Chapter 21 - Ana
The stairs to the basement feel like descending into my own grave. Each step takes me deeper into a part of the Rosetti mansion I’ve never seen, never wanted to see. The air grows thick with something that isn’t just humidity. It tastes like copper, like all the screams these walls have swallowed.
Like the old wine cellar in Rome where Papa taught me to hide during raids, except this isn't for hiding. This is for something worse.
"You shouldn't be here," Dante signs for the third time, his movements sharp with frustration.
"The attack was on me," I sign back, my own gestures equally aggressive. "I have the right to know why."
My stomach lurches, and I have to swallow bile.
Three days ago, when Dante destroyed those men at the restaurant, I thought I'd seen the extent of his violence.
But this purposeful descent into a place designed for suffering is different.
This is the moment I stop fighting what I've become.
Papa's daughter would run. Dante's wife stays.
Behind us, Marco descends with measured steps, his presence filling the narrow stairwell.
Nico follows, a notebook in hand, his military bearing making the space feel even more confined.
But it's Luca who makes my skin crawl, his footsteps too light, too eager, like we're heading somewhere pleasant instead of hell.
The soundproofing becomes obvious the moment we reach the bottom. The walls are thick, reinforced, designed to contain whatever happens down here. The silence feels alive, pressing against my eardrums.
"Welcome to my workshop," Luca says brightly, gesturing to a heavy metal door. His pale eyes catch the fluorescent lights, making them look almost silver. "I've prepared something special."
The door opens to reveal a sight that makes my stomach lurch.
The concrete walls sweat with condensation, or maybe it's old blood that never quite washes away.
Each breath fills my lungs with copper and fear-sweat.
The room is organized like a surgeon's theater: tools arranged by size, drains in the floor, overhead lights that bleach everything white and merciless.
Nothing like the warm shadows of our bedroom where violence is something whispered in the dark.
And in the center, chains securing a man to a metal chair bolted to the concrete. A Detroit soldier I recognize from the restaurant attack.
Blood crusts his face, one eye swollen shut. His breathing comes in wet gasps that suggest broken ribs. But he's alive. Conscious. Watching us enter with his one good eye.
"I saved him as a gift," Luca announces, gesturing to his work like a cat presenting a bird it's tortured but not quite killed. "The others were too damaged to question properly, but this one is perfect for answers."
Dante's hand finds my lower back, not pushing but offering. I can leave. He's giving me the choice. Instead, I step forward into the room.
Marco moves to stand in front of the prisoner, authority radiating from his stillness. "Let's begin simply. Who ordered the attack on the restaurant?"
The man spits, blood and saliva hitting the floor near Marco's shoe. "Fuck you, Rosetti scum."
Nico makes a note, his pen moving across the page with the steady rhythm of someone documenting evidence. Everything recorded in the careful script of a soldier who's seen worse but still keeps track.
"I'll ask again," Marco says, his voice never changing pitch. "Who ordered the hit?"
"Carlo sends his regards," the prisoner gasps, then laughs, the sound wet and wrong. "From hell."
Carlo. The name from dinner before the attack. The men had been discussing him, that hothead whose cousin just got out of prison. The one pushing boundaries in Detroit. But they said he was alive then, making moves. Now he's dead?
I look to Dante, confused by the timeline.
His hands move in explanation: "Detroit prince. Died last year in a territory dispute."
"But at dinner they said…" I start to sign.
"Different Carlo," Marco interrupts, understanding my confusion. "The son died last year. The father took the same name. It's tradition in their family. Carlo Senior is who they discussed at dinner."
"His son's death demands blood," the prisoner continues, eyes focusing on Marco with fevered intensity. "Rosetti blood. Any Rosetti blood. Carlo Senior won't stop until Chicago bleeds."
"Carlo Junior died in his own stupidity," Marco states, like reading a weather report. "Nothing to do with us."
"His father disagrees." The prisoner's one good eye swings to me, and something in his gaze makes my skin crawl. "Especially about her."
Recognition flares in the prisoner's face as he truly sees me for the first time. His split lips curve into something that might be a smile if it wasn't so grotesque.
