SIX FURIES AND A ROSE

CHAPTER 3

"Inside. Now." The command was gritted out, not looking back as he strode toward the house.

Luca and Marcello flanked me, a silent, grim escort. The grand foyer, usually just a space to pass through, felt like a courtroom. Gabe and Dante were already there, drawn by the tense energy.

Vin didn't wait. He turned on me, the control he'd shown in front of Ethan utterly gone. "What part of four-thirty is a mystery to you, Raphaella? What part of 'text your location' is so complicated it requires a PhD in Art History to comprehend?"

"It was one time, Vin! And it was barely an hour!" My own anger, simmering since the humiliating display on campus, boiled over. "I'm not a child who got lost at the mall! I was in a classroom!"

"Without contact!" he thundered, his voice echoing off the marble. "You were in an uncontrolled, public location, past an agreed-upon time, with no communication. Do you have any idea what that does? What that triggers?"

"I trigger your need to control every second of my life!" I shot back, stepping toward him, my fists clenched at my sides. "I am twenty years old! I have a driver's license! I pay taxes! But I have to report in like I'm on parole because you and the rest of the wardens here can't handle the idea that I might exist for five minutes outside your line of sight!"

Luca interjected, his calm voice a stark contrast. "Rafe, it's a safety protocol. It's not about trust—"

"Don't!" I whirled on him, pointing a trembling finger. "Don't you dare give me the 'safety protocol' speech, Luca. I've heard it since I was in diapers. This isn't about safety. This is about you treating me like I'm still three years old and you're all my babysitters!"

Dante pushed off the banister. "Hey, watch your tone—"

"No, you watch!" I turned my fury on him, tears of pure frustration stinging my eyes. "You all stood right here! In this house! And you made a promise to a man who is gone! You're not protecting me from the big, bad world, you're suffocating me with it! You use his ghost as an excuse to keep me in a box!"

Vincenzo flinched as if I'd struck him. The raw pain that flashed in his eyes was buried almost instantly under a glacier of colder, harder fury.

"You think this is a game?" His voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "You think our father's rules were suggestions? That promise is the only reason you're standing here, able to throw a tantrum about your freedom! Everything you have, every breath you take in safety, is because of that vow!"

"I don't want to breathe in safety if it means I'm not allowed to live!" I screamed, the words tearing from my throat. "You humiliated Ethan today. You didn't talk to me, you didn't ask me what happened. You went straight for him like he was a dog that stole from your table. Because to you, that's all he is. That's all anyone will ever be! Not a person, not a friend, just a threat to be managed!"

Gabe finally spoke, his voice low. "Raphaella, that's not fair."

"Fair?" A hollow laugh escaped me. "You want to talk about fair? I have five shadows, Gabe. Five. I can't have a conversation, a coffee, a birthday idea without it being vetted, analyzed, and approved by the council of Scarlatti brothers! I am so tired of being your most cherished prisoner!"

I looked at each of them.

"I'm going to my room," I said, my voice suddenly flat, all the fight draining out of me, leaving only a cold, hollow ache. "Don't worry. It's a controlled, secure location. You even have the blueprints."

The slam of her bedroom door, two floors above, was a distant, final punctuation mark.

Dante let out a low whistle, running a hand through his hair. "Well. She's definitely not three anymore."

Vincenzo didn't move. He stared at the empty staircase.

Gabe was the first to break the stalemate.

“She's right, you know. About the birthday. We didn't even... I didn't realize it was coming up so soon."

"It's in three weeks," Luca said quietly. He had taken out his phone, not to scroll, but to pull up a calendar. He stared at the date as if it were a troubling financial forecast. "October 28th."

"Twenty-one," Marcello grunted from his post by the door, the two words laden with significance.

It was legitimacy, adulthood, and most dangerously, marriageability.

It was the age when suitors—the right kind, from the right families—started making serious, formal inquiries.

It was the age when their sister stopped being just their protected child and became a strategic asset in the eyes of their allies and rivals.

Vin finally turned from the stairs, the fight seeming to drain out of him, replaced by a weary dread. "We've been so focused on keeping her safe, on keeping her in, that we didn't watch the clock." He accepted the glass Gabe wordlessly handed him. "Twenty-one. Christ."

Luca leaned against the mantle.

"She mentioned a party. A private house upstate. With friends. With that boy driving."

A collective, visceral rejection moved through the room.

"Out of the question," Vin said, but his voice lacked its usual finality. It was the reaction of a man realizing the tide is coming in, not of a king issuing a decree.

"That's not the point," Luca said, shaking his head. "The point is, she's thinking about it. She's planning. And soon, others will be planning for her. The De Luca family has a son her age. So do the Morettis. They've made... polite, premature inquiries over the years. They'll become more than polite."

Dante shoved his hands in his pockets, looking uncharacteristically serious. "I just kept thinking she was like, seventeen. How is she twenty-one? Where did the time go?"

"Between wars, treaties, and territory disputes," Marcello said, his voice a low rasp. "We were busy building the fortress. We didn't notice the treasure inside... grew up."

Gabe swirled his drink. "She hates us right now."

"She doesn't hate us," Vin said, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

"She hates the cage. And we're the bars."

He looked at each of his brothers, seeing the same conflicted worry reflected back.

"Papa's vow... we swore to protect her from external enemies. But what do we do when the threat is... time? When the threat is her own desire for a life we can't comprehend?"

"We keep her safe," Vin said, his voice firming again, but the old certainty was gone. "That is non-negotiable. But... we need to acknowledge she is twenty-one. We need a new strategy."