Morning arrived at the Romano mansion in a wave of noise well before anyone with sense would have chosen to wake up.

It started with a thud, followed by a giggle, followed by three sets of small feet pounding down the hallway at a volume entirely disproportionate to their size.

Somewhere in the chaos, a door slammed. Then another. Somebody shrieked, whether in delight or outrage was hard to tell from two floors down, and by the time any of the adults had properly opened their eyes, the day had already gotten completely away from them.

Aria, Elian, and Elora had, in the space of a days gone from cautious rivals to something closer to a small, unstoppable unit the kind of alliance children build fast and without warning, forgetting entirely the territorial disputes of the day before.

This morning's chosen activity appeared to be a full-speed lap of the entire ground floor, weaving between furniture, shrieking at intervals for no discernible reason, three small bodies moving with the kind of chaotic, joint purpose only very young children can summon before eight in the morning.

"Slow down!" Kavya's voice carried from somewhere near the kitchen, entirely ignored. Elian rounded the corner first, arms out like an airplane, nearly taking out a side table before Enzo appeared from nowhere and scooped him clean off his feet mid-run. "And where do you think you're going, sir."

"AWAY," Elian announced, wriggling.

"Away from what?"

"FLOM BREAKFAST."

"That seems like a terrible plan, buddy, breakfast is the good part."Elora trailed a few steps behind, considerably calmer than her cousin, though not by much, clutching a stuffed elephant by one ear and narrating something to it under her breath that nobody else could quite make out. Albert appeared behind her, hair still a mess from sleep, looking faintly like a man reconsidering several of his life choices.

Aria brought up the rear, and unlike the other two, she wasn't running toward chaos so much as running away from it straight toward the room where Donato had slept, banging both fists against the door before anyone could stop her.

"Daddy! Daddy, wake up, Elian's being loud!"

"You're also being loud, baby," donato's voice came from inside, muffled, clearly still half-asleep. The door opened a moment later, Donato standing there in rumpled clothes, blinking against the morning light with the particular exhaustion of a man whose vacation from parenting had ended abruptly the second he'd actually become a live-in father again.

Aria launched herself at his legs immediately, and he caught her out of habit more than conscious effort. "What's happening," he mumbled, mostly to himself. "Elian said breakfast is bad and he's running away from it," Aria reported with total seriousness, as though delivering urgent news. "Aria came to tell you."

"That's very responsible of you," Donato said, still not fully awake, carrying her down the hallway toward the noise.

Downstairs, the situation had not improved. Elian had somehow ended up upside down over Enzo's shoulder, still protesting the concept of breakfast at full volume.

while Elora had climbed halfway onto a dining chair and was now attempting to feed her stuffed elephant a piece of toast, entirely unbothered by the commotion around her. Aravi sat at the head of the table sipping her tea with the serene detachment of someone who had, decades ago, decided that mornings like this simply had to be weathered rather than controlled.

"Good morning," Elana said dryly, as Donato and Aria arrived. "As you can see, everything is under control."

"Aunty's lying," Elora informed her elephant solemnly.

The moment Elian was set back on his feet, he spotted Donato and made a beeline straight for him, arms already reaching up. "UNCLE DADA!"

Aria, who had just settled comfortably against her father's side, stiffened immediately, one small hand fisting into the front of Donato's shirt like she was staking a claim before Elian could even finish the sentence. "No," she said, flat and immediate.

Elian stopped short, deeply offended. "I just want a hug."

"You can hug Uncle Enzo. That's my daddy."

"He's my uncle."

"He's still my daddy first."

"I didn't even hug him yet-

"You don't need to."

Enzo, watching this unfold for what was probably the tenth time in one day didn't even bother intervening this time, just leaned over to Kiara, who had finally made it downstairs, tea in hand, looking like she badly needed more sleep than she'd gotten.

"She's not budging on this one," he said, amused. "I've tried explaining shared custody of uncles. She's not interested."

Kiara let out a tired laugh, running a hand through her hair. "She's protective towards her daddy."

"She's possive for donato like you," Enzo said fondly, and scooped Elian back up before the standoff could escalate any further, redirecting him toward the table with the promise of pancakes, which worked instantly and completely, the earlier grievance forgotten the moment syrup entered the conversation.

