Rosé
“Rosé, you wouldn't last a day out there. The world devours girls like you.”
Her mother's words from that morning still stung, sharp as broken glass. Alessia had a gift for making fears sound like facts.
Curled in her window seat, Rosé pressed her forehead to the cool glass and watched Siena’s terracotta rooftops swallow the dying light. From up here the city looked like a page torn off a fairy tale. Ancient stone buildings leaned together as though sharing secrets. People strolled arm in arm past cafés where wine glasses sparkled on tiny tables. The old fountain in the piazza, the one she'd grown up watching, shimmered in the blue hour. Coins glinted at its bottom like fallen stars. Somewhere in the distance a violin played a slow, sweet tune.
How was this dangerous?
Everyone kept telling her it was. But from her balcony three stories up, it looked gentle. Inviting.
“Still brooding, Piccolina?”
Rosé turned. Her sister stood at their mother's gilt mirror, bracelets chiming as she twisted her wild curls into a bun. Her cherry silk dress clung perfectly, lips painted to match.
Where Rosé was all softness—delicate features, chestnut waves tumbling down her back, eyes green as spring leaves after rain—Gianna was fire: bold, sharp-edged, beautiful in a way that demanded attention and always got it.
“I wasn't brooding.” Rosé tucked a loose strand behind her ear, suddenly feeling childish in her beige cotton top and skirt. “Just... thinking.”
“Dangerous habit.” Gianna slid a silver hairpin into place, her words muffled by the pin still clamped between her lips. “Thinking leads to wanting. And wanting leads to trouble.” She caught Rosé’s eyes in the mirror. “You’re not planning some grand escape, are you?”
Rosé shook her head, eyes drifting back to the moon. “Freedom means nothing if I have to hurt Mama to take it.” Her words were soft, the smile softer, born of dreams long buried.
Gianna didn’t answer. Whether she hadn’t heard or chose to ignore it, Rosé couldn’t tell.
“The moon's gorgeous tonight. Total romance vibes.” Gianna swept mascara over her lashes, one coat, then another, as though each stroke might stretch them into the dramatic length she wished they had.
Why couldn’t her lashes ever just be like his? Stupid Dario. Stupid lashes. She applied another coat.
Rosé scrunched her nose. Romance—all that crying, chasing, and heartbreak she’d seen others endure? No, she wanted no part of it. There were bigger plans: skills to master and a path to carve.
She’d find herself first before finding anyone else. For now, her restless energy went into perfecting pastries and stealing quiet moments with books.
“You going out?”
“Sì. Marina’s. Nothing scandalous.” Gianna capped the mascara and tossed it among the lipsticks and compacts scattered across her vanity. “Dinner, maybe dancing. The usual things girls our age do, you know. And before you ask, Mama already said yes.”
Our age? No, Rosé didn’t know what that meant. Her days spun in a slow loop: helping in the café-bookstore, sliding almond biscotti into the oven, shelving books and sneaking a few upstairs. She rarely served customers. Alessia kept her tucked away from curious eyes. Sundays meant church, where old women still called her bambina though she was nineteen.
She wasn’t part of the “our” in our age. She never had been.
“Besides, I’m twenty-one. Mama can’t keep us both locked away forever.”
Both? Really?
Gianna had freedoms Rosé could only dream of: late nights stretching past midnight, phone calls from boys, weekend getaways she never explained. Mama’s protection worked differently for each daughter, and Rosé didn’t understand why.
“She never says yes to me.” The admission slipped out, carrying more hurt than intended. “I-I don't understand, Gia. What is she so afraid of? What makes the world dangerous for me but not for you?”
Gianna’s hands paused over a string of pearls. Something vulnerable flickered across her face, there and gone so quickly Rosé almost missed it.
“Because you … you’re different,” she said softly. “You’re young and beautiful. The kind of beauty that makes men lose their minds. Mama knows that.” She let out a quick laugh, too airy to be genuine, and began humming Lana Del Rey’s Young and Beautiful.
