Chapter 5 - Dante
The Hadley representatives shift nervously across the conference table. Marco sits beside me, letting me handle the negotiation—enforcement is my domain.
My fingers fly across the tablet: "Your shipment arrives Friday during the wedding. We'll be occupied. Try to fuck us over, and I'll personally visit each of your families."
Marco reads it aloud, his voice adding weight to my threat. The lead representative, Hadley's nephew, tries to maintain eye contact but fails. They all break eventually.
"We wouldn't dream of—" he starts.
I slam my hand on the table, making them all jump. Then I pull up surveillance photos on my tablet—not of Ana, but of the nephew's daughter at her private school, his wife at her yoga studio. Legal activities in public spaces, but the message is clear.
I type again: "Thirty million in product. Clean transfer. No games."
The nephew nods rapidly. "No games, Mr. Rosetti."
After they leave, Marco lights a cigarette. "You're distracted. The Moretti girl?"
I don't respond, but he knows. In ten years of silence, I've never been distracted during business. Now I'm checking my phone between threats, watching her hotel's security feed while negotiating territories worth millions.
"Handle your business," Marco says, standing. "All of it. The Family needs you focused, not mooning over surveillance footage."
I give my brother a death stare, but it doesn't stick. "I'm not mooning," I sign.
But I know exactly what she's wearing and where she is.
The electric handshake from yesterday's meeting still burns through my palm, phantom heat that makes me clench my fist. She's in her hotel room now, exhausted enough that she'd be easy prey.
Her guard is down, eyelids heavy from the jet lag still clinging to her.
I could be there in twenty minutes, could have her pinned to that hotel bed before she fully woke.
The thought makes me grip the desk edge hard enough to hurt.
I walk to the cupboard and pour myself a large whiskey, letting it burn down my throat where the scar tissue aches tonight. The surveillance team I assigned sends constant updates, but I need to see her myself. Need to watch her prepare for Friday like she's preparing for war.
Marco settles into the leather chair across from me, authority radiating even in casual observation. "You're obsessed."
I pull my tablet closer, writing quickly: "Know your enemy." My brothers know ASL, but only the basics. For more complex concepts, I need to write.
"Is that what she is?" Marco's question hangs between us.
I nod. Ten years of perfect control, shattered by a woman who learned sign language to tell me she hates me. The irony burns: she's the first person to truly speak to me in a decade, and she uses that gift to promise murder. It makes me want to fuck the hatred out of her.
Evening shadows stretch across the city when I get home and settle into my plush office chair before my monitors.
Luca slides in uninvited, bringing the copper scent of fresh blood. He moves with that unnatural silence that makes even hardened soldiers nervous. His pale eyes find the screens immediately, cataloging Ana's image with academic interest.
"She's pretty on camera," he observes, tilting his head. "May I meet her before the wedding?"
My hand slams the table, a rare display of temper that makes even Luca pause.
"Possessive already?" Luca's voice remains conversational. "How unlike you, brother. You've never cared about your toys before."
He doesn't step back, just smiles that wrong smile. "I could teach her things. She holds the knife wrong. I could show her the proper angle for maximum damage."
I pull my tablet closer, writing a single word: "No."
The temperature drops as I tower over him. Luca raises his hands in mock surrender, blood still under his fingernails from whatever he was doing before this.
"Your toy, your rules," he murmurs. "Though you used to share everything with me, brother. Remember?"
After he leaves, I immediately text Marco: "Luca doesn't go near her. Ever."
After a few moments, Marco replies: "I'll send him away for a week after the wedding."
One week won't be enough, but it's a start.
The mandatory family dinner fills the formal dining room with familiar chaos and casual violence. Marco enters first, checking his phone for updates on Friday's shipment. Nico's already at the table, cleaning his Glock with military precision.
"Perimeter's secure," he reports. "Two cars on the Moretti girl, like you ordered."
Alessandro breezes in, all six feet of calculated charm wrapped in a designer suit.
At twenty-seven, he's inherited our mother's green eyes but weaponized them with a flirtatious smile that makes people forget he speaks four languages and never forgets an insult.
His dark hair has that perfect wave that looks effortless but probably takes him twenty minutes to achieve.
The gold lighter he spins between his fingers catches the light—he doesn't smoke, just likes having something to occupy his hands while his mind breaks apart everyone's weaknesses.
A thin scar cuts through his left eyebrow, and naturally, it only adds to his appeal.
"Family dinner or funeral? You all look thrilled." Alex's charm fills the room, smoothing tension. "The Hadley negotiators finally saw reason. Amazing what a good wine and careful conversation can accomplish."
