Chapter 7
I returned to the dining room with a question for my father.
“Did you ever lock me in the west training room when I was seven?”
Vincent went still.
Francesca looked at him.
Bianca’s face changed too.
That was enough.
I remembered pieces.
Not the whole night.
Dark wood.
A chair.
My father telling me not to come out until I stopped crying.
I had always treated it like one of those hard family memories adults call discipline because giving it a better name helps everyone sleep.
“Answer me.”
Vincent sighed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You panicked during a family gathering.”
“I was seven.”
“You were being watched.”
“By who?”
“Men who mattered.”
There.
Same structure.
Different child.
Francesca spoke carefully.
“You became stronger afterward.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
She frowned.
“I became quieter.”
Silence.
That distinction hit harder than I expected.
Bianca laughed bitterly.
“You always got softer treatment.”
I turned.
“What happened to you?”
She looked away.
For once, the anger left her face.
“Mom made me eat dinner alone for a week because I lost a fencing match.”
Francesca snapped:
“That is not relevant.”
Bianca looked at her.
“It is now.”
There.
The family pattern opened wider.
Not because my parents loved pain.
Because they believed pain revealed worth.
Children became projects.
Fear became weakness.
Comfort became interference.
By the time we were adults, Bianca and I had adapted differently.
I rejected most of it.
She inherited it.
Mason received it next.
Caleb almost had.
I looked at my parents.
“This ends tonight.”
Francesca rolled her eyes.
“You cannot erase the way this family survives.”
“No.”
I stood.
“But I can decide what survives with it.”
My father watched me carefully.
May you like
For the first time, the fight was no longer about Mason or Caleb.
It was about whether the Romano family needed cruelty to recognize strength.
