Page 65 of Ruthless Silence
My hands are on Ana immediately, gentle now, so different from the violence of minutes ago. My fingers ghost over her split lip, checking, assuring. The bruised temple, someone will die slower for that. Raw wrists from the rope, I memorize the pattern to match against corpses later. When my fingers brush her ribs and she winces, my jaw clenches hard enough to crack teeth.
"I'm okay," she says, though we both know it's partial truth.
I continue my inventory, checking for hidden injuries. When I pull her against me, infinitely gentle, careful of every hurt, my body shudders just once. Everything in me screaming that I almost lost her. My hand cups her head, holding her against my chest where she can feel my racing heartbeat, the only voice that speaks constantly.
Her fingers are clumsy from the rope burns, but she manages to sign against my chest: "I knew you'd come. Never doubted."
My hands shake as I sign back: "Always. Will always come for you."
"How did you find me so fast?"
"Tore the city apart," Nico says from the driver's seat. "Never seen him like that. Twelve Detroit locations in three hours."
Twelve locations. Three hours. I became everything they whispered about and worse. The silent devil unleashed, painting Chicago red to find what's mine.
Ana catches my hand, pressing a kiss to my scarred knuckles. These hands that just killed for her, that would kill the world to keep her safe. The contrast, her soft lips on my violence, makes my chest tight.
Then the adrenaline leaves her all at once. She goes boneless, collapsing against me. I take her weight easily, holding her up when her body quits fighting.
"Tired," she mumbles against my blood-stained shirt. "So tired, Dante."
I hold her firm but gentle against my chest.
"Mrs.Rosetti," she whispers, tasting the title. "I told them I was Mrs.Rosetti and you'd come. They laughed."
My hand tightens in her hair, possessive, claiming. That damaged sound rumbles in my chest, trying to say what my scarred throat never can.
"Bet they're not laughing now," she continues, words slurring with exhaustion.
I pull out a paper crane from my pocket, one I found on our bedroom floor this morning, one she'd folded last night while we talked about the future. Wrapped in her silk scarf, I kept it with me while hunting, her art against my heart while I destroyed for her.
She feels the paper crinkle between us. "Home," she mumbles, already half-asleep. "Take me home."
But I know she doesn't mean the mansion. Home is this: her in my arms, us together, breathing the same air. Home is wherever she is.
"Mine," she whispers, barely audible.
Marco waits at the mansion entrance, taking in Ana's injuries with eyes that promise slower death for Detroit. "Detroit?" he asks simply.
"Ended," I sign. Completely. None survived. Carlo and his lieutenants, all dead.
"Good." To Ana: "You're safe now."
"I know," she says, finding strength to straighten slightly. "I have family."
Marco actually smiles, rare, real. My brother accepting my wife as blood.
In our bathroom, I wash blood from her skin with obsessive care. Not all of it is hers, most is from enemies. But each mark on her perfect skin makes rage burn fresh. She tends my knuckles like always, our ritual of mutual care. The antiseptic stings against split skin, but her touch soothes more than any medicine could.
"They're dead," she soothes when my hands shake with fury over her bruises.
"Not dead enough," I sign.
She catches my face between her palms, forcing me to meet her eyes. "I'm here. You found me. That's all that matters."
As I bandage her wrists, careful of the raw skin, she signs: "Your silence saved me."
I pause, confused.