Aria, satisfied that her territory had been successfully defended, finally let go of Donato's shirt and allowed herself to be set down at the table beside him, immediately launching into an unrelated story about a dream she'd had involving a dog that could apparently talk, entirely unbothered by the fact that nobody had asked.

By the time everyone was actually seated and eating, the chaos had settled into something more manageable--plates being passed, Elora still quietly narrating breakfast to her elephant, Elian recovering rapidly from his earlier outrage now that pancakes were involved, and Aria keeping one small, watchful eye on Donato throughout the entire meal, as though daring anyone else to try their luck.

Once breakfast was done, Kavya and Elana started clearing the table, while Aravi excused herself and disappeared off somewhere with all three kids trailing after her, already promising something involving the garden that had them thoroughly distracted.

Donato, Albert, and Enzo drifted off into a conversation about some business matter, the three of them talking low and quick in the way men do when a decision needs making before the day gets away from them.

Kiara stayed at the table, waiting, tapping her fingers lightly against her cup while the conversation dragged on. After what felt like an hour, Albert finally got up and headed off for the office, and Enzo followed Elana toward their room, leaving Donato and Kiara alone at the table.

Donato stood, and Kiara stood almost at the same moment.

"Let's go," she said.

He stopped, looking at her, confused. "Where?"

"What do you mean, where." Her voice sharpened slightly. "Don't tell me you forgot. Or are you trying to back out of what you said?"

"Kiara, I genuinely don't know what you're talking about."

"You promised me yesterday, Mr. Romano." She said it plainly, like she was reading it back to him. "That today you'd take me to that house."

Donato's face shifted the second it clicked. "Oh-- that. No, Kiara, I didn't forget. I remember exactly what I said."

"So let's go, then."

"Not right now." He held up a hand. "We're going in the evening."

"Why evening, when we could go right now?" She was clearly irritated, arms crossing.

"Because, Mrs. Romano--the name slipped out of him easily, without a second thought, "--your husband actually has work to get through at the office first. Let me get through that, and when I'm back, I'll take you there. I promise."

Kiara felt her face heat up before she'd even registered why. Mrs. Romano. The words landed somewhere strange in her chest, something fluttering that had no business fluttering given how frustrated she was two seconds ago.

And underneath it, for just a flicker, something else stirred--a half-formed image, gone almost as fast as it arrived. Donato, calling her Mrs. Romano. And her, calling him back by some other name--not Donato. Something warmer, something private.

She couldn't hold onto it long enough to make it out clearly, just a passing shimmer at the edge of her mind before it slipped away again.

Donato noticed the sudden change in her expression, the way the irritation had folded into something more distracted.

"What happened?" he asked, watching her carefully.

Kiara blinked, pulling herself back into the moment. "Nothing," she said quickly, a little too quickly, and looked away, still trying to chase the shape of whatever had just passed through her mind. "It's--nothing. Just go. I'll be ready when you get back."

Donato studied her a second longer, clearly not fully convinced, but he didn't push. He'd learned, these past weeks, that pressing her when she pulled back like this rarely got him anywhere she needed to come to things on her own terms, in her own time, and rushing her only seemed to close the door faster.

"Okay." He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. "I'll try not to be too long. If anything comes up before I'm back--he hesitated slightly,--you'll wait for me. Right? You won't try to go on your own."

Kiara crossed her arms, giving him a flat look. "I already agreed to wait for evening. Don't push your luck, Mr. Romano."

Something in the way she said it--clipped, but not unkind, almost teasing despite herself--made the corner of his mouth twitch upward before he could stop it.

"Noted," he said, and left before either of them could examine that small moment too closely.

Kiara stood alone in the dining room for a while after he'd gone, absently turning her teacup in slow circles on the table, still trying to chase the flicker from earlier. She closed her eyes, tried to will it back the way she had with every other fragment these past weeks, but it stayed just out of reach, nothing but a warm, unplaceable impression that he'd once called her something other than her own name, and that she'd liked it.

She gave up eventually and wandered out toward the garden, where Aravi's voice carried faintly from somewhere near the flower beds, followed by three overlapping streams of children's chatter.

