Page 20 of Ruthless Silence
She pats my hand with her weathered one. "Tomorrow, you eat, yes? Make old Maria happy?"
Tomorrow. As if there will be endless tomorrows in this house, throwing plates and cleaning them up, testing boundaries that refuse to break.
The days blur together in a haze of failed provocations and unwanted awareness of him.
Day four: I try to escape. I announce I'm going for a walk, alone, heading straight for the front door like I own the place. Like I'm not a prisoner in designer walls. The guards at the gate are polite but immovable, hands resting near barely concealed weapons.
"Mr.Dante says you need an escort, Mrs.Rosetti."
The gentle words carry steel beneath. These aren't just guards, they're soldiers, killers, and they answer to him.
Nico appears as if summoned, all military precision and patient eyes. His jacket hangs wrong on the left, armed, always armed in this world of beautiful violence. "I'll accompany you."
I want to refuse, to fight, but the walls of this house are suffocating me. My exhausted brain can't process his patience, his constant watching without touching. I need air, space, the illusion of freedom even if it comes with a guardian. We walk in silence at first, my pace punishing, trying to lose him or at least make him work for it. He matches me step for step without even breathing hard.
"Are you a prisoner too?" I finally ask, my English halting.
"I'm family," he corrects gently. "We protect family."
"From what? From leaving?"
His look holds too much understanding. "Yes, sometimes."
Day five. I discover Dante takes his morning espresso at exactly 6:15 AM, alone in his study before the house wakes. Maria prepares it the night before in an elegant machine that requires only the press of a button. The routine is perfect—predictable, isolated, unguarded.
The oleander grows wild along the estate's eastern wall. Pretty pink flowers that tourists photograph, never knowing that every part contains cardiac glycosides deadly enough to stop a heart. Nonna taught me this back in Rome, warning me away from the beautiful killers in our garden. One crushed flower in strong coffee would be virtually undetectable until too late.
At 3 AM, I slip through the house like the ghost I'm becoming. The coffee machine gleams in moonlight, already prepped with fresh grounds for tomorrow. My hands are steady as I work—this is what a year of preparation looks like, not that wild knife swing that my nerves couldn't control but careful, calculated death. The extract I prepared earlier slides into the water reservoir, just enough to be fatal, not enough to alter the taste significantly.
By 6:20 AM, I'm positioned where I can watch his study door from the upstairs landing. My heart hammers as he enters, right on schedule. Through the crack beneath the door, I see his shadow move toward the desk. The machine hisses. The cup clinks against the saucer.
Then nothing. Silence stretches. Too long.
The door opens and Dante emerges, carrying the full cup. His eyes find mine immediately across the landing, and that almost-smile plays at his lips. He raises the cup in a mock toast, then deliberately pours the entire contents into the potted plant by his door. The coffee streams dark against the soil, taking my best-laid plan with it.
His hands move in casual signs: "The grounds looked disturbed. Nice try. Next time, wear gloves—you left prints on the water reservoir."
I want to scream.
But day six is when I truly lose control. I destroy everything I can reach. A lamp that probably belonged to his grandmother, a picture frame holding some family photo, a crystal whiskey decanter that explodes against the fireplace in a shower of expensive fragments.
The crashes echo through the suite like my own personal symphony of destruction. When Dante enters, I'm standing barefoot in the middle of it all, glass glittering around me like deadly snow. The danger of it, the violence I've created, makes my pulse race.
He stops in the doorway, taking in the scene. His presence fills the space, making the room smaller, the air thicker. I grab a sharp piece, holding it like a weapon, ready for the fight that has to come now. He has to react to this. Has to become the monster I need him to be.
"You'll cut your feet," he signs, and there's something in his eyes that might be concern.
"Good," I spit in Italian, then force the English: "I'll bleed on your carpet. Add more stains to your perfect house."
What happens next scrambles my brain entirely. He moves toward me with that liquid grace, and before I can react, his arms are under my knees and back, lifting me like I weigh nothing. The shock of it, his warmth, his strength, the sudden safety of being held, steals my voice. His chest is solid against my side, and I hate how safe I feel in the arms of my enemy. His scent surrounds me, cigarettes and expensive cologne and something uniquely him that makes my thighs clench.
He carries me to the bathroom, sets me on the counter with unexpected gentleness. The bathroom smells like his soap,something expensive and masculine that makes my stomach flip. I'm too stunned to fight as he retrieves a first aid kit, then does something that stops my heart entirely.
He kneels.
Dante Rosetti, the silent devil of Chicago, kneels at my feet. His hands are impossibly gentle as he lifts each foot, checking for embedded glass. His fingers circle my ankle, warm and sure, the touch so careful I want to scream. His thumb brushes my ankle bone, and heat shoots straight to my core. This is wrong. Why does my body betray me like this?
He finds one small cut, blood welling like a tiny garnet. He cleans it, applies antibiotic cream, then carefully places a bandage with exact pressure. I could kick him now. His face is right there, vulnerable, exposed. He's giving me the opening, and we both know it.
