Page 63 of Ruthless Silence
"You think you're selling Ana Moretti," I tell him, blood dripping from my split lip. "But I'm Ana Rosetti now. My husband doesn't negotiate for what's already his. He just takes it back."
"Your husband has until midnight." He pulls out an expensive watch, makes a show of checking it. "Four hours left to hand over everything. Every territory, every route, every cent the Rosettis have built. His kingdom for his queen."
"He won't—"
"Then you go to the highest bidder." His smirk widens, and bile rises in my throat. "You'd be surprised how many want a turn with the Rosetti whore. The girl who spread her legs for her family's killer."
My face burns, but I keep my expression neutral. Don't give him the satisfaction.
"We've been watching you," Carlo continues, circling my chair like a predator. "That bedroom of yours, those big windows. You really should close the curtains when you fuck him. Though I'll admit, my men enjoyed the show."
The words catch me off guard. I knew they'd been watching, planning. That prisoner in the basement told us as much. But knowing they watched our most intimate moments, turned our love into entertainment… This morning in the shower, when Dante pressed me against the tile, water streaming over us as he fucked me with desperate need, signing my name against the glass door. They saw it all.
"Is it true he makes no sound when he comes?" Carlo's voice drips with sick amusement. "Even in pleasure, the silent devil stays mute. Must be frustrating, never hearing him call your name."
My hands clench behind the chair, rope cutting deeper. They watched us. Invaded our privacy, turned our love into something vulgar for their entertainment. But they don't understand. Dante speaks to me in ways they could never comprehend. His body is his voice, every touch a word, every thrust a promise.
"The auction starts at midnight if he doesn't comply," Carlo says, pulling out his phone. "Already have three interestedbuyers. The Mexicans want you for revenge. The Irish think you'd be useful leverage. And there's a private collector who just likes pretty things."
Then I hear it. Distant at first, like thunder rolling in from far away. Screams, muffled by distance and walls, but getting closer. One of the guards near the door tenses, hand moving to his weapon.
The warehouse air changes, like before a storm. The guards feel it too, that primitive awareness that predators are near. One checks his gun for the third time. Another's hand trembles lighting a new cigarette. They know what I know: Death is coming for them, and his name is Dante Rosetti.
"Check that out," Carlo snaps, but he's noticed it too. The slight uncertainty in his eyes, the way his hand drifts to his own gun.
More screams, closer now. Then suddenly, silence. The kind of silence that's worse than screaming.
Hope blooms in my chest, hot and desperate. Dante. He's coming for me. Not at midnight, not playing by their rules. He's here now, and from the sounds outside, he brought hell with him.
"Double the guards at the doors," Carlo orders, but I can hear the edge of fear in his voice now. He thought he had until midnight. Thought Dante would negotiate, would weigh options like a businessman.
He doesn't know my husband at all. Dante doesn't negotiate when it comes to me. He destroys.
Another scream cuts off abruptly. Closer. The guards are shifting nervously now, guns drawn.
The explosion tears through the loading dock door, smoke billowing into the warehouse like a living thing. My ears ring from the blast, but I'm already moving, using the chaos to wrench harder at my bonds.
Guards scatter, shouting, firing blindly into the smoke. Bodies start dropping, but I can't see who's shooting. Everything is chaos and cordite, shadows moving through shadows.
A guard stumbles backward, trips over my chair. As he falls past me, I lunge forward despite the rope binding me, sinking my teeth into his throat. He screams, tries to pull away, but I bite harder, tasting copper and feeling cartilage give way. This is who I am now, not the girl who came here for revenge, but the woman who'll spill blood for her family. For him. Our violence is our love language, written in bullets and bruises.
He drops his gun to clutch at his throat, and I work my feet toward it, struggling to position myself. The knife in my boot, the one they didn't find because they were too busy groping higher up my legs, slides free as I twist my ankle.
Working blind, hands still tied behind me, I manage to grip the small blade between my fingers. The rope parts strand by strand, each second feeling like an eternity as gunfire erupts around me. Finally, my hands are free.
I grab the fallen guard's gun, muscle memory from Uncle's training taking over. The weight feels right in my hands, familiar. The gun kicks in my hand as I fire, and I don't flinch.
"Ana Rosetti," I say aloud to myself, to them, to anyone listening. The name feels like armor, like weapon, like truth. Not Ana Moretti seeking revenge. Ana Rosetti, choosing to fight beside her family.
A shape moves through the smoke toward me, another guard. I don't hesitate. Three shots, center mass. He drops, and I feel nothing but savage satisfaction. These men watched us, violated our privacy, threatened to sell me like property.
"That's my girl," I whisper, imagining Dante's pride when he learns I didn't wait to be rescued. I fought. Just like he knew I would.
More shadows in the smoke, but these move differently. Controlled, efficient, deadly. The Rosetti brothers have arrived.
Through the clearing smoke, I see him first. Luca. That smile spreading across his face, the wrong one that makes sane people run. But right now, that terrifying smile is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
He moves through the warehouse like death given form, bodies falling around him as his knives find throats, hearts, arteries. Not shooting, too impersonal. Each kill intimate, personal, the guards dropping without even a gasp as Luca's blades slide between ribs, across necks. One tries to scream but Luca's hand covers his mouth as the knife goes in, and the man falls like the others, joining the growing pile of corpses.
