The cottage comes into view through the trees, exactly as I left it this morning. Too perfect. Too curated. And for a guy like me—raised in the gutters of ancient Rome—fairytales never had a place for me. Maybe that’s why I can’t stop coming back.
Dark windows, climbing roses dormant for the season, stone walls that look like they could weather another century without developing a crack. I pause at the edge of the clearing, listening for any sounds that don’t belong—voices, footsteps, anything that might suggest my luck has run out.
Nothing but wind through the trees and the distant hum of the city.
I approach the cottage carefully, checking the windows for any signs that someone’s been here. Everything looks undisturbed, exactly as I left it. The fruit I moved back to its original position, the dishtowel folded the way I found it. I’ve gotten good at covering my tracks over the past few days, treating this place like the sanctuary it’s become.
And then I notice it.
A keypad. The lock is new.
Brand-new. Shiny. Installed today.
I stop dead.
Someone changed the locks. Someone knew I’d been here. And yet—no cameras. No alarms. No motion sensors. Nothing watching me.
None of this adds up.
My pulse kicks into the old rhythm—assessment, strategy, survival. Two thousand years ago this would’ve meant an ambush, a rival, a trap.
Now it’s just a lock on a cottage I’m not supposed to care about. But my body doesn’t know the difference yet. It braces anyway.
Old soldier. New world. Same reflex.
I step closer, running a fingertip along the smooth metal.
Professionally installed. Clean edges. Perfect fit. Not the kind of job you do unless you’re worried about someone getting inside.
But if they were worried, why not add cameras? Why not call security? Why not post guards?
Because people this wealthy don’t like being watched. They want control, not surveillance. Privacy, not evidence.
I should leave. That would be the Roman move—live to fight another day.
But something stops me.
The trees are silent. The cottage is dark. No movement. No eyes on me.
And a lock like this? I can bypass it in seconds.
Brand-new tech has one weakness—installers almost never change the factory override.
I enter the default master sequence I learned months ago watching a locksmith repair a door in Brooklyn.
A soft click.
The lock disengages. Almost too easy.
I slip inside, letting the darkness swallow me.
The door opens with its usual quiet creak, and I slip inside, immediately hit by that familiar scent of old roses and lemon oil. It’s become more comforting than any place I’ve lived since leaving Missouri. Maybe more comforting than anywhere I’ve lived in my entire life.
I pull out the phone Laura insisted I take—one of those basic models that does calls and texts and not much else—and see three missed messages. All from her, probably checking to make sure I haven’t gotten myself killed or arrested. I hate how relieved I am that she can’t see where I’m standing.
The woman worries like a mother hen. Sweet, sure, but it makes me feel like a kid instead of a man who survived two millennia and the fucking underbelly of Rome.
The first message:How are you settling in? Need anything?