“And you’re not?”
“I’m not naïve,” Gianna replied, leaning against the vanity, careful not to crease her dress. “That’s the difference. You see the good in everyone, trust without hesitation. You’d welcome a wolf into our home if it smiled and spun a tale about its sick grandmother. You take people at their word, Rosie. But some only pretend.”
“Being kind isn’t the same as being stupid,” Rosé countered, her voice quieter than she meant.
“Isn’t it?” Gianna slipped on her heels, the sound crisp against the wooden floor. “You believe everyone deserves love, that kindness always comes back. You believe in fairytales, Rosie. In things that should exist but don’t always.”
Rosé’s lips curved into a faint, almost defiant smile. “So I’m being punished for having a heart?”
“Protected,” Gianna shot back, her voice firm but her gaze softening as she reached for her burgundy leather clutch—probably a gift from someone with deep pockets. “The world has wolves, and you wouldn’t see them coming. Trust me, you’d hate it out there anyway. Too loud, too crowded, full of sick-humored liars.”
Rosé curled deeper into the window seat, her petite frame nearly swallowed by the cushions. Frustration flickered in her eyes, a quiet rebellion against the suffocating cocoon of love. "Sometimes protection feels like prison."
Gianna didn’t answer right away. She looked at her sister, really looked.
“Don’t think too much about it,” she said at last, her voice sharper. “Just enjoy being the one Mama loves most.”
Was it love, or proof she didn’t trust her at all?
Rosé was almost twenty and had rarely ventured beyond her neighborhood. She could have left—there were moments, fleeting chances to chase the world she so often dreamed of—but she stayed. It wasn’t fear that kept her confined. It was love. Obedience. A stubborn belief that the universe kept meticulous accounts.
Be good, and no harm would come. Sin invites consequence. Rosé learned this young and never forgot.
At nine, she cheated on a Latin test, and the next morning the café’s espresso machine blew. At eleven, she stole an extra roll from the church’s charity basket. That weekend, storms flooded their basement, destroying months of inventory. Worst of all, she skipped mass once to finish a book, and an hour later found her mother collapsed in the kitchen, the doctors calling it a “stress-induced episode.”
Coincidence? Maybe. Rosé took it as divine warning.
So she became careful. Gentle. Obedient. The kind of girl who never tempted fate. If goodness was armor, she wore it faithfully. Not out of fear of the world, but to protect the fragile one her mother had built with devotion.
Rosé sat quietly, watching Gianna get ready, moving like she owned the world. Two years apart was nothing, really, but at times it felt like an ocean. Sometimes she wondered if they were even sisters at all. Gianna looked nothing like her or Mama.
“Are you meeting Dario?” Rosé asked, shifting the subject.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t arrange my life around men’s schedules.” Gianna checked her reflection one final time, adjusting the red silk until it clung perfectly. “How do I look?”
“Like trouble.”
Gianna turned and winked. “That’s because I am. Oh, Rosie, you look adorable when you’re cross.” She strode the room and kissed Rosé’s forehead, leaving a smear of red behind.
“I’m not cross. And I’m definitely not naive.” Rosé pouted, her lips curving into a soft scowl that made her look younger.
Gianna paused, something mischievous flickering in her honey brown eyes. “Actually … I’ve got you something.” She reached under her pillow and pulled out a black leather book, its edges frayed from use. She dropped it into Rosé’s lap. “I’m staying at Marina’s tonight. Maybe tomorrow too. This should keep you company.”
Rosé looked down at the worn volume. Strange symbols were etched into the cover, their meaning elusive.
“What’s it about?” she asked, turning it over in her hands.
“Mystery. Such intricate plotting, it really gets your heart racing.”
“Is it scary?”
