Page 3 of Unholy Night
His smile is sharp, predatory. "Maybe I like the idea of the crusading lawyer owing me her life. Maybe I'm curious what drove you to risk everything to find this place." He leans closer, and his voice affects me physically, rumbling through places that should not be responding right now. "Or maybe I just wanted to see if you're as stubborn in person as you are in court."
"I'm just trying to do my job."
"Your job." He shakes his head. "Your obsession, you mean. Months of eighteen-hour days, skipping meals, sleeping in your office. Yes, we've been watching you too."
The violation of that makes my skin prickle, but there's something else in his tone. Not mockery. Almost… respect?
"Your family are criminals," I say, meeting his gaze steadily despite my naked vulnerability.
"Alleged criminals," he corrects, moving to absently clean his gun while we talk, a casual display of danger. "Isn't that how the law works? Innocent until proven guilty?" He sets the gun aside. "Though I suppose you've already decided our guilt."
"You can posture about innocence all you want," I say, voice growing stronger as warmth returns to my limbs. "We both know what your family is."
He moves to a bar cart in the corner, pours amber liquid into two glasses. "And yet here you are, prosecutor. At my mercy. Drinking my whiskey." He holds out a glass. "Doctor's orders. It'll help with the warming."
I take it, our fingers brushing. Even that small contact sends an unwelcome jolt through me. The whiskey burns, but it's a good burn, spreading heat through my chest. The taste is expensive, smooth, another detail for my mental file.
"The roads won't be clear for at least three days," he says, settling into a leather chair across from me. "Maybe longer. The county doesn't plow this far up until after the storm passes completely."
"You're telling me I'm your prisoner."
"I'm telling you that you're mine until spring if necessary." The possession in his voice makes me shiver despite the warmth, and I hate how my body responds to that claim. "No one knows you're here. Your car is buried. You have no phone, no weapon, no clothes." He sips his whiskey. "Seems like you should be nicer to the man who saved your life."
"Yours? I'm nobody's." I lift my chin, clinging to defiance. "I'm just temporarily dependent on your hospitality."
"We'll see about that."
I start humming unconsciously. The melody of "Silent Night" fills the space between us. His eyebrows raise slightly, and for just a second, when I hum that carol, something shifts in his expression. Like he remembers being young once, before becoming whatever he is now.
"Christmas carols?"
I stop, embarrassed. "It's December. And Silent Night seems ironically appropriate." I pull the blankets tighter. "You still haven't told me your name. Which Rosetti are you?"
"Does it matter? We're all guilty in your eyes."
"It matters to me."
He studies me for a long moment. "Tomas. The cousin nobody talks about. The one who handles what Dom's too smart to touch and Leo's too hotheaded to manage properly."
Tomas. I've seen the name in financial records, always on the edges, never in the center. The one who handles what others won't. The cleaner. The enforcer.
"You're going to keep me here," I say. It's not a question.
"The storm is keeping you here," he corrects. "I'm just providing hospitality. Though you should know, lawyers who get too close to my family usually disappear. You're lucky it's me you found and not someone less… philosophical about the value of life."
"Forced hospitality."
"Better than frozen death." He stands, finishes his whiskey in one swallow. "There's one bedroom that's usable. The others are under construction. You'll take it. I'll take the couch."
"How gentlemanly for a kidnapper."
His smile is all edges. "I'm not kidnapping you, prosecutor. Nature is. But make no mistake. You walked into my territory. You're under my roof. That makes you mine to protect or not, until those roads clear. In my family's world, possession is more than law. It's everything."
The weight of that statement settles over me like another blanket. Mine. Not the family's. His.
"And then?" I ask.
"Then you go back to your crusade, and I go back to my exile." Something flickers in his eyes. Pain? Anger? "Unless you freeze to death trying to escape before then. Your choice."