"The Moretti whore," he says, the words dripping with venom. "We heard about you. The last of your line, spreading your legs for the family that butchered yours."
The temperature in the room drops to something arctic. Every brother goes statue-still, that predator stillness that comes before violence erupts. The fluorescent lights seem to dim despite not flickering. Even Luca stops examining his tools.
"When we take Chicago," the prisoner continues, his voice gaining strength from pure hatred, "you're the prize. Carlo's father promised you to whoever brings him Dante's head."
My stomach turns, but I keep my face neutral. I've heard threats before. Been called worse names. But never this specific, never this planned.
"We know everything about you," he leers, and ice floods my veins. "Carlo's father has been watching, planning exactly how we'll mark that pretty skin. Every detail of your routine, every weakness."
Madonna mia. They've been watching me. My hands shake, not from fear but from the effort of not crossing the room to Dante.
The threats become more graphic, more vile. He describes exactly what they'll do, how they'll break me, use me, destroy me piece by piece. Each word paints pictures I don't want in my head, violence so specific it's clearly been discussed, planned, savored in their sick fantasies.
"Pass you around the warehouse," he continues. "Every soldier who lost someone to the Rosettis gets a turn. Teach you what happens to traitor cunts who forget their blood."
The brothers have gone beyond tense. They're frozen in that moment before everything breaks loose. The room feels like the instant before lightning strikes.
"Then we'll send what's left back to Italy," the prisoner concludes, "so everyone knows what happens to Moretti women who betray their blood for Rosetti cock."
The silence that follows is absolute. No one moves. No one breathes.
Then Dante steps forward.
There's no warning, no telegraphing of intent. One moment he's beside me, the next his hand wraps around the prisoner's smallest finger. The snap echoes off the concrete walls, followed immediately by a scream that doesn't sound human.
But Dante's just beginning.
The second finger snaps with the same slow, deliberate precision. Then the third. Dante works steadily, his movements controlled, almost surgical. Each snap is purposeful, measured, giving the prisoner time to feel each break before the next begins.
This isn't rage. It's something colder, more terrifying. A promise written in broken bones.
The prisoner's screams have dissolved into whimpers, animal sounds of agony. But Dante isn't finished. He moves to the other hand, and the slow destruction begins again. One finger. Two. Each break deliberate, unhurried.
Through it all, his eyes never leave mine. Dark, possessive, asking a question I don't know how to answer. Is this what you want? Is this who you need me to be?
Dio mio, yes. The thought arrives unbidden, unwanted, undeniable. I've seen him violent before, with Giuseppe, at the restaurant, but this calculated destruction for my honor makes my body respond in ways that should shame me.
"The tongue," Luca suggests conversationally, pulling a knife from his jacket with the casual air of someone offering a pen. "The mouth has fascinating anatomy. So many nerves, so much sensitivity. But he won't need it anymore."
He offers the blade handle-first to Dante, who takes it without hesitation. The prisoner tries to keep his mouth closed, but Dante's thumb finds a pressure point that makes his jaw drop open.
The cut is quick, efficient. Blood pours from the prisoner's mouth as his tongue hits the floor with a wet sound that makes me glad I skipped breakfast. He can't threaten me anymore. Can't speak those vile promises. Can't say my name with that poisonous hatred.
Dante drops the knife and signs to me with bloody hands: "No one speaks of you that way."
The silent declaration hangs between us, more intimate than any words could be. He's marked himself with blood for me, turned himself into something monstrous to protect what's his.
The prisoner gurgles, drowning in his own blood until Nico efficiently turns his head to the side, letting it drain onto the floor. Professional. Practical. Keeping him alive for more questions he can no longer answer.
"May I?" Luca asks, and the politeness of it makes everything worse.
Dante nods once, stepping back but keeping his position between me and the prisoner. United front. Brothers in violence.
Luca approaches the chair like an artist approaching canvas, tilting his head to study the prisoner's face from different angles. "You know, the ocular nerve is remarkably sensitive. Twenty-six muscles control eye movement. All those delicate connections between sight and memory."