“Oh, you’d find it rather… enlightening,” Gianna murmured, stifling a giggle with a slight grin. She started for the door, her heels clicking on the floorboards, then glanced back over her shoulder. “Rosie, just don’t judge too quickly. The best stories reveal themselves slowly.”
Something in her tone made Rosé’s pulse quicken. Before she could ask more, Gianna was gone, leaving only the echo of her heels on the stairs and the faint trace of her perfume behind.
Rosé frowned, then lowered her gaze to the book, studying its dark cover as if it might whisper its secrets. Mystery novels were her weakness, and this one promised to be deliciously thrilling.
Outside, the August evening had settled over the city. Ten o’clock, and the cafes below were beginning to close. The streets had grown quiet and the fountain’s murmur seemed louder.
Rosé placed the book reverently on her nightstand and padded to the bathroom to wash away the lingering vanilla scent from the afternoon’s baking. A quick shower left her skin pink and warm. She slipped into her favorite white nightgown, the one with tiny pearl buttons Gianna always teased her about.
“Why nightgowns instead of pajamas?” her sister would laugh. “You look like you’re waiting for a Victorian suitor.” But nightgowns made Rosé feel elegant, feminine in a way that belonged entirely to her. Didn’t everyone have something like that, a small private choice the world didn’t need to understand?
Rosé propped up her silk pillows, tucked herself into bed, and opened Gianna’s mystery novel, ready to lose herself in its secrets. The pages had yellowed around the borders and gave off that distinctive scent of aged paper.
The first few chapters delivered everything she'd hoped for—fog-shrouded manor, a missing family heirloom, a detective with sharp wit and sharper eyes. She wiggled her toes under the covers, completely absorbed.
But around chapter five, the detective’s focus shifted from clues to the beautiful suspect. The descriptions grew… different. More intimate.
Then chapter seven happened.
“You’ve been lying to me,” he growled, stepping closer until I could feel the heat radiating from his body. His hands traced the curve of my waist, then went lower. “And I think you need to be reminded of what happens to liars.”
Rosé’s thumb froze on the page mid-turn. She blinked, tilting her head like a confused puppy. That's oddly detailed for a mystery novel. She shifted against her pillows, chestnut hair spilling across the bedding.
“Tell me where you’ve hidden it, or I’ll have to make you.” His hand wrapped around my throat while he pulled a gun from his coat pocket.
A gun? For questioning? Maybe this was very… modern detective work, Rosé reasoned.
“Say what you want me to do, Julia.” He pressed the cold barrel between my breasts. My body arched into him.
Rosé’s mouth formed a perfect little ‘o’ of confusion. “Why would Julia arch toward a gun? Shouldn’t she be running? Or calling the police?”
“Please,” I whispered.
“Please what?” he asked, tracing the weapon lower.
“Please put it away and call the proper authorities.” Rosé blurted, nodding sagely.
“I want you to hurt me.” I begged.
“Oh.” The word slipped out, small and breathless. Rosé read the sentence again. Then a third time. She didn’t understand, or maybe she did, and that was worse.
Taking a deep breath—the kind people take before plunging into cold water—Rosé continued, now holding the book a little farther away as if distance might soften the words.
His fingers found my most sensitive spot, circling and teasing. “You’re so wet for me,” he rasped.
“Wet?” Rosé blinked, baffled. “Oh right, Julia fell in the pool in chapter six. But why would she fall in a pool for him?”
Rosé scrunched her nose. Odd clue to bring up during detective work. She turned the page with a small frown of concentration.
“Say you want this.” His lips brushed mine.
“Yes,” I breathed.
“What?” Rosé squeaked, her green eyes enormous. “No, Julia, you don’t want this! That man has a gun. Not flowers. A weapon. Madonna Mia!”
Wait, what does Julia want? Rosé thought, swallowing hard. It definitely isn’t freedom. She paused, nudging the book a bit farther than before, then cautiously began reading again.
His hands were everywhere, claiming territories I’d never known existed. The cold metal is now grazing my inner thigh.
