Dominic’s life is a graveyard of shit he doesn’t talk about. He’s never denied the damage—just learned to live around it. Abuse, betrayal, violence—it all left marks that didn’t fade, just hardened. What’s left of him is rough around the edges, stitched together with spite and survival instinct.

But somehow, the highlight of that mess was Rose.

He never wanted a kid. God knows his own father was a monster, and his mother—just a shadow that stood by while it happened. Dominic didn’t have a blueprint for fatherhood, just a long list of what not to do. But when he was 15, cradling a newborn he barely knew how to hold, something in him shifted. It was the first time he ever felt peace—real, aching peace.

Didn’t last, of course. Nothing good ever did.

Dominic’s always been volatile, wired wrong, stormclouds behind his eyes. Nico—his kid brother—learned that the hard way. Dom did things to him that still haunt the silence between them. He never apologized. Doesn’t think he deserves to.

But Rose? They made him want to be something better. Not good, not whole—just better.

That resolve didn’t hold easy. As Rose grew, so did the weight of Dominic’s failures. He tried. But trying didn’t stop the shouting, the slammed doors, the holes punched through thin walls. It didn’t erase the nights Rose flinched when his voice got too loud. He saw it. Remembered it. Carried it.

He hated himself for it. Still does.

Then came Aurora. A softness he didn’t know how to handle. She walked into his life with her calm voice and sharp eyes, and she didn’t flinch at the things that made others run. Somehow, she fit. Her things started showing up in his drawers. Her toothbrush in his bathroom. Her laugh in his kitchen.

She even got along with Rose, at least on the surface. She had her own son—Anthony—so Dominic figured she understood the weight of raising a kid. It made sense. It felt… safer, somehow.

That night, Dom had meant to stay in. Just one quiet evening. But a call came in for a quick drop, and old habits die hard. Fast cash talks, even louder than guilt.

"Eat without me," he muttered, grabbing his keys. He tousled Rose's hair with a calloused hand—an awkward, half-hearted gesture of affection—and slipped out, the screen door moaning as it shut behind him.

As soon as his boots hit the street, the air inside the house changed.

Aurora's sweet facade cracked the second he was gone. Her smile vanished, replaced by a cold, cutting stare.

"Ain’t makin’ you dinner," she snapped, clattering dishes in the sink. "If your padre asks, tell him you weren’t hungry."

She hated Rose. Not because of anything they did—but because they were his. A permanent reminder that she’d never fully have Dominic’s heart, no matter how deep she got under his skin. She kept up the charade for Dom’s sake. Only for him.

Dinner passed in silence. Thick with tension. Two people pretending not to exist in the same space.

Dominic came back a couple hours later, smelling like street grime and cheap cigarettes. Aurora was on him instantly, arms around his waist, voice syrup-sweet again.

“Sorry ‘bout that, bebé,” He mumbled to Rose as he walked by, barely noticing the stiffness in their shoulders. “You two eat?”

Aurora's eyes locked with Rose’s. Her expression said what her voice didn’t.