He pulls something from his pocket. Not a knife but something medical and precise. "You looked at her. Pictured things. That requires eyes."
The prisoner tries to thrash, but the chains hold him firm. Luca works steadily, making observations about anatomy as he works. "The wonderful thing about trauma to the optic nerve is it affects memory formation. Can't picture what you can't see. The brain literally cannot reconstruct the images."
Santo cielo, he's destroying this man for words. Just words about me.
I should be horrified. Should be running from this basement, from these men who destroy so casually. Instead, I feel safe. Protected. The warmth in my chest isn't about the violence. It's about these men doing this for me. About being worth this level of protection.
"Almost done," Luca says, his tone academic. "Fascinating how quickly the mind adapts to sensory loss. There. Now you match your future. Dark and empty."
The prisoner's screams have become something else, a keening sound that barely seems human. Blood runs from empty sockets like crimson tears.
I feel Papa's presence like weight on my shoulders, but for the first time, I shrug it off. His ghost has no place in this basement, in this choice I'm making.
Dante turns to me, and I see the question in his eyes. His hands move: "Too much?"
The truth escapes before I can stop it: "He threatened me. Deserved worse."
Marco raises an eyebrow, something like approval in his expression. Nico nods, making another note. She's family now. But I only have eyes for Dante, blood-covered and beautiful in his violence.
My hands shake as I sign, not from fear but from the effort of not crossing the room to him: "No one touches me."
"No one but me," he signs back, and the possession in it makes my knees weak.
"No one but you," I sign, and the admission burns through me like fire.
It's the first time I've said it, admitted what we both know. I belong to him. Not by force or contract, but by choice. By the way my body sings when he protects me, the way I crave his violence as much as his touch.
The prisoner dies slowly, drowning in his own blood while blind to the world that's leaving him behind. It's not quick. Not merciful. It's a lesson written in suffering.
Papa would be weeping if he could see me here. His daughter standing in a torture chamber, finding comfort in violence done in her name. He raised me to be strong but not this. Not someone who sees love in blood spilled for her protection.
But Papa's dead. Has been for ten years. And the daughter he raised died the moment Dante was inside me, claiming me in ways that can't be undone.
"Dump him at the edge of the city," Marco says finally. "Let Detroit find him like this. Send a message about touching what's ours."
Ours. The word echoes in the blood-soaked space. I'm theirs now. Part of this family that destroys together, protects together, chooses violence together.
As we file out of the basement, Dante's hand finds mine. His fingers are still wet with blood, and I don't care. I lace our fingers together, his violence and my acceptance mixing on our joined hands.
The stairwell is narrow, forcing us close. I stop him halfway up, needing to say this in the space between hell and home.
"I want to belong to you," I whisper, the words barely audible.
He turns, presses me against the wall with his body. Not aggressive, just desperate to be close. His forehead touches mine, and I breathe him in. Blood and sandalwood and dark promise. His whole body shudders with need barely contained.
"You already do," he signs with his free hand against my hip. "Have since the moment you walked into that conference room with a knife meant for me."
Maybe he's right. Maybe I've been his since that first day, fighting it, denying it, but always circling back to this truth. I'm not the girl Papa raised. I'm not the woman who came here for revenge.
I'm Ana Rosetti. Wife to a monster who kills for me, bleeds for me, turns himself into nightmare for anyone who threatens me. And God help me, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.
Behind us, Luca's footsteps echo too light, too pleased. "Young love," he observes with that wrong smile in his voice. "So beautifully violent."
I squeeze Dante's bloody hand and lead him up into the light, leaving the dying prisoner and my father's expectations behind in the basement where they belong.
Tonight, I'll dream of violence and wake up warm with the memory of being protected so thoroughly. Tomorrow, I'll have to reconcile who I've become with who I was supposed to be.
But right now, climbing these stairs with my monster's blood on my hands, I've never felt more myself. Ana Rosetti. His.
And anyone who threatens that will learn what happens when you touch what belongs to the silent devil of Chicago.
Papà mi perdoni. Papa, forgive me.
But I no longer need his forgiveness. I've chosen my monster, and he's chosen me.