Chapter 21 - Alessandro
Tonight, I finally snapped.
My white shirt is painted with arterial spray from tonight's work, but I still haven't traced the fucking blackmailer.
I stand over the surveillance photos spread across my mahogany desk.
My knuckles throb, split open from persuasion that got me nowhere.
The compound feels different at two thirty in the morning.
Every door sealed with electronic locks, their red lights pulsing like wounds.
The usual nighttime sounds, guards joking, kitchen staff prepping breakfast, replaced by tactical whispers and chambering rounds.
The photos tell a story I'm only beginning to understand. Each one shows different angles of the Rosetti compound, but there's something specific about them I can't quite pinpoint.
My phone sits silent on the desk, waiting for the next call.
The blackmailer's escalating. First just threats, then demands, now promises of exposure that would destroy everything I've built with Emma.
Guards doubled at every entrance, but someone got close enough to photograph us. Someone who knew exactly where to look.
Distant gunshots echo from the warehouse district. My men handling tonight's latest target. The sound barely registers anymore, just background music to the symphony of violence that's become my life since those photos arrived. Three bodies tonight alone, and still no closer to the truth.
The study door opens without a knock. Only one person would dare.
"I told you to stay in our room," I say without turning, recognizing Emma's jasmine scent mixing with gunpowder residue from my clothes.
"And I told you I'm done hiding," she replies, her voice steady despite the blood decorating my shirt. "Besides, those gunshots woke me. Hard to sleep when you're conducting executions."
She crosses to the desk, her nightgown, my shirt, actually, stolen as usual, whispering against her skin. Three days since the blackmail started, and she's begun transforming from terrified victim to something else entirely. Something that makes my cock stir despite the gravity of our situation.
"You shouldn't see this," I tell her, but I don't move to hide the photos. She needs to understand what we're facing.
Emma studies each image with focused intensity I'm learning to recognize. Her eye catching details I might have missed.
"These are all service areas," she observes, fingers tracing the photos without touching the blood spots I've left on them. "Whoever took these knows how household staff moves. When deliveries arrive. Which doors stay propped open during shift changes."
The truth hits. Fuck. We've been hunting wolves while mice ate through our walls.
The phone rings, cutting through our analysis like a blade. Unknown number. I reach for it, but Emma's hand shoots out faster, her fingers closing around the device before I can stop her.
"Emma, don't—"
She answers anyway, her voice carrying a strength I didn't know she possessed: "You're speaking to Mrs. Rosetti. State your demands."
I freeze. Not Frances. Mrs. Rosetti. She's claiming my name as armor, wielding it like the weapon it is.
"Five million," the distorted voice crackles through the speaker.
"The shipping routes through the northern corridor.
And your complete submission to our commands, Mrs. Rosetti.
Or tomorrow morning, every family in Chicago learns exactly who Emma Pitt is and how she fooled the great Alessandro Rosetti. "
My hand finds my gun without thinking, needing the weight of it. The metal's warm from my body heat, familiar as breathing. Unlike the cold terror of imagining her exposed, destroyed by my enemies.
Emma's grip tightens on the phone, but her voice stays level: "You think you can threaten a Rosetti and live?"
The laugh that comes through the speaker makes my blood boil. "I think Alessandro would spare a little cash to protect his precious fake bride. Five million. The routes. Your cooperation. Soon. We're already closer than you think."
The line goes dead.
Emma sets the phone down carefully, like it might explode. Her hands shake slightly. Anger, not fear. When did she start changing?
"Someone close to the business," she says quietly. "They know about the shipping routes. A business rival, probably. Or someone even closer."
She's right. The specific routes, the northern corridor. Only a rival family would know their value. Or our own family. My jaw clenches hard enough to crack teeth.
The study door opens again. Marco enters without ceremony, shoulders tense with controlled violence. He's been hunting tonight too. Blood spots on his collar he didn't bother to clean.
"Two more taken," he says, voice flat. Then: "Someone's been buying information. Six weeks now." He slides financial records across my desk. "Cash. Untraceable."