Sofia arrives last in cream silk that makes her look delicate, like something that might shatter if handled roughly—a carefully crafted lie.
At twenty-five and only 5'6", our baby sister appears fragile next to her brothers, but I've seen her kill a man in stilettos without breaking stride.
Her blonde waves frame a face that belongs on magazine covers, and those blue eyes, pale like Luca's but warmer, miss nothing.
She sits beside me, the only one I allow that close, and immediately signs: "You look tired. When did you last sleep?"
I sign back: "When did you last kill someone?"
She laughs, the sound musical and sharp. "Tuesday. It was therapeutic."
"So the Moretti girl," Alex says, swirling his wine. "Is she pretty enough for our silent prince?"
"When did you last fuck someone, Dante?" Sofia asks, studying her perfect manicure. "Your hand doesn't count."
My look promises violence, but it's protective warning, not anger. Sofia knows exactly how long it's been: five years since Coco saw my scars and ran screaming.
"Gift for the bride?" Alex asks, changing the subject smoothly.
I pull out the small velvet box, setting it on the table. Inside, a delicate silver chain holds a pendant: a tiny knife, detailed down to the serrated edge. Sofia examines it with interest.
"It's actually beautiful," she says, holding it to the light. "Deadly, though."
"Like his bride," Luca says softly from his corner, that unsettling smile playing at his lips.
My stare promises violence if he goes near Ana.
Nico speaks up. "She's been training. Knife work every morning, 6 AM sharp."
"Self-taught," Luca adds. "Inefficient form. I could fix that."
Marco's voice cuts through with absolute authority. "She's to be respected. She's about to be family." He pauses. "Try not to terrorize her, Dante. We need her cooperative for the merger. Dead brides don't sign territory agreements."
The word 'family' makes Sofia's smile turn too bright, something I notice immediately. Whatever memories that word triggers from that night ten years ago, she buries them quickly.
Day two begins with watching the surveillance feed as the hotel concierge delivers my gift to Ana's room. She opens the box cautiously, like it might explode. The note reads simply: "For your collection. —D.R."
Then she laughs, the first genuine laugh I've witnessed. Not bitter or sharp, but actual amusement. She holds the knife pendant up to the light, examining the craftsmanship, then actually puts on the necklace.
Throughout the day, the cameras catch her fingers finding it, touching the blade.
She touches the knife pendant repeatedly, fingers tracing the metal, and I imagine those fingers tracing my scars instead.
The thought makes me adjust myself, cock hardening at the idea of her hands learning the geography of my damage.
Nico texts his report: "She went to the gym at dawn. Then confession at St. Mary's."
Confession. Two days before marrying me. The ache in my scarred throat intensifies. Praying for forgiveness for what she plans to do, or seeking strength to do it?
That evening, she practices signing in her room. Her fingers move carefully through: "Thank you for the gift."
Then she adds, with a slight smile that makes my chest tighten: "I'll wear it when I kill you."
But she's still wearing the necklace, her fingers tracing the blade pendant as she signs death threats. The contradiction makes me want to pin her against a wall and show her exactly what kind of monster she's threatening. Make her sign my name while I'm buried inside her.
At 2 AM on the eve of my wedding, I sit alone at my piano, fingers moving through Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major.
The melancholy notes fill the silence where my voice once lived.
The keys feel smooth under my fingers, and I play her a promise.
Each note is something I'll do to her body: this crescendo when she comes, this diminuendo when she begs, this fortissimo when she finally breaks for me.
I don't hear Alex enter until he speaks, still perfectly groomed despite the late hour.
"Can't sleep? Nervous about tomorrow?"
My look says what I think of that suggestion.
"She's nothing like Coco was." The name makes my hands freeze on the keys. Coco: Marco's attempted match from five years ago. The society girl who'd seen my scars and run screaming from the room.
"This one won't run," Alex observes, settling into the nearby chair. "She'll fight, not flee."
I nod, returning to the piano but abandoning Chopin for something darker, more passionate. My fingers find notes I haven't played in years, a composition that burns with danger and desire.
"You know she'll try to kill you tomorrow," Alex says quietly. "During the ceremony, probably. When you're distracted."
I nod again, the music building under my hands, violent and beautiful.
Tomorrow I marry a woman who wants me dead.
My cock hardens at the thought of her trying, of catching her wrist mid-strike, of showing her exactly how her assassination attempt ends: with her bent over the altar while I claim what's mine.
For the first time in ten years, I feel truly alive.