Page 351 of Rosetti Family New York
"What's yours?" I ask Emilio, nudging him gently.
"Don't—" he starts, but Matteo cuts him off.
"Calculator!" Matteo announces proudly. "Because he analyzes everything to death."
"Better than yours, Magpie," Emilio retorts.
"Magpie?" I repeat, looking at Matteo.
Carmela giggles. "Because he's attracted to anything shiny and can't stop talking."
Matteo flips his coin high, catching it with a flourish. "I own it. Besides, Calculator and Magpie make a great team. The brains and the charm."
"That's new," Gianna murmurs to Salvatore, loud enough for everyone to hear. "They're actually admitting they need each other."
I watch as Emilio and Matteo exchange a look—something has shifted between them, the competitive edge softened into genuine appreciation.
"We had a talk," Emilio says simply. "After what happened with Carmela."
"More like I knocked some sense into him," Matteo corrects, but his tone is affectionate. "Told him being right all the time is exhausting for everyone, especially him."
"And I reminded him that charm without substance is just hot air," Emilio adds.
"Look at my boys," Nonna Toni says proudly. "Nothing like mortal danger to fix sibling rivalry."
The table erupts in laughter, and I find myself joining in, the pain in my shoulder forgotten.
"I've got it," Domenico announces suddenly. "Phoenix."
"To Phoenix," Matteo says, lifting his glass.
Nonna Toni raises her glass, then adds, "And to women who show men why some things are worth fighting for."
As glasses clink around the mahogany table, I feel a fundamental shift. Not just in my relationship with this family, but in my understanding of what I can do when it truly matters.
"To Mara," Emilio says.
The certainty in his voice sends warmth through me, but more than that, it brings a deep satisfaction. This is what I've been fighting for: being part of something bigger, more dangerous, and more lasting than personal desire.
Chase Callahan launched a war tonight. He's about to learn what kind of monsters he's created by threatening what we hold dear.
But that reckoning is for tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate a family bond forged in violence and sealed by choice: as enduring as blood and twice as dangerous.
32
Emilio
The rooftop terrace at Times Square overlooks her morning route. I've been here since 4 AM, surrounded by satellite uplinks, signal boosters, the kind of technology that officially doesn't exist. Every screen, every network, every digital pulse in Manhattan waits for my command.
I live with her, so I know her patterns. She takes the same route to her favorite coffee shop every Tuesday, arriving at 7:47 AM. Creature of habit, even after everything. Especially after everything. She needs routine now, stability, proof that some things don't change after learning Sarah was dead for eight months while she was served lies.
The hack took nine weeks to plan. Not just the technical architecture, but the timing. Every screen in Manhattan synchronized to the millisecond. Government satellites, traffic displays, every smartphone within a fifty-mile radius. The kind of digital coordination that would make intelligence agencies weep with envy.
She thinks I've been working on "family business" these past weeks. Let her think that. The surprise will be worth the deception.
My fingers hover over the custom interface. The final sequence loads with mechanical precision: 847 major displays, 2.3 million smartphones, every Wi-Fi network in a fifty-mile radius. All waiting to carry the message that will either make me the luckiest man alive or confirm I'm completely insane.
Through the scope, I watch her leave the coffee shop. Her burgundy coat flutters in the autumn wind, and her dark hair shines in the morning light. She's stunning enough to stop traffic, dangerous enough to protect her family, and important enough to me that I'm about to break federal laws just to ask her one question.
