Page 1 of Ruthless Silence
1 - Dante
The cigarette burns low between my fingers, smoke curling toward the ceiling of my study. Two in the morning, and I can’t look away from her face.
Ana Moretti stares back at me from a dozen surveillance photos spread across my mahogany desk, her fierce eyes promising violence in every frame. Three weeks of surveillance. My men tracking her like she's a mark, not my future wife. The bitter joke of it sits heavy in my chest. Here she kneels at her father's grave, fingers pressed to the headstone. There she practices at a shooting range, grouping tight enough to impress even Nico. And in this one, captured through a coffee shop window, her hands move in fluid ASL as she practices with an instructor.
She's been preparing for me. Learning to sign.
The marriage contract sits beside the photos, Marco's signature already in place. Twenty years old, this piece of paper. Back then, the Morettis and Rosettis ran Chicago and Rome together, an alliance that made both families untouchable. My father and Romeo Moretti signed it over whiskey and brotherhood, binding their children to ensure the alliance would outlast them. They were right about one thing—it outlasted them. Just not the way they planned.
I trace her face in one photo where she's mid-sign, her fingers forming words I can read even in still frame:monster,revenge,ready. She practices vocabulary for war while thinking she'slearning to communicate with her future husband. The irony would make me laugh if my throat could still make the sound.
My fingers linger on another image. Ana leaving her apartment building at dawn for a run. Sweat glistens on her collarbone, her tank top clinging to curves that make my cock stir. Inappropriate. Dangerous. Completely unavoidable. She's beautiful in the way weapons are beautiful: lethal, precise, made to destroy. And I want to take her apart piece by piece, discover what sounds she'd make when that controlled facade finally breaks.
My body responds to her image in ways that irritate me. Heat pools low in my gut as I study the curve of her neck, the fierce concentration in her eyes at the shooting range. Wanting the enemy's daughter is a complication I don't need.
Even in surveillance photos, she moves like a fighter. Every step deliberate, controlled. She's been honed into something dangerous. Someone has taught her to survive in our world.
Someone who knew she'd need those skills when she came for me.
The contract feels heavier than paper should. In three days, we meet on neutral ground to negotiate terms. She'll sign her name below mine, binding us together in this arranged marriage that's supposed to prevent a war. In three days, she becomes mine. Mine to protect, mine to control, mine to consume. The Morettis can call it an arranged marriage, but we both know the truth. She's walking into my cage, and I'm never letting her out.
They don't understand that Ana Moretti isn't coming here for peace. She's been preparing. A full year of ASL lessons, learning to sign so she can speak to the monster she's been promised to.
I've already assigned shadows to watch her. Not just surveillance. Protection. Three Moretti soldiers have been circling her apartment. They think they're hidden. My men could drop them in seconds, but I let them watch. Let them think she'ssafe. When she's mine, nobody will get within a hundred feet without my permission.
The door opens without a knock. Only one person in this house has that kind of death wish.
Luca slides into my study like smoke given form—six feet of deceptive lean muscle that moves wrong, too fluid, like his bones aren't quite connected the way other people's are. At twenty-eight, my younger brother should look youthful, but something in his pale blue eyes ages him, makes him ancient and newborn at once. Those eyes don't match the rest of us Rosettis—an inheritance from our mother that makes his particular brand of violence even more unsettling against his black hair, which looks perpetually disheveled, as if he's just risen from someone's deathbed or is about to create one.
His Armani suit probably cost five thousand dollars, but he wears it like he found it on a corpse—carelessly expensive, with something dark on the left cuff that could be wine or could be blood. Knowing Luca, it's probably both.
"Brother." His voice carries that particular tone that makes sane people reach for weapons. He leans against my doorframe with studied casualness. "Burning the midnight oil over your bride-to-be?"
His pale blue eyes fix on Ana's photos with an intensity that makes my jaw tighten. I catalog the room automatically. Two exits, three weapons within reach, optimal angle to put him down if needed. Even with family, especially with Luca, I never stop assessing threats.
"She's pretty," he observes, moving into my study uninvited. "Delicate bone structure. Breakable, really." He picks up one of the surveillance photos, studying it like a specimen. "I could make this simpler for you. Accidents happen. Even to Moretti princesses."
I don't bother looking up from the contract. Luca tests boundaries like a child, but he knows better than to act without permission. Still, the casual way he discusses Ana's death makes me want to put my fist through his face. The possessive rage that flares surprises me. She's not even mine yet.
"Think about it," he continues, that disturbing smile playing at his lips. "No messy marriage, no revenge plot to worry about. Just a tragic accident before the wedding. Gas leak, perhaps. Or a mugging gone wrong. Chicago's so dangerous these days."
The leather of my chair creaks as I stand, moving to the window. Outside, sirens wail in the distance. Normal Chicago violence that has nothing to do with us. The city never sleeps, and neither do its predators. I pour myself a whiskey, the burn familiar in my throat.
"Or," he says, tilting his head, "we could keep her. Break her properly. You always did have a weakness for broken things. Remember that dealer who tried to shortchange Marco? You held him while I worked. You didn't even flinch. That's the brother she needs to meet, not this brooding romantic."
That's enough.
My hand comes down flat on the desk, the sharp sound echoing through the study. Discussion over.
Luca doesn't even flinch. "You always were too sentimental about the Morettis," he says, setting Ana's photo back down with exaggerated care. "Just like with that Russian kid all those years ago. What was his name? The one who used to follow you around like a puppy before…"
My jaw clenches involuntarily, the only reaction I allow myself. The scar tissue on my throat aches tonight, phantom pain from old wounds. The memory threatens to surface. A boy's frightened eyes, choices made in blood and shadow. But I force it down where it belongs. Luca watches me with those unnatural eyes, cataloguing my response like he catalogues everything else.
"Ah," he says softly. "Still a sore spot, I see."
I maintain eye contact, letting him see nothing but cold control. Whatever game he's playing, mentioning ancient history won't work. That Russian child, whoever he was, disappeared into the aftermath of that night ten years ago. One more casualty in a war that started before any of us understood the cost.
Luca shrugs, unperturbed by my silence. "Fine. Keep your secrets, brother. We all have them." He examines his bloody fingernail with academic interest. "Though I doubt your bride will appreciate your… sentimental nature. The Morettis aren't known for their forgiveness."
