Page 495 of Rosetti Family New York

"Dom, I know your people need emergency medical care sometimes," Van continues, and each word destroys everything I thought I knew. "But this protection assignment was supposed to clear my debt."

I struggle against the restraints, panic flooding my system as his words sink in. The silk holds firm around my wrists, and I can feel how my struggles make my breasts bounce, how the movement sends aftershocks through my still-aroused pussy. He's known about my family. He knows exactly what the Rosetti name means, and I'm suspended here completely at his mercy while he discusses me like a transaction.

"I know." His voice drops, becomes pained. "This isn't how she was supposed to find out."

The phone call ends, and silence fills the room. I can hear him breathing, can feel his presence, but he doesn't move to release me. The restraints that felt like safety now feel like a trap, and my body's betraying responses—still wet, still aching for him despite everything—make it worse.

"Van." My voice comes out smaller than I want. "Let me out of these."

"We need to talk first." His footsteps approach slowly, deliberately. "About what you heard."

"I heard enough." The betrayal cuts deep, but underneath my hurt, something harder crystallizes. "You've known about my family all along, haven't you?"

I feel him stop beside me, can sense the heat of his body close to mine. My nipples are still hard, pussy still slick with arousal, and I hate that my body doesn't care about the emotional devastation happening in my chest.

"Your brother Dom extracted me from Afghanistan," he says, and his voice carries exhaustion I've never heard before. "I was captured with my unit. Tortured. He pulled me out of a compound where I was dying, gave me this life, this identity, everything."

The restraints keep me suspended and helpless as he strips away every illusion. My legs are still spread from where he'd positioned me to take his cock, and the vulnerability is excruciating now.

"I owe him my life, Carmela. Literally. The military threw me away after the rescue, court-martialed me for abandoning my post when I was fucking captured and tortured." His voice breaks slightly. "Dom gave me new papers, medical credentials, this apartment. Everything."

"So protecting me was just debt payment?" I can feel tears threatening behind the blindfold. "You never signed up for this job? I thought you wanted to protect me, that you tookthis job because… because…" I can't even finish that sentence. "Everything between us? Every time you made me come, every time you buried your cock inside me—was that all just obligation?"

"It started that way." The honesty in his voice is brutal. "Dom asked me to keep you safe, and I owed him everything. But Carmela…"

"But nothing." The hurt transforms into something sharper, more dangerous. "Release me from these restraints. Now."

"Look at me first," he says, and I feel his fingers at the blindfold, pulling it away.

I blink in the sudden light, and the first thing I see is Van's face. He looks wrecked—gray eyes haunted, jaw clenched tight. His shirt is still unbuttoned from where I'd been frantically trying to undress him, and I can see the scratch marks my nails left on his chest. The sight of them makes my pussy clench involuntarily, body remembering pleasure even as my heart breaks.

"I know what your family does," he continues, apparently determined to destroy every last illusion. "I know about the operations, the territories, the violence that funds your protected world. I've always known, from the moment Dom pulled me out of that hellhole."

The diamond trafficking, money laundering, violence—all the darkness that funded my sunny world while I played at being normal. And he knew. Every time he fucked me, every time hemade me scream his name, he knew exactly what the Rosetti name meant.

"Your perfect life exists because men like your brothers do things that require cleaning up afterward," Van says, and there's no cruelty in it, just exhausted truth. "I've known exactly what protecting a Rosetti means, Carmela."

"Then you know I'm not as helpless as you think." My voice comes out steady, controlled, even though my heart is breaking and my body is still betraying me with its arousal. "Release me."

He reaches for the restraints, fingers working the mechanisms quickly. When my arms drop, I nearly collapse, pins and needles shooting through my shoulders. But I force myself to stand, to face him with as much dignity as I can manage while naked and shaken, my pussy still slick with want for a man who's been lying to me from the beginning.

"Was any of it real?" I ask, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to hide how my nipples are still peaked, how my thighs are still damp. "Every time you made me come apart, every time you whispered my name while you were buried inside me—was I just the world's most naive mark?"

"All of it was real." His voice is raw, desperate, and his eyes drop to my body before jerking back up to my face. "Every touch, every word, everything I felt for you. The debt brought me to you, but what happened between us… Christ, Carmela. I fell so fucking hard I forgot why I was there."

I want to believe him. My treacherous body still responds to the pain in his voice, still wants to go to him, to let him fuck away the hurt and confusion. But the trust is broken, and I don't know how to put it back together.

"You should have told me." I move past him toward my clothes, needing distance and dignity. My legs are unsteady, and I can feel his cum starting to dry on my inner thighs from earlier. "I deserved to know what this was from the beginning."

"I know." He runs his hands through his hair, and I can see his cock is still half-hard in his pants, can see how much my nakedness affects him even now. "I fucked this up. I wanted to tell you, but…"

"But it was easier to let me fall in love while you completed your assignment." I pull my dress over my head, armor against vulnerability. The silk slides over my sensitive skin, and I have to bite back a moan at how it feels against my still-aroused nipples. "Very efficient, Dr.Reyes."

"Don't." The word comes out sharp, pained. "Don't make this cold. You know me better than that. You know how I touch you, how I worship your body, how I can't get enough of you."

"Do I?" I turn to face him, and something in my expression makes him step back. "Because the Van I thought I knew wouldn't use restraints as an interrogation tool. Wouldn't let me find out about his entire history with my family while I was helplessly suspended, wet and wanting him."

He flinches. "That phone call… I didn't expect Dom to call tonight. When you heard, I panicked. Made the worst possible choices."