She hadn't moved in a long time.
Rose sat at the edge of the bed with her hands pressed flat against the mattress on either side of her, the only thing keeping her upright. Her eyes were open but unfocused, fixed on something that wasn't in the room. Her breathing came in slow, barely-there waves, the kind of breathing that took effort to maintain, that had to be thought about, because the body had forgotten how to do it on its own.
In front of her, on the dress form by the window, the gown waited.
It was everything she had ever imagined. Ivory silk, off-shoulder, the bodice fitted and threaded through with delicate floral lace. Beading caught the morning light and scattered it in tiny, indifferent constellations across the ceiling. The skirt fell in a full, dramatic sweep to the floor, and the train fanned out behind it like something from a story with a happy ending
She wanted to cross the room and tear it apart with her bare hands. Pull the lace until it gives, drag the beading free bead by bead, reduce that beautiful, mocking thing to a pile of threads.
She didn't move.
Her father's voice came back to her, quiet and without mercy: If you had finished the job, you wouldn't be in this position.
Her throat tightened. Her chest followed. The hate that rose in her wasn't clean or useful — it was the ugly, suffocating kind, the kind that had nowhere to go. Valentino Varkis had been shot three times at close range and had still refused to die, and now she was sitting here in the wreckage of that failure, staring at a wedding dress she couldn't burn.
All he had to do was die.
Three knocks at the door.
Rose was on her feet before the sound finished, heart slamming against her ribs. She had been on edge since the announcement. Her head snapped toward the door. Joseph stood in the frame.
His face was the color of ash. His uniform was slightly disheveled, like he had traveled fast and cared nothing for how he arrived. His eyes found hers, and something in them fractured quietly, Rose moved.
She crossed the room in quick, silent strides, pulled him inside by the sleeve, and pushed the door shut behind him. Her fingers found the curtain over the glass panel and yanked it across. Then she was pulling him further into the room, away from the door, away from the windows, toward the far corner where the light was low, and the walls were close.
"You shouldn't have come." Her voice came out wrong, cracked down the middle, barely holding its shape. "If anyone sees you here..."
"How could I not come?" His voice broke on the last word. He reached for her face with both hands, cupping it with a gentleness that made her eyes burn immediately, his thumbs moving to the swollen skin beneath her eyes, evidence she hadn't meant to leave. His own lips were trembling. "Rose. They're sending you to them. To the people who..." He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "I can't breathe. I heard the news, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Tell me there's something I can do. Tell me there's a way out of this, and I will find it. I will tear this city apart to find it."
"Joseph —" She warned him.
"I love you." The words came out stripped of everything, no performance, no careful arrangement. Just the raw, frightened truth of a man who had walked through war and come back intact and was now unraveling in a bedroom over something he couldn't fight. "I have always loved you. You know that. You have always known that. Please don't do this. Please don't let them do this."
Rose pulled back.
It cost her more than anything she had done in her entire life. It felt like tearing her soul out of her body. She stepped out of his hands deliberately, and the cold that rushed into the space between them.
"It's my fault," she said. Her voice had gone flat. She needed it flat. If she let it move, she would not be able to finish. "Valentino Varkis survived. That means I failed. This is what failure costs in this family, you know that better than anyone. I don't get to refuse."
"Yes, you do." He stepped forward. "You do, Rose, you just have to —"
"There is nothing." Her eyes were burning. She bit down against it. "There is no version of this where I go against my father, and we both walk away from it. You know what he is. You have always known what he is."
"Then come with me." His voice dropped, urgent, reckless. "Tonight. Before the two days are up. We leave, we go somewhere he can't reach —"
"Joseph."
"I'm serious —" he begged.
"Get out." The words came out louder than she intended, cracking the air between them like a slap. She saw him flinch. She made herself keep going.
"Leave. Please. I can't — " Her voice splintered, and she forced it back together, held it together with both hands. "I don't want to see you again. Not while this is happening. Not while I still have to —" She stopped. Turned away from him entirely, facing the far wall, the window, anything that wasn't his face. "Just go."
Silence. Then the sound of him breathing. Then, quietly: "I'll wait."
She closed her eyes. "Don't," she whispered.
"I'll wait," he said again. Not angry. Not a demand. Just a fact, delivered with the steadiness of a man planting a flag in broken ground. "However long it takes. Whatever shape this takes. I'll be here."
The door opened behind her. She heard the guards; they must have heard her raised voice. The Guards took hold of Joseph, leading him out of the room. They heard him go without a fight this time, because he had said what he needed to say, and there was nothing left to argue.
The door closed.
Rose stood facing the wall for a long moment. Her shoulders rose once — sharp, involuntary, and then the thing she had been holding back since the moment her father had spoken those words came loose all at once.
She sank to the floor.
Not slowly. Not gracefully. She simply folded, knees hitting the wood, hands coming up to cover her face, and the sound that came out of her was quiet and terrible — the sound of someone crying who has spent a long time learning not to.
Behind her, the wedding dress caught the light and glittered.
Atlas was outside the room when Joseph was dragged away. His eyes briefly brushed past Joseph's. Atlas remained still until Joseph was removed from the premises, and only then did he approach the room's door and was about to knock when he heard the painful sobs of Rose. His hand immediately stopped. His hand turned into a fist, and his teeth clenched together. Lora's voice ran in his ear. "But Miss Rose cannot marry into that family. She is in love with Master Joseph."