Page 394 of Rosetti Family New York
Matteo's hand slides down my arm, fingers intertwining with mine. The contact is warm, grounding, and I realize I'm trembling. "Easy," he murmurs, so quietly only I can hear. The word is rough, intimate, like a caress against my ear.
Dom takes the package, weighing it in his hands. "From Chase?"
"Not directly. But the message was clear." The informant's eyes dart to me, then quickly away. "He wanted you to know he's serious about getting his niece back."
The world tilts sideways. I know, with absolute certainty, that whatever's in that package is meant to send a message. And I know, with equal certainty, that I don't want to see it.
Dom unwraps the package slowly, deliberately. Inside is a small box, the kind used for jewelry. He opens it, and even from across the room, I can see the dark stain on the velvet interior. The metallic scent I noticed when we first entered seems stronger now, more present, as if violence has always been lurking just beneath this room's polished surface.
"A finger," Dom says, his voice completely flat. "With a message."
He pulls out a small card, reading silently. When he looks up, his eyes find mine. "The message is for you, Isabella. It says 'This is what happens to people who forget their loyalties. Come home before more people get hurt.'"
The room spins around me. My uncle, the man who taught me about art and culture and proper behavior, just sent a severed finger as a message. Just threatened more violence if I don't return to him.
And the worst part? I'm not even surprised. The violence doesn't shock me—I've always known what lurked beneath the surface of our world. What shocks me is the pretense. The way Chase wrapped brutality in silk and called it civilization. At least Matteo never pretended to be anything other than what he is.
Matteo's thumb traces across my knuckles, a gentle touch that anchors me to the present. When I look at him, his eyes are burning with something that looks like fury. Not at me, but for me. At the man who raised me to be naive enough to believe in fairy tales.
"You knew," I whisper. "You knew what kind of man he was."
"I told you," he says, his voice gentle in a way that makes my chest tighten. "I told you he wasn't what you thought."
The informant clears his throat. "There's more. He's been asking questions about the Rosetti operations. Banking, shipping, the legitimate businesses. He's planning something big."
Dom's expression darkens. "What kind of something?"
"I don't know. But he's been meeting with people. Dangerous people. And he's been very specific about wanting his niece back unharmed."
The words hang in the air, heavy with implication. Chase isn't just going to sit back and wait for me to come home. He's going to come for me, and he's going to hurt people in the process.
"Get out," Dom says to the informant. "Same time next week."
The man practically runs from the room, leaving us alone with the silence and the smell of violence. I stare at the box on the table, at the evidence of what my uncle is capable of. At the proof that everything I thought I knew about my life was a lie.
"I need some air," I say, but my voice comes out wrong. Shaky and small.
"Isabella." Matteo's hand tightens on mine, and when I try to pull away, he doesn't let me. "Look at me."
I do, and the expression in his eyes steals my breath. Not pity, not condescension. Something raw and hungry and completely possessive. Like he wants to wrap me up and keep me safe from everything ugly in the world.
"I grew up in a house where people disappeared," I say, not breaking eye contact. "But I never let myself think about where they went."
His jaw clenches, and I can see the muscle jumping under his skin. The careful control he's maintaining is costing him something.
"I told myself they moved away. Found new jobs. Started new lives." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "I was so naive."
"You were a child," he says, his voice rough with something that might be tenderness. "You survived the only way you could."
"By lying to myself." I step closer to him, close enough to see the gold flecks in his eyes, to feel the heat radiating from his skin. "By pretending that the man who raised me wasn't a monster."
His free hand comes up to cup my face, thumb tracing along my cheekbone. The touch is gentle, almost reverent, and it makes something inside me crack open. "He is a monster. But that doesn't mean you are."
The words hit me harder than they should. I stare up at him, at this dangerous man who kidnapped me and has every reason to see me as nothing more than leverage. But the wayhe's looking at me now, like I'm something precious, something worth protecting...
"I don't know who I am anymore," I whisper.
"You're Isabella," he says simply. "You're brilliant and strong and brave enough to stand in a room full of killers without flinching." His thumb moves to trace my bottom lip, and my breath catches. "You're the woman who patched me up when I was bleeding. The woman who worried about me enough to demand to come here today."