“Was that gazing or grazing?” Rosé squinted at the page like a nearsighted owl. The words blurred together. “Have I gone blind from shock?”
Or maybe she just needed glasses. But every time the thought crossed her mind, another followed right after: “What if I look silly in them?”
She pulled the book back in—close enough to read—though still holding it like it might suddenly bite.
“Oh. Grazing.” Rosé’s cheeks puffed as she let out a soft gasp. “Grazing her thigh? Che schifo. That’s not hygienic.” She pursed her lips in thought. “This book doesn’t feel much like a mystery anymore, does it?”
Still, she kept reading, partly out of disbelief, partly because she had never left a book unfinished in her life.
His eyes never left mine as he raised the hem of my dress and pushed the barrel inside me.
“WHAT?” The book tumbled from Rose's nerveless fingers, landing with a dramatic thud. She scrambled backward until she hit the headboard, both hands flying to her cheeks in absolute horror. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. No sound came for several seconds.
“He… he put a… inside her… a gun?”
Rosé’s legs clamped tight, her gown yanked below her knees, as if the book itself might try her next.
“THAT’S NOT WHERE GUNS GO!” she shrieked through her fingers. “That’s not where anything goes.”
Rosé’s face burned as she stared at the fallen book. It lay beside her like a landmine in a flowerbed—quiet, deceptively harmless, but explosive. That's it. That was enough reading for today.
Appalled, she flopped onto her back, gazing at the delicate plasterwork above, willing her thoughts to flowers, Sunday Mass, her favorite pasta. But her mind circled back, trying to make sense of what she’d read. She couldn’t. The images wouldn’t form in her innocent mind.
How did that thing even fit in there?
Rosé had never abandoned a story, and the restless itch to finish gnawed worse than hunger.
Curiosity finally won. She seized the novel with just her fingertips, as if it might detonate. Soon, she was lying flat again, holding it above her face and squinting through her lashes like she was watching a horror movie.
“What if I read really fast?”
Histonguetracedpatternsacrossmybreastsbeforetakingmynippleintohismouth—
She sped through the words, hoping speed would make the sultry prose less awkward. It didn’t, and in her haste, the book slipped from her hands, smacking her nose. “Ow!” She rubbed the bridge of her stinging nose.
Divine retribution, clearly.
Rosé breathed in slowly, then distracted herself by counting the flowers in the vase. One… two… three… ugh.
But that awful, wonderful, terrible curiosity wouldn’t relent. She sat up, reasoning the story had to improve eventually. All stories had character growth, right?
Right?
Maybe it will get better and Julia will come to her senses.
She skipped two pages, peeking with one eye as if bracing for a gruesome scene.
I cried out as he thrust the gun deeper, my body responding to his ruthlessness. The cold metal felt so good, so right. My core was pulsating—
“Eww!” The book flew across the room, landing on Gianna’s bed with a satisfying thump. “THAT’S NOT GETTING BETTER!” Rosé yelped, trembling. “That’s… oh God.”
Hugging her knees, Rosé rocked slightly, her hair spilling in messy waves around her flushed face. Her pulse pounded relentlessly.
What on earth had she just read? That wasn’t a mystery. Gianna had tricked her.
“Gia reads this stuff?” Rosé murmured, incredulous. She never thought her sister was into such dark fantasies.
Was this what adult romance looked like? The sisters at the convent would faint if they read this. She glanced at the crucifix on the wall, crossing herself frantically.
“Dio santo, Madonna mia, please forgive me for reading such indecency. I didn’t know. I thought it was about solving crimes, not... not committing them. I swear I won’t read another word. I won't!”
Gianna’s suspiciously cheerful recommendation echoed in her mind: “Such intricate plotting, it really gets your heart racing.”
Heart racing indeed.
“Why did I even trust her?” Rosé muttered, burying her face in her hands.
Was she really naive?
