Page 455 of Rosetti Family New York
My phone buzzes. Dom again. Fourth time this morning.
I let it go to voicemail. The debt gets paid when she's safe, not when it's convenient.
The couple finally leaves, delighted with their purchase, and Carmela turns to adjust something on the wall. The movement makes her dress shift, revealing the elegant line of her throat, the delicate bones of her wrist. She's small—maybe five-foot-three—but she moves like she owns the space.
Twenty-three years old and completely unaware that she's being watched by at least two different parties right now. I've spotted the Torrino surveillance team in the coffee shop across the street, pretending to work on laptops while keeping eyes on the gallery entrance. They're good, but not good enough.
The way she moves through the gallery, confident and relaxed, makes something primitive coil tight in my chest. She thinks she's free. Thinks she's successfully escaped the cage of family protection and can build some normal life among normal people who'll never understand what it means to carry the Rosetti name.
The naivety would be charming if it weren't so potentially fatal.
Another customer enters—middle-aged woman, expensive jewelry, the kind who buys art as investment rather than passion. Carmela's entire demeanor shifts subtly. Still warm, still engaging, but now she's qualifying, assessing, reading the customer's body language like she's been trained in sales since birth.
Probably has been, in a way. Reading people, understanding what they want, giving them just enough to feel satisfied while keeping the upper hand—those are Rosetti survival skills.
Forty-eight hours of hunting her, and I'm starting to understand why Dom was so insistent I find her quickly. It's not just that she's in danger. It's that she's competent enough to get herself into the kind of trouble that ends in blood.
The woman doesn't buy anything, but she takes Carmela's card, promises to return. The moment she's gone, I watch Carmela's shoulders relax slightly, the performance dropping for just a moment. In that unguarded second, she looks young. Vulnerable. Exactly the kind of prey the Torrinos are salivating over.
Something dark and possessive rises in my throat. The same feeling I had in Afghanistan when enemy forces got too close to my medical unit. The same territorial fury that got me through eighteen months of hell—knowing I had people to protect, even if I was failing at it.
But this is different. This isn't about duty or debt or the family that saved my life.
This is about the way she pushes her hair behind her ear when she's concentrating. The way her fingers dance over the keyboard with surprising speed. The way she smiled at that elderly couple like their happiness genuinely mattered to her.
Forty-eight hours, and I've gone from hunting her to wanting to own her.
The realization should disturb me more than it does. I'm thirty-five years old, ex-military, a trauma surgeon who's seen enough blood to drown in. She's twenty-three, sheltered despite her current rebellion, still naive enough to think she can escape her family's world.
The age gap alone should make me back off. The fact that she's Rosetti's sister, that touching her would be a betrayal of the family that saved me, should have me maintaining professional distance.
Instead, I'm standing here imagining what her skin would feel like under my hands. Wondering if she'd fight me when I finally get her alone, or if she'd recognize what I've seen in her eyes through that window—that underneath the brightness, she's drawn to darkness.
My kind of darkness.
The gallery phone rings, and she answers with professional sweetness. The conversation is brief, but I catch the way her face changes when she hangs up. Someone just cancelled an appointment. She makes a note in the computer, then glances toward the window.
Our eyes meet.
For a moment, neither of us moves. She can't possibly recognize me—we've never met, and I've been careful to stay out of direct sight until now. But something passes between us through that glass. Recognition, maybe. Or instinct warning her that the man watching her isn't one of the harmless art patrons she's used to.
She doesn't look away. Doesn't pretend she hasn't seen me. Instead, her chin lifts slightly, a challenge in those green eyes that makes my blood heat.
Brave little princess. She has no idea what she's inviting.
I could wait. Could continue surveillance, report back to Dom, let the family handle their wayward sister with kid gloves and gentle persuasion. That would be the professional thing to do. The smart thing.
But I'm tired of being professional. Tired of watching her from a distance while other predators circle closer. Tired of pretending this is just about repaying a debt.
The Torrino team is getting restless. One of them just made a phone call, probably reporting that she's alone in the gallery, only one elderly security guard in the building. They're weighing their options, deciding if broad daylight is worth the risk.
Time's up.
I move toward the gallery entrance, decision made. Whatever happens next, she's not spending another hour exposed like this.Not while men with bad intentions are watching. Not while she's out here alone, thinking her clever planning is enough to keep her safe.
The bell above the door chimes as I enter. She turns from the computer, professional smile already in place, but I see the exact moment she recognizes danger. The smile doesn't falter, but her body language shifts—weight moving to the balls of her feet, hand drifting toward the letter opener on the desk.
Good instincts. Useless against someone like me, but at least she's not completely oblivious.