She found them crouched around a small patch of soil, Aravi patiently showing all three kids how to plant something, dirt already smeared up both of Aria's arms and a fair amount on Elora's face despite her not having touched the soil directly at all.

"Mama, look." Aria held up a small trowel triumphantly the moment she spotted her. "Aria's planting flowers for Grandma's garden."

"Sweet grandma," Aravi corrected gently, smiling.

"Sweet grandma," Aria repeated without missing a beat, already turning back to the dirt.

Kiara crouched down beside them, letting the morning's noise and the ordinary, uncomplicated joy of watching her daughter dig a hole slightly too deep for any actual flower pull her thoughts away from the house waiting for her that evening the house, and whatever it was finally going to hand back to her once she stood inside it again.

_____

It was somewhere between three and four in the afternoon, and the mansion had settled into a rare kind of quiet. The kids had finally run themselves out and were slumped together on the sofa, half-watching cartoons with the glassy, exhausted stares of children who'd burned through every last bit of morning energy hours ago.

Elana, Kiara, and Kavya sat clustered on the other side of the room, deep in a low, animated conversation about Indian outfits and jewelry--Kavya holding up her phone to show off something she'd apparently ordered weeks ago, Elana making a face at the price, Kiara laughing quietly at whatever Elana had just said.

Aravi sat off to one side, glasses perched low on her nose, flipping through a business magazine with the same unhurried attention she gave most things.

The room had settled into that particular late-afternoon calm-- the murmur of the television, the low hum of women's conversation, nothing louder than the occasional burst of laughter.

Then the front door banged open, hard enough that everyone in the room flinched at once, the kids' heads snapping away from the screen for the first time in an hour.

There, framed in the doorway, stood Sofia Romano--short blonde hair catching the light, loose black Italian dress, sunglasses pushed up into her hair despite there being no sun in the room to justify them, standing exactly like someone who'd just made an entrance and fully intended for everyone to notice.

Aravi, Elana, and Kavya all sat frozen for a second, too stunned to react properly, while the kids just stared, wide-eyed and clearly delighted by this loud, sudden new person who'd interrupted their cartoons. Kiara, on the other hand, offered a small, easy smile--she'd seen this face before, scrolling through Donato's phone that first night in the café, so at least the shock hadn't hit her the same way.

Sofia strolled inside like she owned the place. "Hii, Mom!" Wide grin, arms already halfway open.

Aravi finally shook off the shock. "Sofi. You're here? How-- why --when did you--

"Oh, Mom, yes, I'm here." Sofia waved a hand dismissively, like the details didn't matter much. "I came to meet my nephew and my sister-in-law. You all just left me back in Italy while everyone else got to meet Aria and Kiara--so why not me? I wanted to see them too. So, here I am." She glanced around the room, scanning. "Where's my nephew?"

Her eyes landed on Aria, standing between Elian and Elora, and her whole face lit up. She crossed the room and crouched down in front of her.

"Oh my god. My niece is so beautiful. Just like me." She grinned. "Hi, Aria. I'm Sofia. Your youngest aunt." She extended a hand. "But don't call me aunt, I'm way too young for that. Call me Sofi."

Aria beamed, taking the offered hand immediately. "Hi, Aun-- oops. Sofi." She corrected herself proudly. "I'm Aria. Mama and Dada's daughter. I have green eyes, like Daddy." She squinted at Sofia, gasping suddenly. "Wait--you have green eyes too. Like me and Daddy!"

"I do." Sofia laughed. "But it's not just me, you know. Your grandfather--my daddy--has green eyes too."

"Really? My grandfather has green eyes too?" Aria's whole face lit up further, like she was collecting evidence for some ongoing investigation into her own family tree.

"He does," Sofia confirmed.

"Sofia, did you come alone?" Kavya cut in, curious.

"No, sis I came with them." Sofia gestured back toward the front door with total confidence, then turned to actually look, and her face shifted into confusion. "Wait. Where did everyone go?"

"Everyone who?" Elana asked, equally lost now.

"All of them, Eli. They came with me." Sofia turned back around fully, scanning the empty entryway like the missing people might materialize if she looked hard enough. "Where did they go?"

