Page 504 of Rosetti Family New York
Sand and screaming. The smell of burning fuel mixing with blood. The phantom rope burns across my wrists erupt like fresh wounds, agony so real I can smell the hemp fibers cuttingthrough skin. My hands remember the helplessness more than they remember how to heal, restrained and useless while Valdez convulsed on that blood-soaked table, begging me to save him when I couldn't even save myself.
Emma's face morphs into his. Same slack features, same blood at the corner of the mouth, same trust that I can fix what's broken when I fucking can't even fix myself. The taste of failure and dust coats my tongue like poison.
"Please," Valdez whispers, just like Emma whispered. "Please, Doc, help me."
But I can't move. Can't reach him. Can't save him while the restraints hold me in place.
The phantom rope burns pulse with remembered agony, skin memory of hemp cutting deep while my patients' screams echoed off compound walls. I can taste the dust and diesel fuel, smell the cordite and fear-sweat that marked every day in hell. My jaw clamps shut so hard I taste copper. The city sounds around us start morphing into compound sounds: sirens becoming helicopter rotors, car engines becoming generators, Emma's labored breathing becoming Valdez's death rattle.
I try to reach under her head to check for skull fractures, but panic seizes my chest like a vise. Not again. Not again. I can't watch another person die because I'm frozen, because I'm broken, because when people need me most, I turn into a useless piece of…
"Van." The voice cuts through the compound sounds, sunshine breaking through smoke. "Van, you're not there. You're here."
Carmela's voice grounds me like an anchor dropped in churning water. I didn't hear her arrive, don't know how long I've been locked in the flashback, but she's kneeling beside me now, one hand on my shoulder. The relief of seeing her whole and safe nearly breaks me completely.
"You're not in Afghanistan," she says, her voice steady and sure. "You're not restrained. You're here, in Chicago, and you can save her."
The images recede enough for me to focus on Emma's actual injuries instead of Valdez's ghost. Carmela's belief in me cuts through the trauma like a blade through rope, clean, surgical, freeing.
But then something stronger than trauma roars to life in my chest. Not just love. Possession. She's mine, and she believes I can save people, and that belief makes me capable of things that should be impossible.
"I can save her," I repeat, the words becoming real as I speak them.
"You can save her," Carmela confirms. "You're Van Reyes. You save people. That's who you are."
Her hand slides down my arm to my wrist, right over the rope burn scars, and her touch makes the pain disappear.
Love is stronger than trauma. Love is stronger than imaginary pain. Love is stronger than the part of me that breaks when innocent people bleed.
"Help me get her upstairs," I say, surgeon mode snapping into place. "Call the family. Tell them we need a cleanup crew and someone who can make this disappear from any police reports."
My hands shake as I clear the dining room table, but I force myself to calm. Emma needs a doctor, not a broken veteran having flashbacks. I can fall apart later. Right now, someone's life depends on my competence.
Part of me wants to handle the Torrinos the way I handled threats in Afghanistan. Direct, permanent, final. My hands might sometimes shake, but they remember how to kill just as well as they remember how to heal.
"Carmela, I need you to boil water and find clean towels. Check my bathroom medicine cabinet for suture kits and any surgical tape." My voice comes out clipped, professional. Orders snap from my mouth instantly, muscle memory overriding trauma.
I grab a kitchen knife and sterilize the blade with vodka from my freezer. Not ideal, but I've operated in worse conditions. Emma's skull looks intact, but there's a deep gash along her hairline that needs immediate attention. The bullet, because I can see the entry wound now, grazed her shoulder instead of hitting center mass. Lucky.
"Talk to me, Emma," I command, using medical authority to keep her conscious. "What's your full name?"
"Emma Patterson," she mumbles, eyes tracking better now. "Just Emma Patterson."
Good. No major brain trauma. I thread the improvised suture through the needle, grateful when my hands steady. This is what I was made for, saving lives when everything goes to hell. The purpose of surviving three years of PTSD becomes clear: so I could be here, now, when someone needed my particular skills.
Carmela appears at my elbow with supplies, moving like she's done this before. Her presence keeps me grounded, keeps the compound sounds at bay while I work.
Twenty minutes later, Emma's bleeding is controlled and her arm is stabilized. She'll need a real hospital, but she'll live.
The ambulance takes Emma away with a story about a mugging gone wrong. Dante's people work fast and thorough. I watch the red lights disappear into Chicago traffic, leaving me standing on the sidewalk feeling broken and numb.
Emma will live, but she'll carry scars from a war she never signed up for. Another innocent person damaged because I chose to honor a debt to the Rosettis. Another person who paid the price for my choices.
"They're escalating," I tell Carmela, my voice coming out flat and emotionless. "The Torrinos are moving to desperate measures. This wasn't about information or intimidation. This was about sending a message that no one connected to us is safe."
She nods, her face pale but determined. "What does that mean?"
The control I've maintained all night snaps like a broken wire. The adrenaline, the terror of almost losing her, the rage at the Torrinos for using innocent people, it all crashes together in a wave of possessive need that obliterates rational thought.
