Page 50 of Ruthless Silence
The door opens behind me. I don't need to look to know it's him. I'd recognize his presence anywhere now. His footsteps pause, taking in the scene: me on the floor surrounded by evidence of his innocence, Papa's photos spread like confession around my knees.
Through my tears, I see him. The innocent man I've been tormenting. He's still in his sleep clothes, hair disheveled, looking more vulnerable than I've ever seen him. The moonlightcatches his throat, that terrible scar that someone gave him for trying to save my father.
"Dante," I sob, holding up the photo of him cradling my dying father. "You didn't… you never… oh God, what have I done to you?"
The photo shakes in my grip, Papa's blood dark on Dante's hands. Hands that have only ever been gentle with me, even when I was trying to destroy him. The same hands that played piano in the darkness, that signed "I know" to my hatred, that made me come apart with pleasure even while I planned his death.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper, the words breaking on a sob. "I'm so sorry. You tried to save him. You tried to save Papa, and I've been… oh God, I've been the monster all along."
23 - Dante
Istand frozen in the doorway, watching my wife discover who I really am. Not the monster she’s been hunting. Just a man who failed to save her father.
Ana kneels on my study floor, surrounded by evidence like a crime scene. The manila folder spills its secrets across the hardwood: photographs, medical reports, witness statements. Ten years of truth I've kept locked away while she shaped herself into a weapon aimed at me.
Her nightgown rides up her thighs as she leans forward, silk clinging to curves I've memorized with my hands, my mouth. Even now, even watching her world shatter, my cock stirs. Fuck. What kind of sick bastard gets hard watching his wife cry?
The photo in her trembling hands stops my breath. Me, twenty-one years old, cradling Romeo Moretti's broken body. His blood soaking through my shirt, pooling beneath us both. But it's his hand on my face that tells the real story. Not accusation. Gratitude. A dying man's blessing to the boy trying to save him.
Her sob tears through the silence. She's shaking now, shoulders heaving as the truth crashes over her in waves. Each photograph another nail in the coffin of her revenge. Each document proof of her decade-long mistake.
The basement from earlier today feels like another lifetime. That Detroit soldier's blood still pools somewhere distant, but all I can focus on is Ana. The way her tears catch the moonlight. The knife pendant at her throat, my gift, moving with each sob.
The medical reports detail everything. How they tortured me for three days after the massacre. How they took my voice when I wouldn't confess to crimes I didn't commit. Every wound cataloged in clinical detail: the systematic destruction of an innocent man who refused to lie.
She sobs, holding up that damning photo. "I'm so sorry. You tried to save him. You tried to save Papa, and I've been… oh God, I've been the monster all along."
The photo shakes in her grip. My fingers clench into fists, fighting the need to cross those three feet of hardwood and pull her against my chest. To taste those tears, swallow her apologies, fuck the guilt out of her until she remembers she's mine regardless of the truth.
But she needs this. Even if watching her break feels like swallowing glass.
The leather chair creaks, the twin to the one where I've watched her sleep these two weeks, where I've sat hard as steel while she dreamed of killing me. Now she kneels where I've imagined her so many times, but this isn't how it was supposed to be.
Her fingers trace my father's signature on the old contract, then mine on the new one. Two generations bound by paper and blood and lies that became truth through repetition. When she presses her palm against the photo of me holding her dying father, her nightgown gaps, revealing her skin. Even now, even with truth destroying us both, my body wants hers.
Ana's whole body shakes. The sound tears from her throat in waves, each sob making the silk cling differently, making me notice things I shouldn't. The way her nipples press against the thin fabric. How her thighs press together like she's fighting the same twisted arousal I am.
Because we're both fucked up. Both broken. Both getting wet and hard from violence and truth in equal measure.
"I called you a monster. I tried to kill you. I… oh God, I made love to you then planned your murder."
The memory burns through me. Her pussy clenching around my cock, her nails raking my back, screaming my name while still planning to slide a knife between my ribs. The contradiction of it makes my scarred throat ache with sounds I can't make.
"Why?" The word escapes her in English, broken and desperate. Then her hands move, trembling: "Why didn't you tell me?"
The question I've been waiting for. I move closer, just close enough that she can see my hands clearly in the dim light. When I kneel, my knees hit the hardwood with a crack that echoes.
Can't touch her. If I touch her now, I'll pin her to this floor and show her exactly how much the truth changes nothing. She's still mine. Still wearing my marks under that silk.
My hands shake as I sign: "You were fifteen."
She watches my fingers like they hold salvation or damnation. This close, I can smell her. Jasmine and tears and underneath, fuck, underneath she smells like arousal. Like our basement violence turned her on despite everything.
"Lost everything in one night." My signing gets rougher, less precise. "Needed someone to blame, to hate."
"But why you?" she signs back, tears still streaming.
My damaged throat works, trying to form words that will never come. The scar tissue pulls with the effort, a reminder of the price of truth. My hands move: "Because you needed an enemy more than you needed the truth."
