Page 497 of Rosetti Family New York
Van stares at me like he's never seen me before. Like he's recognizing something in me that he didn't know existed. Something that matches the darkness in him, something that can play his games and win.
"You have no idea what you're suggesting," he says finally, his voice rough with something that might be fear or arousal or both.
"Don't I?" I smile, and I can feel how the expression must look on my face because his pupils blow wide when he sees it. "I'm a Rosetti, Van. We're very good at owning people who try to manipulate us. And you… you've been very thoroughly caught."
I step back, putting distance between us, and I can see how the loss of my proximity affects him. How his hands reach for me before he forces them to stop.
"So here's what's going to happen," I say, my voice carrying authority I didn't know I possessed. "You're going to figure out whether what you felt for me was real or just professional excellence. And I'm going to figure out whether I want to forgive you or whether I want to keep you."
His breathing is ragged now, and I can see his cock straining against his pants. Can see how my threats are affecting him in ways that probably scare him as much as they scare me.
"And Van?" I pause at the door, looking back at him over my shoulder. "While you're figuring that out, remember that I get to choose whether your debt gets cleared or whether it gets… extended. Indefinitely."
I walk out, leaving him standing there in his restraint room, surrounded by the silk that held me while my world changed, wrestling with the realization that the princess he thought he was protecting has just claimed him more thoroughly than any chains ever could.
The worst part—or maybe the best part—is that my body is still singing with arousal, still wanting him despite everything. Still craving his dominance even as I've just discovered my own power to dominate him right back.
And I think that frightens both of us more than anything else that's happened tonight.
17 - Van
The documents are still scattered across my bed where I threw them after Carmela stormed out, my medical credentials and bank statements looking pathetic in the lamplight. Three hours of staring at the ceiling, replaying her words about extending my debt indefinitely, about choosing whether I get cleared or kept permanently.
The sound of my front door opening makes me bolt upright. Security system didn't trigger—she still has the code I gave her weeks ago.
Carmela appears in my doorway, silhouetted against the hallway light. Her hair is disheveled, makeup smudged like she's been crying. She's still wearing the same clothes from earlier, but something in her posture has changed. The fury that carried her out of here has burned down to something else entirely.
"You're awake," she says, voice hoarse.
"Hard to sleep when someone threatens to own you forever and then disappears." I sit up against the headboard, watching her carefully. "Come to tell me what you've decided about my debt?"
She steps into the room, closing the door behind her. "I've been driving around for hours, thinking."
"Dangerous thing for a Rosetti to do alone at night."
"I had security following me. Three cars." She moves closer, and I can see the exhaustion in her eyes. "I kept thinking about what you said. About knowing exactly what protecting me means. About choosing this."
My jaw clenches, stress response automatic. "And?"
"You were right. I am having a crisis." She sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb the scattered papers. "But not about you following orders."
Something shifts in her expression, vulnerability replacing the cold authority she wore when she walked out earlier.
"I've been thinking about what it means that even my escape led me to someone bound to my family. That even you, Van, even what we have—it all connects back to them." Her voice cracks. "I thought if I got far enough from my family, I could finally be normal. Just a regular girl making regular choices. But I can't escape what I am."
The word 'normal' hangs between us like an accusation. Something cold settles in my chest as I realize what she's thinking. That discovering my debt to Dom has contaminated everything between us, made it just another link in a chain she can't break.
"Being average. Being free." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I'll always be a Rosetti, and everyone around me will always have some connection to that name. Some debt or obligation or history that makes everything… infected."
She stands abruptly, moving to the window, arms wrapped around herself like armor. I can see her reflection in the glass—lost, searching for answers that don't exist.
"I spent two hours in a 24-hour diner, trying to figure out who I am," she continues. "The waitress kept refilling my coffee and giving me these looks like I was having a breakdown over a bad breakup. Which I guess I was, if you count breaking up with my entire identity."
I've handled bullet wounds under fire, but watching this woman have an existential crisis makes my hands unsteady. The phantom ache starts in my wrists, old rope burn scars prickling.
"This epiphany you're having," I say carefully, "what exactly are you concluding?"
"That I can never be ordinary. Never have something real." Her voice cracks on the word 'real.' "These past weeks, I thought maybe I'd found something different with you. Someone who chose me for me, not because of orders or because of some debt to be paid."
