn't do things to my pulse. Lorenzo reads beside me in t

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    The silence that descended after my revelation felt suffocating, pressing down on my chest until I couldn't draw a full breath. It wrapped around my throat like invisible hands, squeezing tighter with each passing second as three pairs of eyes remained fixed on me with expressions I couldn't bear t

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    NOIRThe space between us felt charged, electric, like the air before a lightning strike. Every muscle in my body coiled tight, ready to spring, ready to tear him apart. But I held myself in check, breathing through the rage that threatened to consume me whole.Elijah just stood there, bathed in Gr

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    His fingers around my wrist sent heat racing up my arm, spreading through my chest until I could barely breathe. I stood frozen, caught between wanting to pull away and wanting to—what? Stay? Let him draw me back?"Let go," I whispered, not turning to face him."No." His voice was quiet but firm, t

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    ELLIEThe waiting was the worst part.Noir had been gone for three days—three impossibly long days where every minute stretched into an eternity and every sound made my heart jump into my throat. I'd barely slept, couldn't eat more than a few bites at a time, and spent most of my time staring out w

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