Your Girlfriend Calls Me Daddy

Chapter 176: 177 | V.

The elevator doors closed behind me and I leaned against the wall, letting out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. My phone buzzed again.

Mera: Did you kiss her?

Rome: Maybe.

Mera: That’s a yes. Details when you get home.

Rome: You’re insane.

Mera: You love it.

I did. That was the problem.

Marco waited at the curb with the Mercedes idling. He didn’t ask questions when I climbed in. Good man. The drive back to the penthouse took fifteen minutes through light traffic, and I spent most of it staring out the window at the city lights blurring past.

Aurora wanted time. I could give her that.

The real question was whether I could give her anything else. My life had become a tangle of obligations and relationships and supernatural contracts that made even the simplest decisions feel like chess moves in a game where I couldn’t see all the pieces.

Six heroines claimed. One pending.

The system still hadn’t updated. No notification about Aurora. No quest progress. Just silence.

I wasn’t sure if that meant something or nothing at all.

The penthouse smelled like vanilla and caramel when I walked through the door. Cheon sat curled on the couch with a tablet, scrolling through what looked like academic papers. Mera sprawled across the opposite end with her legs stretched across the cushions, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else as far as I could tell.

"He lives," Mera announced without looking up from her phone.

"Barely."

"That bad?"

"That complicated."

Cheon set down her tablet and studied me with those sharp grey eyes that never missed anything. "You look like someone who needs ice cream and a conversation."

"In that order?"

"Simultaneously."

Mera rolled off the couch with a grace that shouldn’t have been possible and padded toward the kitchen. "I’ll get bowls. You talk."

I dropped onto the couch in the space she’d vacated, the cushions still warm from her body heat. Cheon tucked her feet underneath herself and angled toward me, waiting.

"She’s going to break up with Nolan."

"That’s significant."

"She wants time to figure out what she actually wants. Not pressure. Not expectations. Just space to make her own choice."

"And you gave it to her."

"Yeah."

Cheon’s expression softened. "The old Rome would have pushed."

"The old Rome was an idiot."

"He was." She reached over and touched my knee. "I’m glad you’re not him anymore."

Mera returned with three bowls of ice cream balanced precariously in her hands. She passed them out and dropped into the space between Cheon and me, forcing us both to shift to accommodate her.

"So," she said around a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie dough, "you kissed her but didn’t sleep with her."

"Correct."

"Progress or restraint?"

"Both?"

"Boring." She pointed her spoon at me. "I expected something juicier."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"You’re forgiven. Barely." She leaned against my shoulder, her warmth bleeding through my shirt. "What’s the plan now?"

"Training starts tomorrow at six with Noel. Three weeks until the exhibition match against Century East. If we win, Vanguard gives me whatever contract terms I want. If we lose, I’m stuck negotiating from a weaker position."

"And the Aurora situation?"

"Develops at its own pace."

Cheon nodded approvingly. "That’s the smart play."

"I have those occasionally."

"Rarely," Mera corrected. "Very rarely."

I ate my ice cream and let the domesticity of the moment wash over me. Two women who knew exactly what I was — every inconvenient truth, every calculated decision, every moment where the mask slipped — and they’d chosen to stay anyway. Not because they didn’t understand what that meant. Because they did, and decided the trade was worth making.

The penthouse was starting to feel like an actual home instead of just expensive real estate my father owned. There were parts of their lives scattered throughout the space now. Mera’s collection of vintage jazz records stacked near the sound system. Cheon’s meticulously organized case files claiming half the dining table. The throw blankets neither of them would admit to bringing but both of them used constantly.

A future that was taking shape despite my best efforts to screw it up through sheer momentum and bad habit.

Three weeks.

That’s what I had to prepare for the exhibition match against Century East. Twenty-one days to turn what was currently a functional team into something that could win convincingly enough that Vanguard’s contract negotiations started from a position of strength instead of polite interest.

Three weeks to train alongside Noel without letting whatever was happening between us — the training sessions that ran too long, the conversations that shifted into something else when nobody was watching — complicate the team dynamic in ways that would show during the actual fight.

Three weeks to navigate whatever was developing with Aurora. To give her the space she needed to figure out what she wanted while also making sure she knew I wasn’t going anywhere. The balance between pressure and presence. Between waiting and disappearing entirely.

Three weeks to avoid the NEA’s increasingly persistent attention. They’d sent two follow-up emails since the initial interview request. Each one slightly more insistent than the last. Each one reminding me that "voluntary cooperation" had a shelf life and an expiration date I was approaching faster than I wanted to acknowledge.

No pressure at all.

My phone buzzed against the coffee table. Unknown number. I picked it up and read the message once. Then again, slower, making sure I’d processed it correctly the first time. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

Unknown: Rome. We need to talk about your father. Meet me at the Crimson Lotus tomorrow night. 9 PM. Come alone.

Unknown: This isn’t a threat. This is a warning.

Unknown: V.

I stared at the screen for a long moment, running through the extremely short list of people in my life whose names started with V and who had both my number and a reason to reach out about Vito.

V.

Vivian.

My sister. Half-sister, technically, though I wasn’t sure the distinction mattered to her. The one Cheon had mentioned weeks ago with the kind of tone that suggested I should be taking notes. The one whose relationship with the original Rome had crossed several lines that families weren’t supposed to cross and then kept going anyway. Obsession didn’t cover it. Fixation was closer. The kind that didn’t fade when the object of it changed.

And now she wanted to meet.

About our father.

At a location she’d chosen.

Alone.

"Something wrong?" Cheon asked. She’d noticed the shift in my posture before I’d said anything. Always did.

I passed her the phone without comment.

She read it. Her expression shifted through three distinct stages — recognition, analysis, and finally something that looked uncomfortably close to alarm.

Her expression went cold. "You can’t go alone."

"She said to come alone."

"She also said it wasn’t a threat. People who aren’t threatening you don’t usually specify that they aren’t threatening you."

"Fair point."

Mera leaned over to read the message. Her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. "The sister? The creepy one?"

"That’s the one."

"This has trap written all over it."

"I know."

"You’re going anyway."

"I have to."

Cheon’s jaw tightened. "Why?"

"Because she knows things about my father. About the family. About whatever the hell is actually going on with Angelo Corp that nobody’s telling me." I set my phone down. "And because if I don’t go, she’ll keep escalating until I have no choice."

"We could escalate first," Mera suggested. "I know people."

"No murder."

"Assault?"

"Also no."

"You’re no fun."

Cheon was still frowning. "I don’t like this."

"Neither do I. But I need information, and Vivian might be the only person willing to give it to me."

"Or she might be the person most likely to use it against you."

"Probably both."