Chapter 8 - Ana
The darkness swallows me whole as I step into Dante’s domain.
My body freezes just past the threshold, wedding dress rustling in the silence. The room breathes with unseen threats, shadows thick enough to hide anything. A killer. A bed. The rest of my life stretching out in this blackness.
Behind me, Dante moves. His presence fills the doorway, blocking retreat.
Then his arm reaches past me, his chest brushing my back as he stretches for something on the wall.
The contact jolts through me: solid muscle, unexpected warmth, the scent of him surrounding me.
Cigarettes and expensive cologne mixed with something darker.
My nipples tighten traitorously against the wedding dress, and I know he must feel my sharp intake of breath.
I can't move. We're suspended in this moment, predator and prey, except I can't tell which one I am.
The lights flick on.
I blink against the sudden brightness, taking in the space that will be my prison.
Or my battlefield. The master suite unfolds in masculine elegance.
Dark leather furniture dominates the room, a massive four-poster bed that could hide weapons in every corner, walls lined with books I'll never be able to read in English.
Everything speaks of control, wealth, power held in check.
The windows draw my eye. Floor to ceiling glass overlooking the manicured grounds, guards patrolling below like ants. A beautiful cage with a perfect view of everything I can't reach.
My suitcase sits by the dresser, looking pathetically small in this vast space. Everything I own, my entire life, reduced to one bag in his territory.
Dante moves past me with fluid grace, claiming the room with every step.
His jacket comes off in smooth movements, hung precisely in the closet.
The domestic ritual feels strange after watching him correct my knife technique mere hours ago.
His hands work his cuffs, rolling sleeves to reveal forearms corded with muscle.
I shouldn't notice. Shouldn't care. But my traitorous body details every line.
"Where is bathroom?" My signs feel clumsy, exhaustion making my fingers thick.
He points to a door on the far wall, then moves to a massive desk and begins writing something. Dismissing me. Or giving me space. I can't read him, this silent husband who teaches his assassin proper form.
The bathroom door locks with a satisfying click. My first real privacy since the church.
I lean against the wood, letting myself breathe.
Truly breathe. The bathroom unfolds in marble luxury, a shower that could fit four people, a tub deep enough to drown in.
Everything pristine white and gold, nothing like our simple apartment in Rome with its cracked tiles and temperamental hot water that Papa always promised to fix.
My reflection in the mirror stops me cold. Wedding dress wrinkled from our struggle, makeup smeared, his ring heavy on my finger. I'm Mrs. Rosetti now. The name sits like acid on my tongue. Papa would weep to see his daughter bearing the enemy's name.
My hands shake as I reach beneath my dress, finding the leather holster cutting into my thigh. Papa's blade slides free, still there, still sharp. He let me keep it. After I tried to kill him, after he corrected my grip, after everything, he still let me walk into his bedroom armed.
Why?
The dried blood on my wrist catches the light. Just a thin line where his grip redirected my attack. He could have broken my wrist, could have made me pay for the assassination attempt. Instead, he was careful. Controlled. Absolute power wielded with precision that left barely a mark.
A footstep sounds from the bedroom. Then nothing. Just his presence, waiting.
I wash the blood away, watching pink water swirl down the drain. The bruise forming underneath is faint, finger-shaped. His mark on my skin. Tomorrow it will purple. Tomorrow I'll carry his touch visible on my body.
When I exit, Dante sits in a leather chair by the fireplace, watching the door. Waiting for me. A folded note lies on the bed, his precise handwriting visible even from here.
I approach slowly, ready to dodge if this is when he strikes. But he remains still, those dark eyes tracking my movement without threat. Just observation. Like I'm something to be studied.
The note unfolds in my trembling fingers:
This is your room. I will not touch you without permission.
The closet has been cleared for your things.
Breakfast is at 7 AM. You're free to roam (I have to look that word up on my cell phone) except the third floor—that's Luca's domain.
Guards will follow if you leave. For protection, not imprisonment. The bed is yours. I'll take the chair.
I read it twice, looking for the trap. The deception. The part where he claims his rights as a husband.
The chair? He's giving me the bed while he… what? Stands guard? Protects me? Or protects himself from me? My exhausted brain can't untangle his game, but my body recognizes the insult, or is it respect? in his distance.
"Why chair?" I sign, the question escaping before I can stop it.
His hands move in response, that almost-smile playing at his lips: "You need sleep to kill me properly tomorrow."
The dark humor of it makes something twist in my chest. Is he mocking me? Playing with his food before he devours it? Or does he actually want me rested for another attempt?
I open my suitcase while he watches from his chair, the weight of his attention making my skin prickle.
Everything I own spreads before me. Simple clothes that look like rags compared to what could fill that enormous closet. My life in Rome reduced to fabric and memories. At the bottom, my origami paper.
