Page 462 of Rosetti Family New York
As I take the call, listening to Dom report on increased Torrino activity, I watch her resettle in my chair with her book. Like we didn't just cross a line. Like kissing her hasn't fundamentally altered something in my chest.
Van?" Dom's voice cuts through my distraction. "You listening?"
"Yeah. Increased surveillance. Got it."
When I end the call, she looks up. "Bad news?"
"The Torrinos are escalating. They're researching my background."
She doesn't panic, doesn't ask what that means. Just closes her book and stands.
"What do you need?" she asks, and the question breaks something open in my chest.
Not what should she do. Not how can she stay safe. What do I need.
"I need you to stay close," I admit, the words feeling pulled from somewhere deep.
Her smile could power the city. "Finally. Something we agree on."
She walks past me toward the bedroom, probably to steal another one of my shirts. But she pauses, hand on my arm.
"For what it's worth," she says quietly, "I trust you. Not because you're keeping me safe, but because under all that tactical paranoia, you're a good man who bought me my favorite coffee."
"I didn't—"
"You did." She squeezes my arm. "You also alphabetize hot sauce bottles. Only good people care that much about condiment organization."
She disappears down the hall, leaving me with the phantom feel of her mouth against mine and the terrifying realization that she's right—everything has changed.
The kiss was supposed to be a mistake, a moment of weakness. But standing in my empty apartment that feels less empty with her in it, I know the truth.
I'm going to kiss her again. And again.
Until she realizes she deserves better than a broken soldier who can barely function in the normal world.
Or until I figure out how to be the man she seems to think I already am.
6 - Carmela
My hand trembles against the hidden latch I've just discovered in Van's closet wall.
I should stop. Walk away. Respect his privacy like any decent person would.
Instead, I press harder, and the panel gives way with a soft click.
The room beyond stops my breath entirely.
Leather restraints hang from custom hooks with military precision. A padded bench sits in the center—definitely not for sitting, I realize with a flutter low in my belly. Everything arranged with the same careful control as the rest of Van's life, but this speaks to needs I've felt but never had words for.
My heart hammers as I step inside, barely breathing. The taste of his kiss still lingers—if he hadn't been so in control of himself, who knows what might have happened? The silk restraints are softer than my most expensive lingerie. They smell faintly of leather oil and something else that makes my pulse quicken in ways I'm only beginning to understand.
Good Rosetti princesses don't think about being tied up. Don't wonder what surrender would feel like with someone who sees past the princess facade.
Someone exactly like Van.
The arrangement reminds me of a Mapplethorpe photograph—beauty in the forbidden, art in what others might call deviant. When I imagine these restraints against my wrists, my breathing goes shallow. For the first time in my life, I'm imagining giving up control because I want to, not because someone's taking it from me. The difference feels revolutionary.
Everything here whispers of power exchanged rather than seized. Trust given instead of demanded.
