littlemusexoxo
Roman Davenport once convinced himself he was incapable of love - at least the soft, romantic kind people wrote poetry about. Life had never given him the chance to learn it. Passed from one orphanage to another, he grew up without a place to belong, without anyone to stay for. No home. No family. No one. Just silence - and the darker parts of himself that learned to fill it.
Now, as the feared and carefully composed leader of the underground organisation known as the Brotherhood, Roman lives by one rule: attachments are dangerous. Caring about someone doesn't just weaken you - it puts a target on their back. Caring is a liability, and love...love is reckless. Love is how you lose people.
And Roman Davenport does not survive losing people twice.
Luca Russo has always been easy to love.
Golden, effortless, magnetic. he's the boy everyone knows. The one with the easy laugh, the careless charm, the life full of late nights and louder music. Born into wealth, surrounded by people, adored without question. But none of it quite reaches him anymore.
Because behind the smiles and flashing lights, Luca is unraveling.
A breakup he never really recovered from lingers beneath the surface, and with his family distant and distracted, there's no one around to notice how badly he's slipping. So he keeps going, party after party, night after night, trying to outrun something that never quite lets him go.
Until he crashes into Roman.
Neither of them is looking for love.
One doesn't believe he deserves it.
The other isn't sure it's real anymore.
But somehow, in the quiet moments between guarded glances and half-formed words, they begin to find something softer. Something careful. Something that feels a little like hope.
And maybe, just maybe, the thing they've both been missing their whole lives isn't out of reach.
It's just terrifying enough to hold onto.