Chapter 21
ROSALINA
Two o'clock in the morning finds me lying in bed, staring at the ceiling of my doorless bedroom, listening to the house settle around me with creaks and sighs that sound almost like breathing.
I have not slept.
Have not even come close.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Patrick's face. His hand on my throat. The gun pressed against Dolan's spine. The casual way he tossed me a bomb and told me to kill the three men I love.
Twenty-eight hours.
That is how much time I have left. Twenty-eight hours until Patrick expects Dante, Gabriel, and Luca to be dead, or he kills Erin and Dolan and their unborn baby.
The bomb is in my closet. I hid it as soon as we got home, shoving it behind shoes and boxes and clothes I never wear, burying it under layers of fabric like that might somehow make it less real.
But I can still feel its presence like a malignant tumor growing in the corner of my room, can still hear the ticking of a clock that does not actually exist.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Twenty-eight hours.
I cannot do it.
The realization crystallized somewhere around midnight, as I lay here in the dark listening to the sound of my own heartbeat, imagining what it would feel like to plant that bomb.
To set the timer. To walk away knowing that in minutes or hours, the three men sleeping peacefully in this house would be—
No.
I roll onto my side, curling into a ball, my bandaged hands pressed against my stomach. I cannot think about it. Cannot picture their faces when the bomb goes off, cannot imagine the aftermath, cannot let myself go down that road because if I do I will start screaming and never stop.
But if I don’t plant the bomb, Patrick will kill Erin.
And Dolan.
And their baby.
My sister. My best friend. The person I have spent my entire life protecting. The reason I took her place at the altar, married a stranger, and walked into this completely insane situation in the first place.
How can I choose Dante, Gabriel, and Luca over her?
How can I not?
The impossible choice sits on my chest like a physical weight, crushing the air from my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
I need to move. Need to get out of this room, away from the bomb in the closet and the bed where I have spent hours spiraling and the doorway where anyone could see me falling apart.
I slip out of bed as quietly as possible, my feet touching the cool hardwood floor, and pull on jeans with shaking hands.
My fingers fumble with the button, the zipper, everything feeling clumsy and disconnected.
I grab a hoodie from the chair—Luca's hoodie, I realize, the black one with the faded logo that I have stolen and claimed as my own—and pull it over my head, drowning in fabric that smells like his cologne and laundry detergent and safety.
I need to know something. Before I make any decisions, before I choose between Erin and the boys, before I do anything irreversible—I need to know.
The house is silent as I move through it, creeping down the hallway on bare feet, avoiding the spots I have learned will creak. I pass Gabriel's room first, his door slightly ajar, and I pause just long enough to see his shape under the covers, one arm thrown over his head, breathing deep and even.
Asleep. Safe. Alive.
For now.
Dante's door is closed, but I know he is in there, probably sprawled diagonally across his massive bed the way he does when he sleeps alone, his face finally relaxed in a way it never is when he is awake.
Luca's room is at the end of the hall, and I stand in his doorway longer than the others, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the way his hair falls across his forehead, the slight smile on his face like he is having a good dream.
I memorize this. Memorize all of them. Just in case.
No. Stop thinking like that. I will figure this out. I have to.
I pad down the stairs, avoiding the fifth step that squeaks, and slip into the kitchen. The clock on the wall shows 2:14 AM, the second hand making its endless circuit with soft ticks that sound too loud in the silence.
I unlock the front door as quietly as possible, wincing at every small click and scrape of metal, and slip outside into the cool October night.
The air hits me immediately—cold enough to make me shiver, carrying the smell of fallen leaves and distant rain and the particular urban scent of Manhattan at night. I close the door softly behind me, test the handle to make sure it latched properly, and then I am walking.
The nearest gas station is about thirty minutes away on foot.
I know because I have mapped every exit route from this house, every possible escape path, catalogued in my brain during those first weeks when I was still planning to run.
Thirty minutes east, past the corner with the Italian restaurant that is always busy even at midnight, past the bodega with the cat that sits in the window, past the park where I sometimes see drug deals happening in the shadows.