My fingers find the familiar squares, muscle memory taking over. The crane begins to form, precise folds bringing order to chaos. Dante's book lowers slightly. He's watching my hands work, checking this weakness perhaps. This need for control through creation.
"Stop staring," I sign one-handed, not breaking the rhythm of my folding.
"You're in my room," he signs back. "I'll look if I want."
The first real claim he's made. His room, his right to observe. The words make my stomach flip. His room. His right. His wife. Each possession burns like a brand, marking me as his property. I should rage against it. Instead, heat floods my core.
The crane takes shape under my fingers while his ownership settles over me like a shroud.
The wedding dress has become unbearable. Heavy, suffocating, stinking of incense and failed murder. I need it off. Need to shed this costume of innocence I wore while trying to kill my husband in God's house.
I grab my nightgown from the suitcase. Soft cotton, worn thin from years of wear. Nothing special. Nothing seductive. Just mine.
"Turn around," I sign.
He tilts his head, considering. For a moment I think he'll refuse, claim that right too. Then slowly, deliberately, he turns his chair to face the windows. Giving me privacy I didn't expect.
I've never undressed in front of a man. Even with his back turned, I feel his presence like hands on my skin. Is this what wives do? This strange dance of modesty and possession?
The dress pools at my feet. Each button released feels like accepting defeat. The fabric whispers against my skin as it falls, taking with it the last of my armor. The nightgown slides on, soft and vulnerable against skin used to sharp edges.
"I'm done." The English feels wrong, too sharp. In Italian, I would know how to make it sound like a threat. In English, I sound like a child announcing she's finished her vegetables.
He turns back, eyes traveling the length of me once. Not leering. Not lustful. Just taking inventory of what's his now. The possessive weight of that gaze makes heat pool between my thighs, and I hate myself for the wetness gathering there.
I dive for the bed, pulling covers high like a shield.
The lights go out, leaving only moonlight streaming through those enormous windows.
I lie rigid in his bed while he settles into the chair, both of us maintaining the fiction of sleep.
The sheets are silk, cool against my overheated skin.
Everything smells like him. Cigarettes and expensive cologne, but also something else.
Male. Dangerous. My exhausted body sinks into the mattress while my pussy throbs with unwanted awareness of him watching from the darkness.
His breathing fills the silence. Controlled, measured, completely awake. The leather creaks with each subtle shift of his weight. He's monitoring me. Waiting.
The moonlight catches something on the side table near his chair.
A book perhaps, or his phone. His hands rest empty on the armrests, no weapons, just patient stillness.
He's unarmed while watching me sleep. The restraint in it, the deliberate vulnerability, makes my stomach clench.
My enemy refuses to arm himself against me, and I'm wet from the thought.
What kind of monster am I becoming in his presence?
I test him, reaching slowly toward the nightstand where Papa's blade rests.
His breathing changes. Just slightly. A warning without words. I freeze, hand extended in the moonlight between us. The leather creaks once more. Acknowledgment that he sees, he knows, he's allowing this much but no more.
My fingers ache to grab it, to try again, but his breathing keeps me frozen. Even exhausted, even desperate, I'm learning his language of silence.
My hand retreats. His breathing returns to that steady rhythm. He's the wolf. I'm supposed to be the hunter. But in his domain, in his bed, I feel like the rabbit with nowhere to run.
How am I supposed to sleep with my enemy watching from the darkness? Every breath he takes reminds me I'm not alone. I'm trapped in his bed while he guards me from that chair. Or guards himself from me. I can't tell anymore.
My hands move in the darkness, knowing he can see despite the shadows: "I still hate you."
Silence stretches between us, long enough I think he won't respond. Then his hands rise, silver from moonlight as he signs back: "Hate me better tomorrow."
The words burrow under my skin like he's planting seeds in my hatred, nurturing it into something else.
Something that makes my thighs clench and my breath catch.
I came here to kill him, but my body wants to climb from this bed and…
No. That's exhaustion talking. Tomorrow I'll remember why I hate him.
The repetition sounds different now. Less mocking, more… encouraging? Like he needs my hatred as much as I need to give it. Like we're both playing roles in a tragedy written before we were born.
Exhaustion pulls at me like undertow, the jet lag finally winning against adrenaline.
My body grows heavy despite my mind's protests. Three days of no sleep, crossing an ocean, attempting murder, and now lying in my enemy's bed while he watches. It's too much. Even hatred can't keep me conscious forever.
His breathing continues its steady rhythm. My enemy's lullaby in the darkness. Each exhale reminds me he's there. Watching. Waiting. As trapped in this arrangement as I am, maybe. Or maybe that's what he wants me to think.
My eyes grow heavy, the exhaustion winning. Tomorrow I'll be stronger. Tomorrow I'll try again. Tomorrow I'll understand his game.
But tonight, I fall asleep to the sound of Dante Rosetti breathing in the darkness, my mind on Papa's blade, both of us suspended in this strange dance between violence and restraint. Between what we're supposed to be and what we are.