Six weeks ago. Right around our wedding. Someone's been planning this from the beginning, watching us, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Emma steps forward, studying the papers. "The latest deposit was just yesterday. They're being paid for continuing intelligence. Your leak is still active."
Marco's eyes narrow as he truly looks at Emma for the first time tonight. Not as my wife, not as the identity she wears, but as someone with a mind worth consulting. "You understand this?"
She meets his gaze steadily. "I understand how invisible people operate. How they get paid to stay invisible while gathering secrets."
"Wait," she says suddenly, pointing to surveillance timestamps.
"Third Wednesday, servants' rotation day.
First Monday, when the laundry service comes.
I know this pattern. It's how staff creates blind spots.
When guards get distracted by pretty maids bringing coffee.
When the kitchen entrance props open for garbage runs. "
The observation clicks like everything suddenly making sense. I've been thinking like a don when I should have been thinking like Emma. Someone who understands how invisible people move through our world.
"Servant's knowledge," Marco observes, watching Emma with new interest.
"Exactly. Your blackmailer isn't just getting inside help. They understand domestic routines." Her voice carries the authority of lived experience. "I can find them because I know their world. Use me."
"Absolutely not," I say immediately, my pulse spiking at the thought of her in danger.
"You've killed three men tonight trying to protect me," she says, reaching for my ruined hands. Her fingers trace the split knuckles with unexpected tenderness, not flinching from the blood that comes away on her skin. "Let me protect us for once."
She lifts my hand to her lips, kissing each damaged knuckle. The gesture is so gentle, so at odds with the violence saturating the room, that something cracks in my chest.
"You want to use your wife as bait?" Marco asks, but there's consideration in his tone, not dismissal.
Emma doesn't look away from me as she answers: "Not bait, just use my information. Besides, I'm not asking. I'm volunteering. There's a difference."
"So my wife wants to play spy?" I say. "This marriage is getting more interesting by the day. Next you'll tell me you can crack safes and mix poisons."
Her lips twist in amusement as she takes a clean cloth from my desk drawer and starts cleaning the blood from my hands with careful efficiency.
Each stroke removes evidence of tonight's violence, but her touch promises she's not trying to clean the darkness from me, just tending the wounds it causes.
"Three bodies," she murmurs, echoing my opening words. "Three men who thought they could hurt us. How many more will you destroy before you realize I'm not a princess who needs saving? Don't hurt yourself on my account."
"Worried about me, cara? Careful, I might start thinking you actually like me. Though the concerned wife look is very fetching on you."
The phone rings again. This time, Emma doesn't ask permission. She simply takes control, putting it on speaker. I watch her voice drop to something I've never heard from her. Attempted authority that wavers slightly but holds.
"That was quick," she observes. "Desperate?"
"Where's your husband, Mrs. Rosetti? Hiding behind his fake bride's skirts?"
Emma's laugh is brittle but determined. "My husband is standing right here, covered in the blood of everyone who's threatened us so far. Would you like to be next?"
Through the window, I spot movement. My men handling another interrogation. Emma follows my gaze, her hand settling on my shoulder. Her grip tightens as she watches, a small tremor running through her fingers, but she doesn't look away.
"Five million is insulting," she continues to the blackmailer, her voice gaining strength. "The routes are worth ten times that. You're either stupid or desperate, and either way, you're dead. The only question is whether my husband kills you quickly or…" she pauses, swallowing hard, "or slowly."
"You're making a mistake," the voice warns, but there's uncertainty now where before there was confidence.
"No," Emma says, her voice steadier now. "You made the mistake when you thought I was the weak point. I'm learning not to be."
She ends the call without waiting for a response. When she turns to face me, her eyes are bright with fear and determination.
"Your men have another one," she observes quietly, nodding toward the window. "Another lead to follow."
Marco stares at her with something approaching respect. "You're not what I expected from the Hewson princess."
She doesn't flinch, keeping her composure. "I'm becoming what your brother needs me to be. A Rosetti."
The words hit with the force of a confession. She's not just accepting our violence. She's trying to claim it, even if her hands still shake slightly. My brave girl, stepping into darkness she's not quite ready for but willing to face for us.