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"I'm going to fill you up," he pants, his thrusts becoming erratic. "Going to pump this pussy full of my cum."

"Please," I whisper, still floating in post-orgasmic bliss. "I want it. I want all of you."

With a final deep thrust, he buries himself completely and comes hard, his cock pulsing inside me as he fills me with his release. The warmth spreading inside me triggers another small orgasm, my pussy fluttering around him as we both shake with the intensity.

My strength shows through submission, his healing happens through dominance, and together we've created something deeper than debt or protection or even family obligations. We've created us.

23 - Van

The collar buckle opens with a soft click that sounds like a bone breaking.

My hands shake as I remove the thin black leather from Carmela's throat. The mark that she asked to keep wearing after last night's claiming, and which I hungrily agreed to. Without this, she's just Carmela Rosetti again. Not my sunshine. Not my submissive. Not the woman who chose to embrace her family's darkness alongside mine.

Free.

She sleeps peacefully beside me, dark curls spread across the pillow like silk, untouched by the violence that woke me at 3:52 AM. The nightmare clings like shrapnel. Her strapped to the same blood-soaked table where Valdez died, my hands closing around her throat with surgeon's precision turned to destruction. But this time it felt like prophecy, not memory.

The phantom rope burns erupt across my wrists like fresh wounds, agony so real I can smell the hemp cutting through skin. Cold sweat coats my body, sheets twisted around my legs like restraints. Another night, another vision of the damage I'll inevitably cause.

I study her sleeping face, memorizing the curve of her cheek, the way her lips part slightly in sleep. Twenty-three years old. My fierce baby who's already seen too much blood because of me.

The nightmare wasn't random. It was a warning. After 's blood on my doorstep, after watching Carmela handle the Torrino threats with terrifying competence, my military programming whispers what I've always known. I'm designed to neutralize targets, not protect the women I love. What if I hurt her during a flashback? What if my training kicks in and I see her as a threat?

Part of me wants to chain her to the bed, make it impossible for her to leave. My broken mind whispers instructions for keeping assets secure, for neutralizing escape routes. The fact that I'm thinking about Carmela like a tactical problem proves exactly why she needs to run.

She deserves better than a man who wakes up screaming, who sees violence in his sleep, who will inevitably harm the thing he's trying to protect.

I move through the apartment methodically, erasing evidence like I'm sanitizing a crime scene.

Her coffee cups go into a box. The novels she leaves scattered on every surface. The bright throw pillows that somehow appeared on my couch, bringing color into my sterile space. Each piece of her presence gets packed away systematically.

Taking off her collar felt like ripping out my own heart, but it was necessary surgery. Cut out the infected tissue before it kills us both.

Her clothes hang in my closet like accusations. Soft dresses between my pressed shirts, delicate lingerie mixed with my utilitarian underwear. I fold each piece carefully, packing theminto her suitcase like I'm closing an incision. Clean. Professional. Final.

In the mirror, I recite every way I've already pulled her deeper into the darkness. She chose to stay in Chicago despite the danger. Now she bears the invisible marks of my world. Rope burns on her wrists from last night's session, the knowledge of violence that funds the protection she's learned to wield.

I've made her complicit in what I am.

The trauma between us creates an unbridgeable chasm. My nightmares versus her determination to heal them. I've taught her to find pleasure in restraint, in pain, in surrendering to a man who wakes up violent. She needs to be building a life free from the shadows that consume me, not binding herself to a thirty-five-year-old man broken by war and torture.

Every instinct screams at me to wake her up, to explain, to beg her to stay despite what I am. My hands itch to touch her one more time, to memorize the silk of her skin. But that's exactly the possessive obsession that makes me dangerous.

The note I write is brief, professional:

Carmela—The threat level has escalated beyond acceptable parameters. Your safety requires immediate extraction from Chicago. Your transport back to New York has been arranged through Dom.—Van

I don't sign it with love. Don't acknowledge what we've built together. Clean extraction requires cutting all emotional ties. Ilearned that in the military. Sometimes you have to abandon people to save them.

I text Dom from my secure phone:Threat assessment critical. Multiple Torrino cells still active. Carmela needs immediate extraction.

The response comes too fast:What changed? Thought we had them contained.

The family protective instincts kick in immediately. They'll want details, want to hunt down threats.

I can't tell them the only threat to Carmela is me.

New intelligence suggests coordinated retaliation. Professional assessment: she's not safe in Chicago with current resources.