Ashley's POV:
The "safehouse" wasn't really a safehouse.It was a normal apartment, pretending too hard to be ordinary.
Second-floor walk-up over a deli that never slept, wallpaper the color of nicotine, a radiator that hissed like it had secrets. My father picked it years ago for one reason: no one looks twice at a family in a run-down New York rental.
We weren't running anymore. We were hiding.Waiting for Roman's temper to cool, for the city to forget our names.
That night I dragged my father up the narrow stairs, his arm slung over my shoulders, his weight dead and warm. The smell of metal clung to him.
"Dad, almost there, okay? Don't pass out on me now."
He grunted, half-conscious. "Door… key."
I fumbled with the ring, hands slick, until the lock finally gave.
Inside, the living room lamp was on. The place was small but lived-in: photos still on the wall, laundry folded on the couch, the kind of domestic clutter that looked safe until you remembered why it existed.
Mom turned from the stove, a wooden spoon in her hand. "Ashley?" Then she saw him. "Oh my God—Arthur!"
She was across the room before I could speak. Daniel came running from the bedroom, eyes wide.
"What happened?"
"He got jumped," I said, out of breath. "Roman's guys… or something worse."
My father tried to wave it off. "It's nothing."
"Nothing?" Mom's voice cracked. "You're bleeding all over my rug!"
He winced as we lowered him onto the couch. "He said his business was with her," he rasped, eyes flicking toward me. "He let me go."
That silence was worse than shouting.
Mom swallowed hard. "Daniel, first-aid kit, now. Ashley, pressure on that wound."
We moved like we'd practiced it before—because we had. Every family drill, every whispered "just in case" paid off in muscle memory.
"No hospitals," Dad muttered. "He'll have eyes there."
Mom didn't argue. Just set her jaw and started stitching. The lamp buzzed softly; the city hummed outside. The normal sounds made it worse.
When it was finally done, Dad slept, pale but breathing. Mom sat beside him, shaking. Daniel watched the window like he expected the night itself to move.
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Two Weeks Later:
The apartment fell into routine. That's what hiding does—it turns terror into habit.
Mom cleaned obsessively. Daniel learned to cook pasta four different ways. Dad kept to the recliner, healing and pretending to read. I tried not to think.
We spoke quietly, even when the windows were shut. The TV stayed low—just enough volume to make the silence less sharp.
And somewhere in the monotony, we started laughing again.
We played cards. We argued about movies. We teased Mom for hoarding canned peaches.Sometimes I'd forget why we were here at all.
One night, Daniel flipped a pancake in the tiny kitchen. "See? Domestic life isn't so bad. No one's shooting at us, and I'm becoming a culinary genius."
Mom smiled. "You burn half of them."
He shrugged. "Artistic choice."
Dad even chuckled, weak but genuine. "He gets it from your side."
We laughed until our ribs hurt. For a minute, the danger felt far away—like a dream that had already ended.
Then: knock, knock, knock.
Three slow, deliberate taps on the door.
Every sound died. Even the pan stopped sizzling.
Daniel froze mid-step. Mom's hand trembled over the counter. Dad's eyes opened, the humor gone. "No one answers."
We waited.
Another knock. Softer. Certain.Then nothing.
My pulse roared in my ears. I moved to the door anyway.
The peephole showed only the dim hallway and the flickering deli sign below.
I unlocked the bolt. Opened the door a crack.
The hallway was deserted. But something was on the doormat — a bouquet of black roses, perfectly arranged. Their petals were so dark they looked wet, as if they'd been painted in shadow.
A card was tucked beneath the white ribbon.
My hand hovered over it.
I shouldn't touch it.
I knew I shouldn't.But I did.
The paper was heavy — that kind of expensive stock you feel before you read.
I opened it.
There was only one sentence.But he'd written it like a secret, as though the ink itself were whispering.
For a moment, I didn't breathe.
The letters blurred. The world tilted. Somewhere behind me, the TV's laughter kicked back in—slow, distorted, looping on the same joke.
I dropped the card. The roses looked blacker than before.
Roman hadn't just found us.He'd been waiting for us to remember I was his....
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Author's Note:
This one's for the girlies who confuse peace with safety and silence with survival 💅
Black Roses came from that scary thought — what if the place you run to feels more like a cage than the man you ran from?
There's laughter in here, yeah.
But it's the kind that trembles right before it cracks.
Think: "domestic horror with a side of emotional Stockholm syndrome."
Anyway, lock your doors, hydrate, and don't accept floral deliveries from your ex. 🌹📦— Yours in chaos,
-Vaanni🖤