ose POV

The knock on my door wasn’t friendly.
It was sharp, deliberate, like each rap carried a warning.

I froze halfway between the kitchen and the hallway, my pulse kicking up before I even asked, “Who is it?”

A pause. Then a low, familiar voice that curled in my chest like smoke.
“Rose.”

Vicenzo.

The sound of his name in my head was enough to turn my skin cold. I hadn’t seen him in weeks where I’d been trying to breathe without the weight of him on my neck, weeks where ...