Page 64 of Ruthless Silence
"Sister," he calls out cheerfully, stepping over the dead. "You've been practicing your bite. Good girl."
Sister. He called me sister. Real family who burns worlds for me.
I try to stand, to move toward him, but cold metal presses against my temple. Carlo's arm wraps around my throat from behind, using me as a shield.
"Stop!" Carlo shouts, his gun hard against my head. "Everyone stops, or I paint the wall with her brains!"
The warehouse goes still. Through the smoke, I see more shapes. Nico, tactical and ready. Marco, commanding even in chaos. Alex, somehow still elegant despite the blood on his suit. Sofia is here too, composed and fierce.
And Dante.
Oh God, Dante.
He stands twenty feet away, covered in other men's blood, and God help me, my body responds like he's not death incarnate but my salvation. My pussy clenches remembering this morning, how he fucked me against the shower wallwhispering promises with his hands. Even now, even with a gun to my head, I want him. Monster, protector, mine.
I've never seen him like this. Not controlled violence, not calculated rage. This is something else. Something primitive and terrible and entirely focused on Carlo's gun at my head. His eyes meet mine across the warehouse, and in them, I see my whole world.
"You choose death," Carlo hisses in my ear. "Both of you. Together. How romantic."
Dante's eyes meet mine across the warehouse. In them, I see the same truth I feel. If we die tonight, at least we had this morning. At least we had these days of choosing each other. This morning I folded paper cranes in our bed while he watched, his dark eyes soft with wonder like I'm something precious. Now I'm using one as a weapon. Everything I was and everything I'm becoming, folded into this moment.
"Together," I mouth to him, and see him understand.
But I'm not done fighting. My hand finds the small origami crane in my pocket, the one I made this morning before they took me. My fingers close around it, the paper sharp between my fingers.
"Together," I whisper to Carlo, then slam my head back into his nose while driving the crane's pointed beak into his gun hand.
The gun fires, but I'm already dropping, the bullet passing through where my head was. Luca's knife follows the bullet's path, finding Carlo's throat before he can recover.
"No one," Luca says conversationally as Carlo drops, "touches my sister."
Then Dante's arms are around me, pulling me against his chest, his hands moving frantically over me checking for injuries. His hands shake as they frame my face. Dante who never shakes, who stayed steady even with my knife at his throat.But losing me undid him in ways violence never could. I taste his fear in the desperate press of his mouth to my forehead, feel his control shatter in the way he crushes me against his chest like he's trying to pull me inside his skin where I'll be safe forever.
"I'm okay," I whisper against his throat, breathing in sandalwood and gunpowder, home and war combined. "I'm okay. I fought. I waited for you but I fought."
The look in his eyes breaks my heart and rebuilds it all at once. Pride, terror, love, rage, everything he can't say aloud written in that dark gaze.
"Together," he signs, still trembling. "Always together."
We're both covered in blood, mine, theirs, maybe his, but he kisses my forehead with such tenderness it makes my chest ache. We're here. We survived.
"Home," I whisper against his throat. "Take me home."
His arms tighten around me, and I know without words, without signs, without anything but the way he holds me: I am home. In his arms, covered in our enemies' blood, I'm exactly where I belong.
30 - Dante
“Sister!” Luca appears through smoke, that wrong smile bright with joy. “You’re bleeding! How wonderful. Dante will paint the city red for this.”
He's right. I already have. Will paint more if needed.
"This way," I sign quickly, taking Ana's hand.
Guards block our path. Without hesitation, we fall into formation. She covers high while I go low, her shots keeping them pinned while I close distance. When I glance back, the pride in my chest threatens to crack my ribs. Even covered in blood, even shaking from adrenaline, she's perfect.
When we finally break through to clear air, she's trembling against me. But alive. That's all that matters.
The car idles at the warehouse entrance, Nico ready at the wheel. Sofia's in the passenger seat, having abandoned her heels somewhere inside, blood splattered across her cream silk. Nico doesn't blink at the carnage covering us, just drives the second we're inside.
