The house was too quiet.

Not the kind of silence Enzo valued — ordered, controlled, deliberate — but something unfamiliar, something that felt… altered.

He paused at the foot of the staircase, his gaze lifting slowly as if the walls themselves might explain the shift. Everything was in place. Nothing was out of order. And yet, something had changed.

A faint sound reached him then — soft, uneven… a child’s voice.

Rose.

But she wasn’t alone.

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly as he moved toward the source, each step measured, restrained. He did not rush. He never rushed. Control, after all, was not something he allowed himself to lose — not anymore.

The door to her room stood slightly open.

He stopped just before it.

For a brief moment, he said nothing, did nothing — only listened.

A voice answered Rose’s — softer, familiar in a way that did not belong to the present.

That was enough.

He pushed the door open.

Rose was sitting on the floor, her small hands clutching tightly onto Guest, as if afraid she might disappear again. Her face was lit with something rare — relief, fragile and overwhelming.

"You came back…"

she whispered.

Enzo’s gaze settled on Guest.

It did not waver.

Whatever flicker of recognition crossed his eyes vanished almost instantly, replaced by something colder, more familiar — distance, restraint, authority.

"I see," he said at last, his voice even, controlled to the point of detachment.

He stepped fully into the room.

"You’ve decided to ignore my boundaries."

Rose’s grip tightened.

The silence that followed was no longer empty. It was heavy — charged with everything that had not been said, and everything that had been deliberately left unresolved.

And Enzo, as always, chose control over confrontation.

"Let go of her, Rose,"

he added quietly.

But the child did not move.