The Monster's Protégé
AURORA
I’ve known the Romanos since I was eighteen—barely old enough to drink, barely old enough to understand what real power looked like. And yet, even then, I saw it in them. I felt it. Their name didn’t just command fear—it commanded reverence. Years passed, but time with the Romanos wasn’t measured in calendars. It was measured in blood, in loyalty, in the weight of silence between unspoken truths.
The Romano—Viktor, Dominic, Sammy, or even Alessandro Romano, were not the kind of people who wore their hearts on their sleeves. They were tough nuts. But when the matter came to their hearts, they were weak.