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Chapter 96 - Good At
publish date:
2026-03-06 20:55:52
Latest chapter
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
Chapter 134ELLIEIt's raining, and I wish I could say I was used to the weather but it entralls me every time.Singapore does rain like it means it.It is not the polite drizzle of European cities but this full-throated downpour that hits the windows like it has a grievance, and I've been sitting on the window seat in my room for twenty minutes watching it come down when Noir appears in the doorway.He doesn't say anything. He leans his shoulder against the frame and looks at me, and I look back at him, and the rain fills up the silence between us."Hey," I say finally, giving him a small smile to which he returns almost immediately. He's been doing more of that now and it is by far the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."Hey." He pushes off the frame and crosses the room and sits on the window seat across from me, his back against the wall, his long legs stretching out beside mine. He's in a grey t-shirt and he's cut his hair, I've been noticing it for days, the way it sits at his
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
The Black Rose Chapter 136 - I Had You Too
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
The Black Rose Chapter 135 - Guilt
ELLIEThe ceiling is wrong.That's the first thing I register before anything else — before the dull throb at my temple, before the brightness of the room, before the fact that I'm in a bed that isn't mine wearing clothes I don't remember putting on. The ceiling is too high, pale plaster with a thin crack running toward the window, and the window is throwing morning light at an angle that matches no room I've woken up in for the past six months.I sit up too fast and the room tilts violently and my hand flies out to grip the edge of the mattress. That's when I feel the pull at the inside of my elbow.I look down.IV line. Taped to the crook of my arm, running up to a drip stand beside the bed.My heart slams up into my throat so hard I feel it in my teeth.I swing my legs over the side, plant my feet on the floor, stand — the room sways and I grab the drip stand and drag it with me to the door and yank it open, and the two men standing in the hallway spin around fast, hands going to t
The Black Rose Chapter 64 - I've Got You
The apartment was small—a living room that doubled as a dining area, a galley kitchen barely big enough for two people, and two bedrooms off a narrow hallway. But it was clean, thanks to Mrs. Rodriguez who came every three days to tidy up and make sure nothing went bad in the fridge while Dylan was
Last Updated : 2026-03-27The Black Rose Chapter 61 - Fancy
ELLIEI stood in front of my closet, staring at the clothes I'd accumulated during my time at the mansion. Lorenzo left one day and just came back with an entire wardrobe of brand clothes that I couldn't refuse. My hands hovered over different items, but then I remembered—most of my things were s
Last Updated : 2026-03-27The Black Rose Chapter 63 - Shared Apartment
ELLIEThe hospital smelled like antiseptic and death.I'd forgotten that smell, or maybe I'd tried to block it out after spending so much time here when my mother constantly overdosed. But the moment we walked through the automatic doors, it hit me—that clinical, sterile scent that couldn't quite m
Last Updated : 2026-03-27The Black Rose Chapter 59 - Deep, Complicated, Dangerous
ELLIE "Now," Lorenzo said, stepping back. "Show me what Silas taught you about stance." I moved into the defensive position Silas had drilled into me, and Lorenzo circled me like a predator, noting every detail. "Good. But your weight distribution is off." His hands found my hips, adjusting my po
Last Updated : 2026-03-26
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