Page 490 of Rosetti Family New York
"It's not a cover," I protest. "It's my life."
"It's both," Luca says, and for once, his smile seems almost genuine. "That's the trick, cousin. Being real in a world of masks. Most of us forget which face is ours eventually."
There's something haunted in his words.
"Your gallery work," Marco continues, ignoring Luca's philosophy, "will proceed as planned. But with our security. The Torrinos need to see that touching you means war with Chicago."
"I don't want to start a war," I say quietly.
"Too late," Sofia chirps. "They started it when they walked into your gallery. Now we finish it."
Van squeezes my hand under the table. "You don't have to be part of the violence," he murmurs, low enough that only I hear. "That's what they're for. What I'm for."
I look around the table at my cousins—Marco with his absolute authority, Dante with his silent strength, Sofia with her hidden deadliness, Luca with his unsettling energy. This is my family. Not the one I chose, but the one I was born into. And despite everything, they're here to protect me.
"Okay," I say, sitting straighter. "What do you need from me?"
Marco almost smiles. "Just be yourself. The little girl of the Rosetti family. Let them think you're weak, protected, harmless." His eyes glint. "While we handle the rest."
Dante catches my eye and taps his temple, then points at me. The message is clear: You're smarter than they think.
"The funny thing about sunshine," Luca muses, back to playing with the knife, "is that it looks soft and warm. But get too close to the sun, and it'll burn you alive."
"Poetic," Sofia says dryly. "Did you read that in a fortune cookie?"
"I read it in the eyes of the last man who underestimated our family," Luca responds, and his grin is sharp enough to cut.
The words settle into my bones with a rightness that surprises me. Instead of horror, I find myself holding Luca's gaze, drawn by something dark and magnetic that calls to the shadows I've discovered living inside myself.
Under the table, Van's grip on my hand tightens suddenly, his thumb no longer stroking soothingly but pressing hard against my pulse point. When I glance at him, his stormcloud eyes are fixed on my face with an intensity that makes my breath catch. Not warning—something far more complex. Something that looks almost like hunger.
"Carmela." His voice is rougher than usual, pitched low enough that only I can hear it beneath the restaurant's ambient noise. "Look at me."
I turn toward him fully, and the heat blazing in his expression washes over me like fire. His hypervigilant surgeon's gaze analyses every detail of my reaction—the way I leaned towardLuca's darkness, the genuine fascination in my voice when I asked about making people disappear, the pulse hammering visibly at my throat.
"You have no idea how dangerous you look right now," he murmurs, his words carrying undertones that make my core clench with sudden, desperate need. "Sitting there discussing murder like it's fine wine, your eyes lighting up when he talks about erasing people from existence."
The raw possession in his tone sends liquid fire racing through my veins, because I recognize this side of Van—the controlled dominance that emerges when something threatens what's his, or when I push boundaries he didn't know existed until I crossed them.
"Does that bother you?" I whisper back, suddenly very aware that everyone else at the table has gone quiet, that this moment of electric tension between Van and me is being witnessed by some of the deadliest people in Chicago.
Van's smile is slow, predatory, and completely unlike his usual controlled expressions. "Carmela, love," he says, his surgeon's voice carrying deadly precision that makes my thighs clench together involuntarily, "watching you discover your own capacity for darkness might be the most arousing thing I've ever experienced."
The confession strikes me like lightning, because this is Van admitting that my darkness doesn't scare him—it turns him on. That seeing me fascinated by Luca's lethal capabilities makeshim want to drag me somewhere private and show me exactly what kind of games we could play together.
Around us, I'm dimly aware of my cousins watching this electric exchange with varying degrees of amusement and calculation. But all I can focus on is the way Van's possessive hunger makes me feel simultaneously claimed and free, like he's not trying to contain my newfound steel but celebrate it.
"Sir," I breathe, and the word comes out sounding like a plea.
His grip on my hand becomes almost painful, grounding me to him even as I feel myself pulled between two magnetic forces—Luca's recognition of shared darkness, and Van's appreciation of everything I'm becoming.
"We're leaving," Van says suddenly, his tone carrying absolute authority that brooks no argument. "Now."
The command sends heat spiraling through me, because this is Van as I've never seen him. Not just protective, but hungry in a way that suggests our evening is far from over.
15 - Van
I've been hard for two fucking hours, and it's all because of how she made killers hang on her every word.
