Page 436 of Rosetti Family New York
I walk to the window overlooking the city. Manhattan spreads below, glittering with life even at this hour. Traffic moves through the streets in distant patterns, people living their lives, making choices, taking chances.
While I've been hiding in my apartment for three days, trying to convince myself I need space to think.
What is there to think about? Chase is dead. The Callahan organization is mine to rebuild how I choose. The Rosettis have accepted me as family, not as a trophy or a weakness, but as someone who earned her place through blood and choice.
And Matteo is waiting.
The memory of our last conversation surfaces. His careful words about partnership, about building something together if I wanted it. The way he didn't push, didn't demand, just told me he'd wait for my decision. The patience in his eyes that somehow hurt more than any demand would have.
He's been waiting for me to choose him. Not just accept him or surrender to him, but actively choose him. Choose us.
I think about the woman I was before the kidnapping. Poised. Controlled. So afraid of wanting anything that I convinced myself I was strong. But that woman lived in constant terror, panic attacks when Chase raised his voice, nightmares every night, a life so carefully controlled it wasn't really living at all.
The Rosettis haven't crushed my identity. They've given me permission to become who I always was underneath the fear.
And I've been wasting time.
I'm moving before I fully realize it, grabbing my keys from the kitchen counter, slipping my bare feet into the first shoes I find. I don't stop to get dressed, don't pause to put on makeup or fix my hair.
At my front door, I pause with my hand on the handle. What am I doing? Racing across the city at three in the morning in pajamas to tell a man I love him? The old Isabella would have called this reckless. Impulsive.
But the old Isabella lived in fear.
I turn the handle and step into the hallway. I'm wearing his shirt and sleep shorts and nothing else, and for once, I don't care how I look.
The elevator takes forever. The parking garage is cold against my skin. My hands shake as I start the engine, but it's not fear. It's anticipation. Need. The desperate urgency of someone who's finally stopped lying to herself.
The city blurs past as I drive through empty streets, running red lights and breaking speed limits. The radio plays something soft and meaningless that I barely hear over the sound of my heart hammering. Each mile feels like coming back to life, like blood returning to numb limbs.
I love him. I've loved him since that first night he held me through a nightmare. I've loved him through every moment of stubborn resistance, every attempt to convince myself this was about survival instead of choice.
And I'm done pretending otherwise.
The Rosetti mansion looms ahead, all stone and security and quiet wealth. The guards recognize my car, wave me through without question. My bare legs shake as I walk up the steps, the marble cold beneath my feet.
The house is silent, everyone asleep except the security that moves like shadows through the halls. I pad through familiar corridors, past closed doors and family portraits, my heart racing with each step.
Toward the man who's been patient enough to let me find my way back to him.
His door is partially open, spilling soft light into the hallway. I pause at the threshold, my hand on the cool wood, and watch him through the gap.
Matteo sits on the edge of his king-sized bed, head in his hands, shoulders tense with exhaustion or stress or both. He's shirtless, wearing only black drawstring pants that sit low on his hips. The bedside lamp casts gold across the lean muscle of his back, highlighting old scars and new tension. His auburn hair is disheveled, wild with exhaustion.
He looks like he's been waiting for hours. Days. Like patience is costing him everything.
He looks up as I push the door open, and our eyes meet across the space between us. Those golden eyes that have seen me at my worst and somehow still look at me like I'm something worth treasuring.
For a moment, he just stares. Like he can't quite believe I'm real. Like he's been waiting so long he'd started to think I might never come.
"I love you."
The words fall into the silence between us, steady and sure. No trembling in my voice. No taking them back. Just the truth I've been hiding from for weeks.
His face transforms. Shock gives way to relief so profound it's almost painful to watch. He breathes my name like a prayer, like he's been holding his breath for days and can finally exhale.
He goes completely still, like he's afraid to breathe wrong and shatter the moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough with disbelief and careful hope.
"You love me?"
