Blood Memory (The Rosetti Family Chicago #5)

Chapter 1 - Sofia

The Chanel clutch weighs exactly three ounces more than it should, and I love it.

Standing alone on the Museum steps, I adjust the cream silk of my Valentino dress one final time.

The August afternoon air tastes of coming rain, carrying the distant sound of champagne laughter from inside, where Chicago's elite continue their charity charade without me.

Three weeks since Emma took a bullet meant for Alessandro.

Three weeks of planning while she healed, while I perfected this moment.

My driver waited exactly as long as I told him to—ten minutes after I dismissed him with a smile and assurance that I'd catch a ride with my brothers.

My brothers who left an hour ago.

The blade hidden in my clutch's lining presses against my palm, a comfort more intimate than any lover's touch. The electronic lockpicks nestle beside it, tools of a trade my family doesn't know I've mastered. In the Rosetti family, we all keep our secrets close and our weapons closer.

I descend two steps, my heels clicking against marble in deliberate rhythm.

The silk of my dress whispers against my skin with each movement, a sensual counterpoint to the weapons hidden beneath.

The sound echoes across the empty plaza, a dinner bell for the predators I know are watching.

Three weeks of leaving strategic gaps in my security.

Three weeks of mysterious headaches that sent me outside for air at precisely the wrong moments.

Three weeks of being the perfect, vulnerable prey.

All leading to this moment, alone in a designer gown, practically gift-wrapped for the taking.

My pulse stays steady at sixty-four beats per minute.

I've trained for this. Not the kidnapping itself—that's just theater.

I've trained for what comes after. For walking into the den of the man who wants me dead and finding out why I dream his brother's name.

The nightmare fragments claw at the edges of my consciousness—why do I know Russian lullabies? Why does this feel like coming home?

The wind shifts, bringing the scent of expensive cologne.

They're here.

Three shadows emerge from behind the museum's ornate columns, moving with fluid precision. They don't run or shout or wave weapons. They simply appear, cutting off my paths of retreat with an economy of motion that would be beautiful if it weren't meant to be terrifying.

"Miss Rosetti." The lead man's voice carries a faint Russian accent, polished but present. "Mr. Volkov requests your company."

I let my hand tighten on my clutch—not enough to reach for the blade, just enough to sell the fear I should be feeling. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced."

"We haven't." He steps closer, and my trained eye catches the telltale bulge of his shoulder holster, but it's the stilted grace of his movements that snags my attention. Old injury in his right leg, probably. "But Mr. Volkov has been wanting to make your acquaintance for some time."

My steady pulse betrays nothing of the satisfaction coursing through me. Finally. After weeks of careful planning, the trap I set for myself is springing shut.

"And if I decline his request?"

The man's smile is almost apologetic. "Then we'll have to insist."

I glance between the three of them, noting positions, calculating angles of attack I have no intention of using. The black SUV idles at the curb, its door already open like a mouth waiting to swallow me whole.

"Well," I say, letting a tremor enter my voice that's only half-false. "When you put it that way."

I walk toward the car with my chin high, every inch the Rosetti princess too proud to be dragged. The men fall into formation around me, close enough to grab me if I run, far enough apart that I couldn't take all three even if I tried.

Which I won't. Because this is exactly what I wanted.

"You can get in yourself, or Boris here can help you." The lead soldier gestures to the open door. "Mr. Volkov prefers willing compliance, but he'll accept other arrangements."

Before I can respond, another voice cuts through the night air. Soft, measured, and somehow more dangerous than any shout.

"That won't be necessary."

Alexei Volkov steps from behind the SUV like he's been there all along, and my carefully maintained composure cracks just slightly.

His pale eyes catch the fading afternoon light, turning them the color of winter ice.

He's exactly as I remember from when I last saw him, standing in my own dining room, threatening my family.

Because of me. Tall, lean, moving with the reined-in grace of a predator who's never needed to hurry because the prey never escapes.

"Sofiya Rozetti," he says in Russian—София Розетти—and hearing my name in that language from his lips sends an unexpected shiver down my spine. "Printsessa."

Princess. The word should sound mocking, but there's something else in it. Something that makes my chest tight.

He circles me slowly, close enough that I can smell his cologne—dark, with notes of amber and smoke.

When he passes behind me, his breath stirs the hair at my nape, and I hate that my body recognizes him—some cellular memory that predates conscious thought.

My traitorous body responds to his proximity—pulse jumping despite my control, skin heating beneath the fabric.

"You know," he says conversationally, still circling, "I expected more fear. Tears, perhaps. Certainly more than this… calm."

"Would tears change anything?"

"No." He stops directly in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. "But they would be normal. And you, Miss Rosetti, are being decidedly abnormal."

His finger comes up, not quite touching my cheek, tracing the air beside my face.

The almost-touch sends electricity skittering across my skin.

"Your brother's fake wife, Emma, screamed when she was shot.

A very normal reaction to bullets tearing through flesh.

But you… you didn't even flinch when my men surrounded you. "

Emma's scream echoes in my memory—the sound she made when the bullet tore through her shoulder, the blood spreading across her white dress like spilled wine. My fault. Always my fault. Guilt floods through me, sharp and sudden, a familiar companion these past three weeks.

"Emma survived," I say, voice steadier than I feel.

"This time." His pale eyes study me with an intensity that makes me want to step back. I don't. "But how many more will suffer for your sins? How much more blood needs to be spilled before the debt is paid?"

I meet his gaze directly, letting him see something real in my eyes—not fear, but understanding. "Panic rarely improves any situation, Mr. Volkov."

