All Chapters of Blood Roses And Bullet Vows: Chapter 41 - Chapter 46

The house was quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful. It was the kind of silence that pressed on your chest, like it knew what you were hiding. Like it was waiting for you to remember something you'd rather forget. Matteo was resting in the guest room on the lower floor, heavily bandaged and sedated. Rue was with him, sitting in the corner with a book she wasn’t really reading. She'd been shot too, but Rue had always treated pain like it was a mosquito bite—annoying, but not enough to slow her down. I climbed the stairs slowly, each creak of the wood loud in the stillness. Matteo's family house was old. The walls held secrets, and the air was thick with stories no one had finished telling. I wasn’t even sure why I ended up in his old room. Maybe I was looking for a distraction. Maybe I was trying to remember a version of him before the blood, the war, and the hurt. Maybe I just wanted to feel close to him while I still could. The room was cleaner than I expected. There was a

We didn’t leave the red room right away. Not even after the truth had already torn through every corner like a cold wind. I stayed in the chair for a while, the folder still on my lap. Matteo sat across from me, elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands.Silence wasn’t awkward. It was thick. Sacred, even. Like we were giving each other space to breathe after drowning for too long.I was the one who broke it.“Do you ever think,” I said slowly, “that maybe we’re just... broken in ways we don’t even understand?”Matteo didn’t look up right away. But when he did, there was something raw in his expression. Not pity. Not guilt. Just... something honest.“All the time.”His voice was quiet, but I heard every syllable. It sank deep, stirring something I hadn’t let rise in years.He leaned back, stretching out his legs and staring at the cracked ceiling like it had all the answers.“You want to know who I was before all this?”I nodded.“I was loud,” he said with a small, bitter laugh. “I

There’s something about gunmetal that smells like fear. Not because it’s cold or sharp, but because it holds a story in its weight—of what it’s done, and what it could still do.That’s what I was thinking when Natalia tossed a Glock into my palm like it was nothing more than a hairbrush.“You need to stop flinching,” she said, arms crossed, one brow raised. “Guns are not snakes. They don’t bite unless you make them.”Easy for her to say. She was carved from shadows and forged in war. I still flinched every time the trigger clicked.“Again,” she said.I exhaled and aimed.The bullet missed the center by a lot.Natalia sighed. “You’re thinking too much. Don’t overanalyze it. Feel it. Trust your instincts.”“I don’t think I have any instincts,” I muttered.She stepped closer, too close. Her hands wrapped around mine, correcting my grip. Her voice softened for the first time since training started. “You survived kidnapping, betrayal, and your own heart. You have instincts, Amara. Stop dou