Chapter 24
The threat level has escalated beyond acceptable parameters. Your safety requires immediate extraction from Chicago. Your transport back to New York has been arranged through Dom.
The note crumples in my fist as Van's clinical words destroy everything I thought we'd built together. My hands shake with a fury I've never felt before. Not the quick flash of teenage rebellion, but something deeper. Something that makes my pulse race and my vision sharpen instead of blur.
Clinical. Professional. Like I'm a medical chart instead of the woman who knows exactly what sounds he makes when he comes.
I stand in my childhood bedroom in the Rosetti mansion, surrounded by the familiar luxury that once meant safety.
Now every detail feels like another bar in an elaborate cage.
The floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook manicured grounds, the marble floors that echo with decades of family power, the abstract art worth millions that says nothing about the people who live here.
The private jet that brought me back from Chicago sits on the tarmac somewhere, its leather seats still warm from my body. No commercial flight, no paper trail—just the Rosetti machine extracting their sister from danger. I'm basically an expensive painting being shipped back to storage.
The freedom I tasted in those brief moments of independence in Chicago has been stolen from me before I could fully grasp it.
Making coffee in Van's sterile Lincoln Park apartment, walking to work at the gallery without guards shadowing my steps, choosing my own clothes without considering which designer name would reflect best on the family.
I was happier there. That realization stings worse than his abandonment.
The security measures that once made me feel protected now suffocate.
Every guard stationed in the hallways, every camera monitoring the grounds, every protocol designed to keep threats out also keeps me in.
I pace across marble that's witnessed three generations of Rosetti women learning their place—beautiful, protected, controlled.
But this time it cuts deeper because Van knows exactly who I am.
He's always known about the operations, the territories, the violence that funds our protected world.
He told me so himself in that concrete room where he kept his darkest needs.
Yet he still treats me like I'm too fragile for the reality we both acknowledge.
He made this decision FOR me, not WITH me. Used his thirty-five years of experience to override my twenty-three-year-old choices, just like every other man who thinks age equals authority over my life. Sent me back to this gilded prison where my brothers can keep me safe and useless.
The Manhattan skyline glitters beyond my windows, a view that costs more than most people make in a lifetime. But all I can think about is his apartment with its hidden room, his hands that heal and hurt with equal precision, the way he looked at me like I was both precious and dangerous.
Now I'm back where I started. Carmela Rosetti, youngest child, only daughter, family treasure to be guarded and displayed but never trusted with anything real.
Except I'm not the same girl who left three months ago. That girl wouldn't have recognized the rage burning in my chest, wouldn't have understood how fury could feel like power instead of weakness.
Van taught me that. Among other things.
Dom arrives within the hour, his face carrying that particular Rosetti strength that makes grown men confess secrets. He settles behind the massive oak desk that's seen three generations of family business, but his usual calculated control shows cracks.
"Van Reyes made a unilateral decision about family business without consultation," he says, his voice quieter than usual, which means he's furious. "After everything we've invested in him, after clearing his debt by protecting you, he thinks he can decide what's best for my sister?"
The reminder hangs heavy between us. Van's debt was supposed to be settled, his slate clean. But instead of embracing that freedom to choose us, he's chosen to walk away. Exactly what he said he was prepared to do to prove his love was real. Except he left without me.
"No one dismisses a Rosetti woman without family approval," Dom continues, ice in his tone. "Not even someone I pulled out of an Afghan torture compound. His presumption crossed every line of hierarchy and tradition."
I sink into the leather chair across from him, processing this new perspective. Van's decision wasn't just about protecting me. It was a rejection of our entire family's authority after we'd given him freedom to choose.
"He thinks he's protecting me FROM our family," I say slowly, understanding dawning. "Instead of WITH our family."
Dom's smile is sharp. "Exactly. And that's a problem we need to address."
Eleanor arrives as the afternoon light streams through the tall windows, moving with careful grace of someone who married into violence. She carries a tea service, her diamond wedding ring catching the light like a weapon.
"Dom called me because he thought you'd need to talk to someone who understands," she says, settling beside me on the couch. "When I married Leo, everyone said I was too soft for this world. That the violence would break me."
Her voice carries quiet strength earned through hard experience. "But they didn't understand. I didn't marry the violence. I married the man. And sometimes protecting the man means accepting the danger."
I lean forward, hungry for this wisdom. "Van thinks he's saving me by sending me away."
"Men like ours believe they own what they claim to protect," Eleanor says gently.
"But love isn't about avoiding danger, Carmela.
It's about facing it together. Van is trying to make you choose between him and your family, between safety and love.
That's not protection. That's control disguised as sacrifice. "
The words sting with revelation. I've been letting him make that choice for me, accepting his thirty-five-year-old "wisdom" as superior to my own instincts. But we'd moved past this. We'd committed to each other, worked through his fears about contaminating me with his darkness.
"I don't want to choose," I whisper. "I want both. I want him AND my family."
Eleanor's smile is warm with understanding. "Then that's what you fight for."
Leo storms in still wincing slightly from his healing ribs, wild red hair barely contained, hazel eyes blazing. His voice carries that particular volume that makes enemies confess before interrogation begins.
