Page 478 of Rosetti Family New York

"Yes," I whisper.

But instead of moving away, instead of making phone calls or planning strategy, Van's hands slide to my throat, fingers tracing where my pulse hammers against my skin.

"You grounded me when I was lost in trauma," he says, voice rough with emotion. "Now let me ground you."

The familiar intensity begins to center me. Van's hands, steady and sure, replacing chaos with control. The fear doesn't disappear, but it transforms into something else—trust, need, the knowledge that I'm safe with him no matter what dangers lurk outside these walls.

"I need you present with me," he continues. "Not lost in what-ifs and terror. Can you be present for me?"

"Better?" he asks, reading the change in my breathing, the way my shoulders relax under his touch.

"Better," I confirm, meaning it.

He guides me toward the bedroom, and I follow willingly, knowing that whatever's waiting for us tomorrow, tonight we have this. Tonight we have each other.

"The photos can wait," he says, hands already working the scrub shirt up my body. "Right now, there's just you and me."

The Torrinos think they can scare me away from him with threats and brutal images. They don't understand that fear only makes me hold tighter to what I'm choosing to protect.

They want to use my terror against me. Instead, I'm going to let Van transform it into something that makes us both stronger.

His mouth finds my throat, teeth scraping over the sensitive skin, and I arch into him with a gasp. My hands fumble with his belt, desperate to feel his cock hard and ready against my palm.

"That's my girl," he growls as I wrap my fingers around his length, stroking until his breathing turns ragged. "Show me how much you need this."

I guide him to the bed, pushing him down so I can straddle his thighs. When I sink down onto his cock, taking him deep into my wet pussy, we both groan at the perfect fit.

This is how we fight the darkness. Together, bodies joined, claiming each other despite every threat trying to tear us apart.

11 - Van

Three Torrino soldiers have Carmela cornered in the gallery's pristine white space when I arrive. The lead man—square-jawed with a nose broken so many times it looks manufactured—is pointing at her with a meaty, ringed finger while his partners flank the exits. My jaw locks as I take in the scene through the glass doors. They're not even trying to be subtle. These fuckers want her, and they don't care who sees them take her.

Carmela doesn’t blink, doesn’t move. Her chin is up, eyes wide but dry. She’s not afraid, or she’s moved past fear to that clean plateau where adrenaline and fatality hold hands. I see her hands fist around the rolled program she was nervously bending earlier. The motion is small, but it’s the only tell she offers.

The gallery assistant, Emma, a girl in her mid-twenties with pink hair and nervous energy, stands closest to the reception desk. Until now, she’s kept her distance, watching us with the wide-eyed judgment of someone who hates rich people and everything they touch, but as the soldiers close in, she finds her voice. “Excuse me, you can’t—” she says, stepping between Carmela and the advancing men.

The leader snorts. “Not your business. Step aside.”

But the girl doesn’t. Maybe she’s seen too many protest documentaries, or maybe she just doesn’t understand the stakes. She plants herself, hands out. “I’m calling security,” she says, though her voice quivers. Her hand moves for the phone onthe desk, and that’s when the third soldier, a skinny guy with pockmarked skin and a nervous tic, shoves her away—hard.

Her head hits the metal edge of the reception desk’s support bracket. The sound is wet and wrong, like a dropped melon. For a second, she just sits, dazed, but then blood begins to curtain down her face, bright and quick, a painter’s first stroke on that perfect white floor. A glass display case behind her rocks on its base and collapses, sending shards and sculpted glass teeth across the floor.

I’m moving before I know it, but Carmela’s already dropping to her knees beside the girl, pressing a scarf to the wound with both hands. Her voice is low, coaxing, steady. Despite the chaos, she looks up only briefly, locking eyes with me. I understand her message: handle it.

The Torrino men are moving fast now, but not fast enough. They’re used to intimidation, not resistance. I close the distance in three strides, aiming a low kick to the back of the leader’s knee. The joint hyperextends with a sick pop, and he yelps, folding forward. I catch his head and drive his face into my knee. Blood sprays, cartilage crunches. He drops, clutching his nose, eyes rolling in shock.

The second man hesitates, and that’s his undoing. I slip inside his weak jab and bury an elbow in his throat. He crumples, gasping and retching. The third, younger man is already reaching for something in his coat—gun, knife, phone, I don’t care. I sweep the leg and he lands on his back, the wind knocked out of him. A stomp to the sternum ends the conversation.

It’s over in less than a minute. The gallery’s white walls are streaked with blood, the floor littered with shards of glass and bodies in various states of pain and panic. Carmela is still with the girl, pressing the scarf with increasing urgency. Her fingers are stained red, but she doesn’t register it.

I check the downed men. The leader is breathing through a mashed-up nose, but he’s out of the fight. The other two are alive but making no effort to get up. I take the zip ties from their pockets and use them to hogtie their wrists and ankles, giving the knots an extra vicious torque for good measure.

The hypervigilance hits immediately after, every sound amplified, every shadow a potential threat. But there's work to do.

I crouch beside Carmela and the girl. The blood is everywhere now, pooling under the girl’s head and streaking down Carmela’s forearms. I immediately shift into trauma surgeon mode, my voice cutting through Carmela's shock as I bark medical orders with the same authority I used in military field hospitals.

"Pressure on the wound," I snap. "Don't let her go into shock."