Page 369 of Rosetti Family New York

"Walk away, Nico." Matteo's voice is quiet. Too quiet.

"Come on, don't be selfish. Just a dance, maybe a conversation."

The words are still hanging in the air when Nico reaches out, his fingers brushing against my shoulder as he moves a strand of my hair. The touch is casual, meaningless.

Matteo moves like violence made flesh.

The sound of Nico's face hitting the table is wet and sharp, like breaking bone. The impact sends water glasses jumping, silverware clattering to the floor. Blood spatters across the white tablecloth in perfect crimson dots, across the bread plates, across my champagne glass. Matteo's hand is fisted in Nico's hair, holding his face pressed against the wood. More blood drips steadily onto the floor, each drop loud in the sudden, absolute silence.

Every conversation in the restaurant dies instantly. Forks pause halfway to mouths. Wine glasses hover in mid-air. But no one looks directly at us. No one moves to help or interfere.

"If he ever looks at you again," Matteo says, his voice like winter steel, "I'll cut out his eyes."

Matteo releases Nico's hair and steps back, straightening his jacket with deliberate calm. There's blood on his cuff, dark against the white fabric. Nico stumbles backward, one hand pressed to his nose, the other reaching for his wallet.

"My apologies," Nico mumbles through the blood running down his chin. "I didn't realize she was claimed."

Claimed. Like I'm property. Like I'm something to be owned and marked and fought over.

I watch Matteo's face, searching for some sign of remorse or shock or anything human. Instead, I see cold satisfaction, the look of a man who's sent exactly the message he intended. Thatexpression does something dangerous to my pulse, makes heat pool in places I don't want to acknowledge.

"Come," Matteo says, his hand finding my wrist. Not roughly, but firmly. A guidance that feels like a leash. "We're leaving."

I let him lead me outside into the cool evening air, my legs unsteady beneath me. The gray silk dress feels too tight now, restricting my breathing. Or maybe that's just the image burned into my retinas of blood spreading across white linen, the wet sound of impact, the way every person in that restaurant looked away like choreographed dancers.

In the SUV, silence stretches between us like a held breath. Matteo sits perfectly still beside me, his breathing slightly elevated, his jaw still clenched. There's blood under his fingernails. Blood on his shirt. The scent of violence clings to him, metallic and sharp.

"You could have killed him," I say finally, my voice barely audible.

He looks at me, and his eyes are molten. Dark and hungry and completely unrepentant.

"I still might." He leans closer, close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin. "You're mine, bella. And I don't share."

The words hit me like electricity. Raw and possessive and completely wrong. I watch his gaze drop to my mouth, then lower, taking in the way the dress clings to my body. The way my chest rises and falls with each rapid breath.

My body betrays me completely. Heat floods my veins, my pulse hammers against my throat, and something deep inside me responds to his claim with fierce, primitive satisfaction. But I can't let him see that. Can't let him know how completely he's unraveling me.

"That's barbaric," I whisper, the words barely audible.

His hand finds my thigh, fingers spreading against the silk. The touch burns through the fabric, claiming and demanding and completely devastating.

"Is it?" The ghost of a smile touches his lips, but there's something darker underneath. Something that suggests he knows exactly what his violence does to me, even if I won't admit it. "Because your body is telling me a different story."

I can't answer. Can't breathe. Can't think past the heat of his hand on my leg and the way he's looking at me like he wants to devour me whole. The violence I just witnessed plays behind my eyes, brutal and swift and completely orchestrated. He destroyed a man for touching me. For looking at me. For thinking he had the right to claim what Matteo considers his.

The rational part of my mind screams warnings, talks about Stockholm syndrome and trauma bonds and the dangerous psychology of captivity. But that voice is getting quieter every day, drowned out by something darker. Something that whispers about possession and protection and the intoxicating rush of being wanted so completely that a man will spill blood to keep you.

But I can't give him that. Can't let him see how thoroughly he's dismantling everything I thought I knew about myself.

"I don't understand what's happening to me," I breathe, the closest thing to truth I can manage.

"You're learning," he says, his thumb stroking across my thigh. "Learning that perfection is just another kind of prison."

The car pulls into the driveway of the safe house, gravel crunching under the tires. Back to my beautiful prison. The thought sits bitter in my throat.

Matteo doesn't move to get out. Instead, he turns toward me fully, his hand sliding higher on my thigh. The air between us feels charged, crackling with tension that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with want.

"Tell me you didn't feel it," he says, his voice rough. "Tell me you didn't like watching me destroy him for you."