I walk fast, my breath visible in the cold air, hands shoved deep in the pockets of Luca's hoodie. The streets are mostly empty at this hour—just occasional cars passing, a few people stumbling home from bars, someone walking their dog despite the late hour.
I keep my head down and walk faster.
My mind spirals as I move, thoughts chasing themselves in endless circles that lead nowhere.
I cannot kill Dante, Gabriel, and Luca.
I cannot let Patrick kill Erin.
There is no solution where everyone survives.
Someone I love is going to die, and it is going to be my fault.
Unless.
"I need a third option. A way to free Erin and Dolan without Patrick’s shadows seeing me move.
If I can get them to safety—if I can just get them past the city limits—then I can stay here and face whatever hell Patrick has waiting for me.
I can handle his wrath. I’ve handled it my whole life.
But I can't let them die for my silence. Unless I..."
Unless I stop fighting the men in this house and start using them.
What? Fight Patrick? He is the head of the Irish mafia now, surrounded by loyal men, protected by the same organization that raised me.
I am one woman with a set of skills designed for protection, not assassination.
Even with Dante, Gabriel, and Luca backing me, going after Patrick directly is suicide.
But so is planting that bomb.
So is doing nothing.
A car passes too close, headlights sweeping across me, and I flinch instinctively, my heart jumping into my throat. Just someone driving home. Not Patrick. Not danger. Just a car.
I am losing it. Completely losing it.
The walk stretches on, each block bleeding into the next.
I pass the Italian restaurant—Vittorio's, with its red awning and windows still lit despite the hour.
The bodega comes next, the orange cat curled in its usual spot in the window display, sleeping peacefully among scattered newspapers.
Then the park, dark and vaguely threatening with its clusters of shadows and the occasional flare of a lighter.
My feet carry me forward on autopilot, my body knowing the route even as my mind continues its endless spiral of impossible choices and terrible outcomes.
I think about Erin, probably asleep right now in her room at the O'Connor estate, one hand resting protectively on her stomach where a baby is growing. Does she know how much I love Dante? That I don’t know if I can sacrifice them for her?
Does she know this decision isn’t as easy as it used to be?
I miss the days when I only loved her. The days when living without her felt like the end of the world.
Like I’d rather be dead than alive without her, but now I have Gabe, Luca and Dante.
If I died for her they would never forgive me.
I think about Seamus, lying in his coffin at the funeral home, his hands folded peacefully on his chest. Would he be proud of the choice I am about to make? Or would he be disappointed that I am choosing my own happiness over the family he built?
I think about the bomb in my closet, wrapped in innocent brown paper, containing enough explosives to turn the Salvatore mansion into rubble and everyone inside it into—
No. Do not think about that.
But I can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop imagining the explosion, the fire, the destruction. Can’t stop seeing Dante's face, Gabriel's steady gray eyes, Luca's infectious smile—all of it gone in an instant because Patrick handed me a bomb and told me to choose.
The gas station appears in the distance like a beacon—harsh fluorescent lights cutting through the darkness, the red and yellow Shell sign bright enough to hurt my eyes.
I have been walking for twenty-seven minutes according to the clock I glimpsed in a shop window, my legs burning with the exertion, my lungs aching from breathing cold air.
I push through the doors, the bell overhead chiming cheerfully despite the hour, and the blast of heated air hits me like a wall.
The store is mostly empty—just a clerk behind the counter reading a magazine with the glazed expression of someone working overnight shifts, and the ever-present hum of refrigerators along the back wall.
I move on autopilot toward the pharmacy section, my eyes scanning the shelves until I find what I am looking for. Pregnancy tests. Only two brands available at this hour, both promising quick and accurate results.
I grab the one in the pink box because it is closest, my hands shaking so badly I nearly drop it twice before making it to the counter.
The clerk—a young guy with acne and tired eyes—barely glances up as he rings it up. "Two forty-nine."
I fumble in the pocket of Luca's hoodie, pull out crumpled bills I shoved in there earlier, count out three singles with numb fingers. He hands me back the change, drops the test into a small paper bag, and immediately returns to his magazine.
"Bathroom?" My voice comes out rough, barely used.