"We're here, Mr. Romano stepped through the doorway, and behind him followed the rest of the family-- one after another, filing in like they'd all just gotten off the same flight, which, apparently, they had.

Aravi's eyes went wide. "You all left Italy--all of you-- to come here?" She stared, counting faces as they entered, and her breath caught properly when she spotted Enzo's mother among them too.

"Yes, Mom, we're here." Sofia was already back at it, pinching Elian's cheek and pressing a quick kiss to Elora's head before scooping Aria straight up into her arms. "None of us could wait any longer. We wanted to meet Kiara and Aria too." "My nephew is so cute," she said, grinning at Aria.

Aria giggled. "You're cute too, Sofi." They hi-fived, and after that the whole family descended into a proper round of introductions, everyone taking turns greeting Kiara, fussing over Aria, exclaiming over how much she'd grown from the pictures they'd already been sent a dozen times over.

When Aria finally got to her grandfather, the very first thing she noticed -- predictably--was his eyes. "Grandfather, you have green eyes too! Like me, and Daddy, and Sofi!"

Mr. Romano scooped her straight up into his arms, delighted. "No, baby. Your daddy, Sofi, and you-- you all have eyes like me. You all inherited this color from me." He said it with obvious pride, chest puffed slightly.

"There he goes again," Aravi muttered under her breath, "flexing his green eyes like it's some kind of achievement."

"Did you say something, darling?" Mr. Romano raised an eyebrow at her, playful.

"Absolutely not, Mr. Romano," Aravi replied, deadpan, though the corner of her mouth was already twitching.

The whole room burst out laughing, and slowly everyone drifted toward the living room, settling into chairs and onto the sofa, the whole extended family filling the space with noise and warmth in a way the mansion clearly hadn't seen in a long time.

_______

It was six by the time the men made it back from the office-- Enzo, Albert, and Donato-- and all three of them stopped short in the entryway, genuinely stunned to find half their family, people who should very much still have been in Italy, sitting comfortably in the living room like this had all been planned weeks in advance.

"When did you all get here?" Albert asked, already crossing the room to pull his grandmother into a hug. Donato followed suit, embracing his grandfather first, then his own father, while Enzo went straight for his mother, wrapping her up tight.

"We got in this afternoon." Sofia grinned, clearly proud of the surprise. "We figured it'd be more fun not to warn anyone."

"Honestly, I'm glad you all came." Donato looked around at the crowded room, something easy settling into his expression.

"It'll be good for Aria and Kiara, having all of you around for a while. And her birthday's coming up soon too, so the timing's perfect."

Conversation picked back up around him, easy and loud, everyone catching up at once--but Kiara had gone quiet on the edge of it, a low current of anxiety building under her calm expression. She caught Donato's eye across the room and gave a small, deliberate tilt of her head toward the hallway.

He understood immediately, excusing himself the moment he saw her slip toward the kitchen, and followed a few steps behind.

"Yes, sweetheart, what's wrong?" he asked once he reached her.

The word landed somewhere warm in her chest before she could stop it, though she kept her face carefully neutral, arms crossing.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Mr. Romano?" Her tone was clipped, all business. "You were supposed to take me to that house. This evening."

"I know, I know, Mrs. Romano." He held up both hands, placating. "I literally just walked in the door. Let me shower and change first, then we'll go. Okay?"

"Fine." She sighed. "Go get ready quickly. I'll be waiting."

"You're that eager to go?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, I am." Her voice softened slightly, some of the sharpness giving way to something more honest. "I just want to know everything. Living with half a memory is starting to wear on me."

"You'll get all of it back eventually, Kiara. Just don't force it too hard."

"I'm not forcing anything." She shook her head. "It's not my mind pushing for this. It's-- something in my chest. That place is the reason I keep remembering pieces I'd otherwise forgotten. I can feel it."

He watched her for a moment, something soft crossing his face. "Okay. Give me fifteen minutes, I'll shower, change, and come find you."

Kiara nodded, and he turned to go--then stopped.

"What?" she asked, catching the hesitation.

He didn't answer right away. Instead, he crossed back to her, leaned down, and pressed a slow kiss to her forehead.

