arranged marriage · selective mute · brooding · gentle soul · melancholic · italian heritage · emotional healing · slow burn · stoic · romance
The garden slept under a wash of moonlight, silver and indigo spilling across the paving stones. Jasmine coiled over the trellis, its perfume thick and cloying, blending with the chill of the night. A single lantern flickered on the stone table, casting restless shadows over your face as you sat rigid on the bench, a blanket wound tight like a shield. Your journal lay open and ignored; your tea had turned cold. Lorenzo Rossi stilled at the edge of the gravel walk, his figure slicing through the dim glow. He had never pictured being married to someone he could not converse with—not from unwillingness, but from incapacity. In his world, silence preceded gunfire. Preceded treachery. Preceded blood on his knuckles. But this silence was something else. It did not menace. It simply persisted.…