Chapter 11: Run, Little Rose

The train was late. Aaravi stood on the crowded platform in Udaipur, her fingers trembling around the handle of her worn leather bag. Her heart raced, not from fear of being followed — though she was — but from the sheer weight of her decision. She was running. She had left Matteo. Left behind the man who had kissed her like he needed her more than breath, and killed for her like she was his last prayer.

The night before, she’d packed quietly. No tears. Just silence. Her mind was a chaos of heartbreak and determination. She couldn’t survive his world. She didn’t want to become someone who looked in the mirror and saw blood reflected in her eyes. Even if it meant leaving the only man who had ever truly seen her.

Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.

Matteo: You’re making a mistake.

She stared at the screen, the name glowing like a pulse. Her thumb hovered, but she couldn’t bring herself to respond. She turned it off instead. Silence. Stillness. The one thing Matteo’s presence never gave her.

The train shrieked to a stop, and she boarded with the crowd, squeezing into a corner seat beside a window. The city blurred past as the train began to move, and Aaravi leaned her forehead against the glass. The ache inside her chest was unbearable, like something precious had been torn from her.

But this was the only way.

Or so she thought.

---

Matteo stood in the center of his penthouse, hands clenched at his sides, jaw locked tight. He hadn't slept. Hadn't blinked in hours. Aaravi was gone. His men had confirmed she boarded a westbound train with a single bag and a scarf hiding her face. She’d left him.

She ran.

He could still smell her perfume in the sheets. His fists throbbed where they had struck the wall after finding her room empty. That quiet pain — heartbreak — was foreign to him. He had faced betrayal, assassination, war. But not this.

“She’s not safe out there,” he growled.

Nico leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, watching Matteo unravel. “She doesn’t want to be found.”

“I don’t care what she wants. She’s mine, Nico.” The words slipped out in a tone as cold as steel, as cruel as the underworld that made him.

“Then go get her,” Nico said. “But don’t drag her back in chains. If you want her to choose you again, make her believe in the man underneath the devil.”

Matteo didn’t reply. But something dark and determined flickered in his eyes.

---

Aaravi checked into a small guest house near the hills of Mount Abu. Quiet. Remote. Safe. She tried to read, sketch, sleep — but nothing stilled the storm inside her. She missed him. God, she missed him like a part of her body had been severed.

She remembered the way his voice dipped low when he called her rosa piccola — little rose. How his eyes burned when he touched her, how his hands had trembled the first time he’d told her he didn’t want to hurt her.

But he had. Not with fists or fury. With secrets. With his world.

There was a knock on her door. Sharp. Measured.

She froze.

“Aaravi.” A voice on the other side. Calm. Controlled. His voice.

Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t move.

“Aaravi, open the door. Or I will break it.”

Her knees nearly buckled. The handle turned once — then again. The lock held.

“I don’t want to scare you,” he said, softer now. “But I’m not leaving until you look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love me.”

She didn’t answer.

“Aaravi…” his voice cracked then, and that — that — is what broke her.

She opened the door.

And there he was. Disheveled. Exhausted. Beautiful. And ruined.

“I’m sorry,” he said. No pretense. No power. Just a man standing in front of the woman who had broken his heart and still carried his soul.

“I needed to breathe,” she whispered.

“I know,” he replied. “But you didn’t have to run.”

“I didn’t want to be swallowed by your world.”

“And I didn’t want to live in mine without you.”

They stared at each other, the air between them thick with pain and longing. And then she stepped back. Just enough for him to enter. He did. Slowly. Carefully. Like she was sacred ground.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, voice trembling.

“I don’t either,” Matteo whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “But I’ll try. I’ll change what I can. For you.”

Aaravi’s eyes filled with tears. “You can’t change your world.”

“No,” he admitted. “But I can make sure you never bleed for it.”

He kissed her then. Not like a mafia king. Not like a man used to owning. He kissed her like a sinner praying at an altar, terrified she would vanish again.

Her hands slid into his hair, her mouth opening to his, and the fire that had always been between them flared, wild and desperate.

Matteo pulled her close, lifted her into his arms, and carried her to the small bed. There was no silk, no luxury here. Just them. Raw. Broken. Wanting.

He laid her down gently, hovering over her, eyes burning. “Tell me to stop.”

She didn’t.

She pulled him down instead.

Their clothes melted away between kisses. There was no space for words, only gasps and whispered names. Matteo moved with reverence, worshipping every inch of her. Aaravi moaned his name when he entered her — slow, deep, and shaking with restraint.

He thrust inside her with a tenderness that defied his nature, hands gripping her thighs, lips trailing down her throat. Her fingers dug into his back, legs wrapped around him like she could keep him tethered to the Earth.

Their rhythm built, sharp and urgent, bodies rising and falling like waves crashing over years of longing. Aaravi cried out his name, and he followed — with a guttural groan and a final, deep thrust — spilling everything into her like a man who had finally found home.

Afterward, they lay tangled together in the sheets, the storm between them quieted.

“I still don’t know if this is right,” she whispered against his chest.

“Maybe not,” he murmured, brushing her hair back. “But it’s ours.”

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