"You look beautiful in that outfit," he murmured, and was gone before she'd even had the chance to respond, disappearing down the hallway with an ease that suggested he had no idea what he'd just done to her.

Kiara stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen, entirely still, her heart doing something complicated and unfamiliar in her chest.

Why do I go numb every single time he gets close to me, she wondered, one hand rising unconsciously to touch the spot on her forehead where his lips had just been. Why couldn't I even say anything back.

"Idiot," she muttered under her breath, mostly at herself.

But the smile that followed betrayed her completely.

_____

Donato came back downstairs a while later, dressed and freshly changed, and quietly excused himself to the rest of the family, telling them only that he and Kiara had somewhere to be. Nobody pressed for details-- the last few weeks had given the whole family a good sense of when to leave the two of them to their own business.

Kiara, meanwhile, had spent the whole time worrying about Aria. Leaving her behind in a house full of family she'd only just met, even a warm and welcoming one, still tugged at something protective in her.

"Baby," she said, crouching down. "Mama and Daddy are going somewhere for a little while. Do you want to come, or stay here?"

Aria didn't even hesitate. "No, Mama. Aria's staying with Sofi. And Elian and Elora." She glanced over at Sofia with total confidence. "We're going to play football. Sofi said she's a player."

Sofia grinned, already crouched down at the kids' level with a football tucked under one arm like she'd been waiting all day for this exact assignment. "It's true. I played in university. Don't worry, Kia, your daughter is officially under my custody for the evening."

Kiara laughed despite herself, some of the worry easing out of her chest. "Thank you." She kissed Aria's forehead. "Don't cry, okay? Mama and Daddy will be back soon."

"Aria won't cry," she said, already halfway distracted by Elian dribbling the ball past her.

Donato crouched down too, pulling Aria into a quick hug and pressing a kiss to the top of her head, and then he and Kiara made their way out to the car.

The ride was quiet. Kiara sat with her face turned toward the window, watching the city slide by--familiar streets, familiar buildings, yet unfamiliar for her. none of it giving her anything to hold onto. After what felt like a long while, she finally broke the silence.

"How do you know that house?"

Donato's hands tightened slightly on the wheel. "It's mine," he said, hesitation creeping into his voice. "It's my penthouse."

"Oh." She turned back toward the window without another word, and the quiet settled between them again, heavier this time.

About half an hour later, the car pulled up outside a tall building on the edge of the city, somewhere quiet, somewhere that felt removed from the noise of the rest of Rajasthan--clean lines, tinted glass, the kind of building that belonged to money that didn't need to announce itself.

They got out. Kiara stood for a moment looking up at it, something unreadable moving across her face.

Donato led the way inside, and she followed a step behind, through the lobby and into the elevator, which carried them up in silence to the fifteenth floor--his penthouse.

When the doors opened, he paused before stepping out, turning to look at her. "Are you sure you actually want to go in there?"

Kiara met his eyes, steady despite everything churning underneath. "I want to, Mr. Donato."

He held the door for her, and Kiara stepped out into the hallway first, her steps slower now, more deliberate, like some part of her was already bracing for what waited on the other side of the door at the end of it.

Donato unlocked the penthouse and pushed the door open, letting her go in ahead of him. The place was dim, all the lights off, the city glittering faintly through floor-to-ceiling windows on the far wall. It looked lived-in but unused-- clean, kept up by staff, but clearly not a place anyone had actually spent real time in for a long while.

Kiara stood just inside the entrance, not moving, her eyes moving slowly across the space. Nothing came at first. No flash of memory, no wave of recognition. Just an ordinary, elegant apartment, quiet and still.

She took a few steps further in, past the living area, her fingers trailing lightly along the back of a leather sofa she didn't remember sitting on. Donato stayed a few paces behind her, watching carefully, ready to catch her if whatever came next hit too hard.

"This is where you used to stay," she said quietly. Not quite a question.

"Sometimes," he said. "When I needed to be in the city without dragging the whole family with me. Business trips, mostly."

She nodded slowly, still walking, drawn without quite meaning to toward a hallway leading off the main room. Donato's jaw tightened, but he didn't stop her, didn't say anything, just followed.

She stopped outside a closed door at the end of the hall.

