Page 42 of Rosetti Family New York
“You don’t belong in the world of crime, Eleanor.”
I walk to the small bar, pour myself a drink and lean against the glass wall, watching the club spin and surge beneath us. The music is distant, underwater. Leonardo takes a long pull from his glass, his eyes never leaving mine.
The words sting. They remind me of who I was supposed to be. A good girl with a good education who did good things. Not a criminal. “Neither did you, once.”
The drink freezes halfway to his lips. I’ve struck a nerve. Good. His voice is rough. “You think you know me?”
“I know you’re drinking more than usual.”
He swirls the amber liquid, watching it rise and fall. “Didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t,” I say, but he sees through it. I see it in the way his gaze lingers on me, searching, challenging.
He gets up, moves close, closer than I expected. I can see the pulse in his throat, the heat in his eyes. My own pulse quickens, betrays me, but I keep my voice steady. “You look at me like I’m fragile,” I say. “You’re wrong.”
“Prove it.”
I push off the wall, set the drink on the table. I’m not afraid of him, but there’s a fierceness to him now, a hunger, that makes me pause. I search for a distraction and find one. A white scar cuts across the back of his hand, and I touch it, run my fingers along its length. “This,” I ask, “from being careless?”
He’s silent. Then: “Something like that.”
It’s the first thing he hasn’t told me, the first wall. I can’t let it stand. “And?”
He takes a deep breath, and when he lets it out, the story comes with it. “Got it in school,” he says, like it’s nothing. “I used to be weak.”
I don’t believe him. I can’t. I picture him as a child, small, vulnerable. It doesn’t fit. I try to put the pieces together. “You were bullied?”
He shrugs, and it says more than words. He won’t admit it, but he doesn’t deny it either. “Runt of the family. That plus the family name, made me an easy target.”
“The great Leonardo Rosetti,” I say, half-joking, half-not. “Who’d have guessed.”
“Not so great back then.” His jaw tightens, and there’s anger there, old and brittle, like a bone that never healed. “It got me this,” he says, gesturing to the scar, “and worse. One day, a group of boys jumped me in the locker room. Beat me so bad I thought I’d die.”
I pause, frozen at the horrific image. “What did your father do?”
His laugh is dry, humorless. “Told me if I was weak, I didn’t deserve the Rosetti name.”
I picture it. A smaller, younger version of Leonardo, battered and bruised, lying on a locker room floor. Old Sal doing nothing to help him. My surprise turns sour. It’s not pity, not quite. “But you made yourself strong.”
“Made myself untouchable,” he corrects, his voice sharp, echoing off the glass. “Trained like a fucking prize fighter. So no one could try it again.”
I look at him, really look at him, and I don’t see a man made of iron and rage. I see the boy who thought he’d die in that locker room. I see him flinch, once, then steel himself, waiting for me to say something cruel. Waiting for me to walk away. But I’m still here.
“Even now,” I say, soft but sure, “you’re still fighting.”
Something in him cracks. He closes the distance between us and grips my shoulders, pulls me to him. There’s an urgency to it, a need I haven’t seen before. “Don’t try to fix me, Eleanor.”
I hold his gaze, match his intensity. “Maybe you’re not broken.”
The words hang in the air between us, solid as stone. He cups my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheek, and the touch is possessive, grounding, more real than anything. When he kissesme, it’s not soft. It’s bruising, hungry, like he’s trying to take back control. Like he’s trying to prove something to himself.
I can’t help it. I devour his kiss and his pain and jealousy, and it just stokes the fire within me.
22
Leonardo
Eleanor stands at the range. She’s different here—sharp and focused and almost free. It rattles me. No nerves, no flinching. I lean against the glass weapons case, arms crossed, owning the place but not her. I see her mouth twist into a little smile, just enough to show she knows what she’s doing.
