Page 496 of Rosetti Family New York

"You made calculated choices." The Rosetti steel I've been discovering rises to meet this moment. "Just like you've been making since Dom assigned you to protect me. Every time you made me beg for your cock, every time you made me scream your name—was that calculation too?"

"Carmela." He steps toward me, hands outstretched, but stops when I shake my head. "Please. Let me explain. Let me show you how real this is."

"You had your chance to explain." I move toward the door, but something stops me. A realization, making my pulse spike with something that isn't entirely hurt anymore. "Actually, no. You know what? I need to think about this differently."

I turn back to face him, and I can see the confusion in his eyes. He has no idea what's happening in my head right now. No idea that the helpless damsel he's been protecting is realizing she has power here.

"You owe Dom your life," I say slowly, each word precise and measured. "Your identity. Your medical license. This apartment. Everything you are exists because my brother decided to save you."

Van's face goes carefully blank, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands clench at his sides. "Yes."

"And now you owe him protection duty. Me." I take a step closer, and something dangerous unfurls in my chest when he doesn't back away. "This assignment is supposed to clear your debt."

"That's not—" he starts, but I cut him off.

"That's exactly what it is." My voice carries something new now, something that makes his pupils dilate even as his jaw tightens. "But here's what you didn't consider, Van. I'm not just some girl being protected. I'm a Rosetti. Which means I have power over you too."

The silence stretches between us, charged with electricity I don't fully understand. My pussy is still wet, still aching for him, and now that arousal is mixing with something darker. Something that feels like control.

"If you owe Dom your life," I continue, taking another step closer, "and Dom would do anything to keep me safe and happy… what happens if I'm not happy with how you've handled this assignment?"

Van's breathing changes, becomes more controlled, and I can see his cock hardening in his pants despite everything. Or maybe because of it. "Carmela, what are you doing?"

"I'm learning the rules of the game you've been playing." I'm close enough now to see the pulse hammering in his throat, close enough to smell his skin. "You let me fall in love with you while knowing exactly why you were there. Very effectively, I'll admit."

"It wasn't manipulation—"

"Wasn't it?" I reach out and press my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart racing under my touch. "You knew exactly which buttons to push. Knew I'd respond to your dominance, your control. Knew I'd submit to those restraints and beg you to fuck me."

His hands come up to grip my wrists, but he doesn't push me away. "That's not how it happened."

"Maybe not at first," I concede, letting my fingers trace the scratch marks I left on his skin. "But you let me fall in love with you while hiding the truth. Let me think I was choosing this freely when really, I was just part of your debt repayment plan."

"The feelings were real," he says desperately. "Everything between us was real."

"Was it?" I look up at him, and I can see how my proximity is affecting him, how his control is fraying. "Or were you just very, very good at your job?"

The question hangs between us. But instead of the devastation I expected to feel, I'm discovering something else entirely. Power. Real power, not the helpless princess kind, but the kind that comes from understanding exactly what leverage I have.

"You know what I think, Van?" I let my voice drop to a whisper, the kind that used to make him groan when I whispered it against his ear while he was buried inside me. "I think you're terrified that maybe it was both."

His grip on my wrists tightens, and I can feel him trembling slightly. "Carmela…"

"I think you're terrified that you're exactly as good at manipulation as you appear to be. And I think you're even more terrified that I'm going to use my position in this family to make you pay for it."

The look in his eyes shifts from desperation to something darker, something that recognizes the danger I represent now. And my body responds to that recognition with a fresh wave of arousal that catches me completely off guard.

"But here's what you really need to worry about," I continue, rising up on my toes so my lips are almost brushing his ear. "I'm not sure I want you to pay for it. I'm not sure I want this debt cleared at all."

I can feel him go completely still against me, can hear his breathing stop entirely.

"Because if your debt to Dom is cleared, you don't owe my family anything anymore. You could leave. You could walk away from me, from this, from all of it." I pull back to look him in the eyes, and I know my own are blazing with something I'm only beginning to understand. "But if you still owe us… if I make sure you still owe us…"

I let the words hang there, watching as comprehension dawns across his features.

"Then you belong to me as much as you belong to Dom," I finish softly. "And I'm discovering I like owning things that have tried to own me first."

The silence that follows is electric, dangerous, full of possibilities that make my pussy clench with want even as my heart races with the terrifying realization of what I've just threatened to do.