Page 42 of Iron Roses

The door slams open.

Uncle’s voice slices through the room before I even turn my head.

"Are you housing the Fontanesi daughter?”

Lorenzo steps in behind him, jaw tight. “Uncle, I told you. He isn’t doing any such thing.”

Uncle doesn’t look at him. He shoves Lorenzo aside like brushing off a coat. His steps are heavy, calculated. He moves toward me with the kind of fury that’s been fed.

My gaze remains fixed on the middle distance, somewhere just beyond his shoulder. I know what he looks like. I’ve seen that same red flush in his cheeks since I was a boy, since he stood beside my father and spoke of lineage and purity and order like they were things carved in marble.

“It’s bad enough that one sister has you playing mute,” he snarls. “Bringing another one of them into this house? Unforgivable. Do you hear me?”

I breathe in.

The ache is still there—beneath the skin, buried in the marrow. A pull I can’t ignore. My pulse has shifted, strange and misaligned, like something is happening somewhere else and my body knows before I do.

He’s still talking.

“I am not going to let you destroy everything your father and I labored for.”

His face is red. His jaw clenches like a trap sprung too tight. I turn my head just enough to look at Lorenzo.

The meaning is in my eyes.

Lead him out.

Lorenzo sees it. He’s fluent in my silence. Always has been.

“Uncle,” he starts gently, hands raised in a calming gesture.

But it’s no use.

My uncle straightens his back like he’s in a courtroom. His voice sharpens to a final cut.

“So help me God, if you have that girl here...”

He storms out, bootsteps pounding the floor like punctuation.

The door slams.

Silence spills into the room like water through a crack.

Lorenzo exhales, dragging a hand down his face. “I’ll have the guards drilled. Someone’s feeding him information.”

He hesitates.

His voice drops, the words less certain now.

“But… he isn’t wrong. We can’t keep her here much longer.”

I rise from the desk, breath controlled. My shoulders set back, spine straight.

Lorenzo’s footsteps fade down the hall behind me. I don’t watch him go.

I turn my face away from the door, away from the lingering scent of firewood and fury. I leave the study and walk the familiar corridor toward my room.

She’s there.

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