Something flickers across his face. Surprise, maybe, or respect. "No," he agrees softly, "it rarely does."

The moment stretches between us, charged with something I refuse to name. Then he steps back, gesturing to the car with mock gallantry.

"Shall we, printsessa?"

I could run. Even now, even surrounded, I could probably make it back to the museum before they caught me. One scream would bring security. One phone call would have my brothers here in minutes with enough firepower to level a city block.

But I don't run. I don't scream.

I choose to walk to the SUV, each step deliberate and voluntary.

The leather creaks as I slide in. Underneath the new-car smell, something faintly metallic.

I don't let myself think about it. I slide across them like I'm settling into a limousine after a gala, not entering my enemy's vehicle by choice.

The voluntary nature of my movements clearly unsettles Alexei's men—I see them exchange glances, confusion written in the set of their shoulders.

Alexei enters after me, sitting close enough that our knees almost touch. The door closes with a sound like finality, and the driver pulls away from the curb.

We pass through familiar Chicago streets that look different from behind tinted windows—Michigan Avenue's glittering storefronts giving way to darker territories.

I know these routes. I've killed in some of these alleys, left bodies in dumpsters behind these warehouses. But tonight I'm not the hunter.

Tonight I'm choosing to be prey.

"You're not what I expected," Alexei says, his voice barely above a whisper.

I turn to look at him, finding those pale eyes already on me. "What did you expect?"

"Someone softer. More breakable." His gaze drops to my hands, still folded perfectly over my clutch. "Someone whose pulse would be racing."

He can't feel my pulse from there, but somehow he knows it's steady. Just like somehow I know he's not going to kill me. Not yet. There's something between us, electric and unnameable, that makes this feel more like a dance than a kidnapping.

A ghost of something crosses his face—surprise, maybe, or the beginning of respect. "Rosetti training," he murmurs, almost to himself. "They raise their women cold."

Let him think that. Let him think my family made me this way, that I'm simply performing the role of untouchable mafia princess. It's easier than the truth.

"I've met your brothers," he continues, still studying me. "Marco, who kills without expression. Dante, who signs death warrants between kisses to his wife. I expected their sister to be… protected."

"Protected doesn't mean weak."

"No," he agrees, and there's something new in his voice now. Interest. "It doesn't."

The silence that follows feels less like a threat and more like an assessment. I've surprised him, and he's recalculating. Good. The longer he underestimates why I'm really here, the longer I have to find my answers.

The compound gates loom ahead, industrial and forbidding. As we approach, I feel the weight of my choice settling over me. Once those gates close, there's no going back. No escape. No rescue. Just me and the monsters I've chosen to face.

The gates close behind us with the mechanical precision of a tomb door sealing, and despite everything, I feel more alive than I have in years.

Alexei is studying me again, those pale eyes calculating something I can't quite read. The leather seats creak as he shifts, angling his body toward mine in a way that should feel threatening but instead feels like recognition.

"Most women would be bargaining by now," he says. "Begging. Offering things in exchange for their freedom."

"I'm not most women."

"No." His gaze traces my face like he's trying to read a language he almost recognizes. "You're not."

The silence stretches between us, charged and dangerous. I can feel him trying to solve me, to fit me into a category that makes sense. Brave hostage. Broken princess. Someone with a death wish. I let him wonder.

"You're either very stupid," he says finally.

I meet his eyes. "Maybe I'm just tired of being afraid."

Something flickers across his face—not belief, exactly, but acceptance of a plausible answer. He settles back against the leather, but I catch the way his fingers tap against his thigh. Restless. Uncertain.

Good. Let him think I'm reckless. Let him think guilt over my actions almost getting Emma killed made me numb. Let him think anything except the truth.

My fingers find the clasp of my clutch, feeling the hidden weapons beneath designer leather.

Tools I probably won't need, but their presence grounds me.

Just like the memories that haunt my sleep ground me—fragments of Russian lullabies, the taste of black tea with jam, a boy's laughter echoing through marble halls.

The nightmares always end the same way: with blood and screaming and a child's voice calling for his sister. But maybe here, in this compound that smells like danger and secrets, I'll finally learn how they began.

The SUV slows, and through the windshield I watch the main building grow larger. It's a fortress disguised as a mansion, all clean lines and bulletproof glass.

"Everyone wants something, Mr. Volkov," I say, breaking the silence. "Even hostages."

"And what is it you want, kotyonok?" The endearment slips out, and I see him catch himself, jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.

The truth burns on my tongue: I want to know why I dream in Russian. I want to know why a silver bracelet with half a heart makes me cry. I want to know why your brother's name feels like a prayer and a curse wrapped in guilt I can't explain.

Instead, I give him a different truth: "I want freedom."

His laugh is soft and humorless. "Freedom comes with a price."

"Everything does."

The SUV stops, and I know this is it—my last chance to reveal this as the trap it is, to signal the men my family certainly has watching, to end this charade. The moment feels heavier than it should, like stepping off a cliff's edge knowing you can't fly.

I reach for the door handle myself, stepping out into the Chicago night that suddenly feels full of possibility instead of peril. The compound stretches before me, and somewhere inside are the answers I've been seeking for eleven years.

Behind me, I hear Alexei exit the vehicle, his footsteps deliberate on the gravel.

"Welcome to your cage, Sofiya Rozetti," he says.

The way he says cage makes it sound like a promise rather than a threat.

But cages only hold things that want to escape.

And I'm exactly where I want to be.