Page 62 of Ruthless Silence
"Save some for me," Luca hums, selecting knives with disturbing care. "I want to play with whoever bruised her pretty face."
His casual violence usually unsettles people. Tonight, I make him look stable by comparison. My hands shake as I secure another blade, remembering Ana's fingers on mine this morning, how she signed "be safe" even though we both knew the meeting was just paperwork. She worries about me. No one's ever worried about me before.
Marco coordinates tactics while we arm ourselves. "Nico leads entry team Alpha. Dante and Luca go straight for Ana. Alex, you're backup and exit. Wait for Sofia. She's twenty minutes out but insists on joining."
Family. Ana would cry hearing that Sofia's racing back from her meeting downtown to help rescue her. Now she's gone, taken, suffering, and every second feels like a year.
"Two minutes," Marco says. "Cars are ready."
I need to see our room first. Need to breathe her scent, touch something of hers, remember why I'm about to become the demon Chicago whispers about.
The bedroom still smells like jasmine and sex, like the morning we shared before this nightmare began. The sheets are tangled from our lovemaking, her pillow still indented from her head. I press my face to it, breathing deep, trying to hold onto her scent. On the nightstand, three paper cranes she folded last night while we talked. I wrap one, careful not to crush the delicate wings, in the silk scarf she wore yesterday, then pocket it.
Her torn nightgown from last night lies on the floor. Evidence of my desperate need to be inside her, to claim her again after she chose me completely. Now someone else has torn her dress. Put hands on what's mine. The rage builds until myvision edges red, until my damaged throat burns with the need to scream.
"Coming for you," I sign to the empty room, to her ghost, to whoever's listening. "Hold on, baby. Fight. I'm coming."
The paper crane presses against my chest, wrapped in silk that smells like home. Like her. Like everything they're trying to take.
Marco appears in the doorway. "Cars ready. Time to go. Sofia will meet us there."
He stops, seeing me clearly for the first time. His composed brother, the silent strategist, is gone. In his place stands something that makes even the Don of Chicago step back.
"Dante," he says carefully. "We'll get her back."
I move past him, and he doesn't try to stop me. None of them do. They follow at a distance, giving the demon space to breathe. Smart. The thing I'm becoming doesn't distinguish between friend and foe. There's only obstacles between me and Ana.
"Bring her home, brother," Marco says, understanding the look in my eyes. "Whatever it takes."
Whatever it takes. Even if I have to lose the humanity she helped me find.
The paper crane presses against my chest as we head for the cars. A talisman. A promise. A reminder that somewhere in this city, my wife is waiting for rescue.
Hold on, Ana. The devil's coming for you.
And Hell's coming with him.
29 - Ana
The rope cuts deeper into my wrists with every movement, raw skin burning where I’ve been testing the knots for the past hour. Blood trickles down my palms, making them slippery, but that might actually help. The warehouse stretches around me like a tomb, all cold concrete and rusted metal that will soon be painted with blood. Their blood, if I know my husband. And I do. I know him in ways that make my chest ache with love and terror in equal measure.
My split lip throbs where the first guard backhanded me for spitting at him. The copper taste of blood coats my tongue, mixing with the phantom taste of Dante's kiss from this morning.
"Be safe," I'd signed, and he'd caught my hands, kissed each palm with reverence that made my eyes burn. "Always come back to me." His promise was in the way he pressed my hand over his heart, letting me feel its steady beat, the only voice that truly speaks for him.
"Boss wants her conscious when he gets here," one guard mutters, lighting a cigarette. The smoke drifts toward me, mixing with the smell of motor oil and fear-sweat. Not mine. Theirs. They know what Dante will do when he finds out they took me.
My shoulders ache from being wrenched behind the chair, but I keep working the rope against a rough edge of metal I found on the chair leg. Every shift sends fresh pain through my raw wrists, reminding me of how gently Dante held those samewrists last night, kissing the delicate skin where my pulse races for him. Pain means I'm alive. Pain means I still have time.
Twelve men that I can see, maybe more in the shadows. Papa would be proud I'm still counting, still planning. But all I really want is Dante's arms around me, his silent promise that we're going home. Two exits visible from this chair: the loading dock they dragged me through and a door marked with peeling paint that might lead to offices.
The warehouse door clangs open, and my breath catches. More men enter, their footsteps echoing on concrete. I count eight more, bringing the total to twenty. Twenty men for one woman. They're terrified of Dante. As they should be.
"Keep working that rope, sweetheart," a familiar voice says from behind me. "Won't do you any good, but I admire the effort."
Carlo Senior steps into my line of sight, and my stomach drops. The man from the restaurant discussion, the father who took his dead son's name. I recognize him now, not his face, but his presence, the way he carries himself like violence is his birthright. Just like they described at dinner before the attack. The hothead pushing boundaries, the one seeking revenge for Carlo Junior's death last year. His cologne is cheap, wrong, nothing like Dante's sandalwood scent that still clings to my hair.
"Ana Rosetti," he says, that smirk spreading across his weathered face. "Though you'll be Ana Moretti again soon enough. Or maybe just 'merchandise.' Depends on how this plays out."