Her hand hovered over the handle, and for a moment she just stood there, breathing, something in her chest tightening painfully, like her body already knew what was waiting behind it even before her mind did.

"This one," she said, barely above a whisper.

Donato's voice came out low, careful. "Kiara-

"This is it." She wasn't asking anymore. She turned the handle and pushed the door open.

When she opened the door and stepped inside, nothing dramatic happened. No gasp. No sudden flood of memory washing over her the way it might in a film. It was quieter than that, and somehow worse for it-- just an ordinary room, dim, mostly empty now, furniture rearranged or removed entirely since whatever had happened here.

She walked in slowly, tracing the space with her eyes, trying to place herself inside it. She stopped near the center of the room, standing roughly where she felt, without knowing exactly how she knew, that she'd once stood facing someone. She glanced toward the far wall, where some part of her insisted a table had once sat--a small side table, maybe, something that wasn't there anymore, the space now empty and unremarkable.

But even without it, she felt something heavy settle into the air around her, some residue of what this room had held that furniture and paint couldn't fully erase.

Donato stood in the doorway, watching her carefully, tense.

"Kiara. You don't have to push it. Just let it come naturally, if it's going to come at all."

She didn't answer him. She closed her eyes instead, and did exactly what he'd told her not to do-- she forced it, reaching hard into the space where the memory lived, pressing past the resistance her own mind kept throwing up.

It came all at once this time, and clearly. The scene unfolded from the start, no longer fragmented-- the woman standing across from her, the words exchanged, sharper now, understandable, no longer garbled fragments but actual sentences she could follow.

She watched herself try to reason with the woman first, watched the moment reasoning failed and the confrontation turned physical, watched her own hands close around the gun on the table between them, watched the struggle, felt again the sick, sudden weight of the shot going off.

And this time, the woman's face came into focus. Clear. Whole.

A name surfaced with it-- not just a face anymore, an identity, a person, and once that name arrived, it dragged an entire current of connected memory up behind it, faster than Kiara could process any of it individually.

The name pulled other names with it. Faces. Places. A whole tangled web of who this woman had been, why she'd been in this room, what she'd wanted, and underneath all of it, something else-- the name Kiara herself had once used for Donato, warm and familiar, entirely different from the formal Mr. Romano she'd been calling him for weeks.

It came too fast. Everything at once, no order to any of it, memory crashing into memory until it wasn't information anymore, just pain--sharp, blinding, radiating out from somewhere behind her eyes until she couldn't separate one image from the next.

Donato saw her sway and was already moving. "Kiara stop-Stop forcing yourself--

"I-i she started, and didn't get to finish. Her knees buckled, and Donato caught her just before she hit the floor, her whole body going slack in his arms, unconscious, the room around them silent again except for his own ragged breathing and her name, repeated, panicked, into the empty space where she'd just been standing.

It was well past midnight when Sofia finally retreated to her room, worn out from an entire evening spent chasing three overexcited kids around the garden. Football had somehow evolved into a game of tag, which had somehow evolved into some invented sport with rules only Aria seemed to fully understand, and by the end of it Sofia had genuinely earned every bit of the exhaustion sitting in her shoulders.

She showered, changed into something comfortable, and came back out toweling her hair dry, dropping onto the stool in front of her vanity to get through the rest of her night routine on autopilot -- moisturizer, the hair dryer humming low, half her attention already drifting toward sleep.

That was when she felt it. A shift in the air, the faint sound of the window catch giving way, the curtain stirring where it shouldn't have.

She froze, dryer still running in her hand. "Who's there?" she muttered under her breath, more out of instinct than any real expectation of an answer, already rising off the stool and moving toward the window to check.

She didn't get there. A figure emerged from behind the curtain fast, closing the distance before she'd even registered movement, and grabbed her, pulling her hard against them.

Sofia's footing gave out entirely, the shock of it knocking her balance loose, and both of them went down together onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and fabric.

Her eyes squeezed shut on instinct, breath catching in her throat, and she opened her mouth to scream-- but a hand clamped down over it before any sound could get out, muffling her completely, leaving her pinned and silent, heart hammering against her ribs in the sudden, suffocating dark of her own bedroom.

Any guesses who this mysterious figure is?