"Who the hell does this surgeon think he is? Making decisions about OUR sister?" He paces like a caged animal, Eleanor's touch on his arm the only thing keeping him grounded. "Couple of months and he thinks he knows what's best for a Rosetti?"
His anger validates feelings I hadn't known I was allowed to have. "We cleared his debt, gave him freedom to choose us freely, and THIS is how he repays it? By treating our family like we're the threat?"
"Leo," Eleanor warns gently.
"No, he's right," I say, something new stirring in my chest. "Van's forty pounds of trauma in a thirty-five-year-old body, and he thinks that gives him authority over my choices.
But I've BEEN in his darkness. His nightmares, his broken pieces, his PTSD episodes.
I chose to stay anyway. We worked through this fear together. "
Leo's grin turns vicious with family pride. "Now you're talking like a Rosetti. If he can't handle what you are, he doesn't deserve who you are."
The steel underneath my outward nature finally surfaces, inherited from generations of those who learned to rule through respect rather than fear. Van is reverting to the same fears we'd supposedly resolved, making the same decision to send me away that contradicts our mutual commitment.
Standing in the library where family decisions get made, I feel something fundamental shift inside me. The words that come out of my mouth surprise everyone in the room, including me.
"This is where Van made his mistake." My voice carries something new.
Not the optimism that's always defined me, but something harder.
Something inherited. "He thinks he's protecting me from shadows, but I've been living in shadows.
His nightmares, his trauma, his broken pieces.
I chose to stay anyway. We both said we were choosing all of it. "
Dom leans back in his chair, watching me with new interest.
"I'm not the same person who ran to Chicago all those weeks ago," I continue, authority flowing through my voice like it's always been there.
"Van knows exactly what our family does.
He's always known about the operations, the territories, the violence.
He told me so himself. But he's still treating me like some fragile princess who needs protecting from the big bad world.
But I'm a Rosetti. I was born into darkness and chose to find the light anyway. "
The room goes quiet except for the soft tick of the antique clock.
"I want him back," I declare. "Not because he owes us.
His debt is clear. But because I love him.
And not because family arranges it, but because I choose it.
If Van wants to make decisions about MY life, he needs to understand that means accepting ALL of who I am, including the family that will kill to protect me. "
When I turn to face Dom directly, my voice carries unmistakable command. "I want full family backing to get him back. But this time it's my choice, my mission."
Dom's smile is pure Rosetti pride. "Now that's the sister I've been waiting to meet."
The intelligence arrives at midnight through Milo's surveillance channels.
"The Torrino family is mobilizing," he reports. "Van's location in Chicago has been compromised. They're planning to grab him within the next six hours. Full assault team already in position."
My first thought surprises me with its viciousness: Good.
Let him see what happens when you send away the only real protection you had.
Let him understand what it means to reject the Rosetti shield.
Maybe getting roughed up by the Torrinos will teach him that his surgical precision and military training mean nothing against organized crime without our backing.
The satisfaction lasts exactly three seconds.
Then panic crashes through me like ice water, because that's MY idiot about to get grabbed. Mine to be furious at. Mine to rage against. Mine to make understand exactly what he threw away when he sent me back here like damaged goods that needed returning.
"No," I say out loud, surprising everyone including myself. "They don't get to touch him."
Leo raises an eyebrow. "Thought you were mad at him?"
"I am. Furious." My hands curl into fists. "But he's mine to be furious at. The Torrinos don't get to hurt him. That's my job. After I save his presumptuous ass."
Something dangerous flickers across Dom's face—approval mixed with amusement. "And how exactly are you planning to do that?"
"First, I'm going to stop them from taking him," I say, already reaching for my phone. "Then I'm going to drag him back here and make him understand exactly what he gave up. The protection, the family, me—all of it. He needs to see what he almost lost by trying to be noble."
My fingers fly across the screen, finding Van's number. Each ring echoes in the quiet library like a countdown.
Ring.
Of course he's not answering. Probably doing something noble and stupid, like surgery or brooding.
Ring.
Maybe he's looking at the empty space where I used to make coffee, telling himself the ache in his chest is worth my supposed safety.
Ring.
Or he could already be unconscious, the Torrinos moving faster than our intelligence suggested.
Ring.
"Pick up," I whisper, my earlier fury mixing with desperate fear. "Come on, Van. Answer the damn phone."
Ring.
But it just keeps ringing, each unanswered tone ratcheting my panic higher. He has no idea what's coming. No warning that his noble sacrifice is about to get him killed or worse. The Torrinos won't just hurt him—they'll use him to send a message to our family.
Ring.
The call goes to voicemail. His professional voice, clinical and controlled: "Dr. Reyes. Leave a message."
I end the call without speaking, my hand trembling as I lower the phone. The room feels too quiet, the weight of what's about to happen pressing down like a physical thing.
"He's not answering," I say unnecessarily.
Dom's already moving, pulling out his own phone to mobilize resources. But I can see it in his eyes—Chicago is far, the Torrinos are close, and Van has no idea death is coming for him.
All because he thought sending me away would keep me safe. All because he couldn't accept that I chose the danger along with the love.
My sunshine nature has never felt more like fire.