Chapter 24 - Ana
My stomach heaves. I barely make it to the waste basket before bile burns up my throat, my body rejecting this new understanding as violently as my mind does. The acid taste lingers, mixing with tears and snot running down my face.
It's been hours since Dante left me here with the dissolution papers. Hours since he walked away after showing me everything. The silence stretches through his empty study, heavy with everything we've done to each other. His cologne still lingers in the air, cigarettes and sandalwood.
The truth of it cuts deeper than any blade. Those first months after the massacre, it was the hatred that got me out of bed. The promise of revenge that made me eat, train, survive. Without an enemy to focus on, I would have withered into nothing.
"You were a stranger," I whisper to his lingering ghost, salt coating my lips. "Why would you sacrifice yourself for a stranger?"
Papa. Even dying, even with his killer unknown, Papa was thinking of me. And somehow that duty passed to Dante, who's been protecting me even from the truth. The sob that escapes sounds like an animal in pain.
I can still see his hands forming those words. "You're free, Ana."
Free. The word sits strange in my mouth, in my mind. What is freedom when everything you've built yourself on is a lie? When the foundation of your identity crumbles?
The dissolution papers sit on his desk where he left them. Official seals, legal language that would erase these three weeks like they never happened. He's already begun the process of releasing me.
He told me it was worth it.
Worth the torture? Worth ten years of my hatred? Worth being the villain in someone else's revenge story?
Two stacks of paper on his desk: evidence of his innocence, papers for my freedom. Past and future both rewritten in black ink and official stamps.
"You're free, Ana."
Hours have passed since he left me with those words. The door clicked shut with terrifying finality, leaving me alone with the wreckage of who I used to be.
I finally stand, running barefoot in my nightgown, evidence clutched to my chest. Through the halls where his family might see me undone. Up the stairs where we've walked as husband and wife. Into our suite, our suite, Dio mio, where his leather chair sits empty.
The bathroom door slams, lock clicking. Finally alone to shatter completely again.
I see myself in the mirror: disaster. Makeup smeared down my cheeks in black streaks, eyes swollen into slits, wearing his shirt over my nightgown. I pulled it on hours ago, needing his scent. The fabric carries cigarettes and cologne, making my nipples harden traitorously.
"Who are you?" I ask my reflection. The words come out in Italian. "Chi sei?"
Not Ana Moretti, avenger. That girl is dead. I killed her with the truth. Not Ana Rosetti, wife. How can I be his wife when I've been his torturer?
Nobody, nothing, empty. Without revenge, I'm hollow. Ten years of purpose, gone. What fills that space?
The photos spread across the bathroom floor as I study each one again, burning them deeper into memory. The timestamp that clears him. The torture report, three days. Three days they had him, and he didn't break. Wouldn't lie even to save himself.
His written words on one document catch my eye again: "Ana needs an enemy to survive."
He sacrificed for me: stranger, enemy, the girl who would grow up to hate him. No, not stranger. Protector. Even then, he was protecting me.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" I scream at the photos, my throat raw. "Why did they let me become this?"
But I know why. Because a fifteen-year-old girl needed something to live for. And hate is easier to sustain than grief.
More hours pass. Or minutes. Time means nothing when your world stays inverted. I'm still on the bathroom floor, the marble cold against my bare legs, when Maria's knock echoes through the suite.
"Mrs. Rosetti? You need food?"
Mrs. Rosetti. The name hits different. I chose that name on a Chicago street. Claimed it. I AM Mrs. Rosetti.
"Not hungry," I manage, my voice raw from crying.
"Mr. Dante is worried."
He's worried? After everything? After I've tortured him for weeks, planned his death, made him suffer for crimes he didn't commit?
"Tell him I'm… processing."
Maria's footsteps fade. Alone again with truth.
Dawn light creeps under the door. Have I been here all night?
The photos blur through my tears, but one keeps drawing me back.
Dante holding Papa, both covered in blood, both trying to save what can't be saved.
And Papa's hand on his face, that gesture of gratitude that started this avalanche of truth.
My body remembers his touch, how carefully he handled me even when I was trying to destroy him. The patience in his eyes every time I promised murder. His thumb on my pulse, marking the spot.
Who am I without hating him? Ten years I've been the girl seeking revenge. Without that, without him as my enemy, I don't know who I am.
The confusion settles into my bones as I finally stand on shaking legs. My knees crack from being on the floor so long.
I emerge from the bathroom into our bedroom. His leather chair sits empty, patient as always. The bed where he's never slept because he guards me instead. The indent in the leather from his body, night after night of watching over someone who wanted him dead.
Maybe I can give him something back. Maybe freedom from me, from us, from the weight of our marriage.
Maybe that would be the biggest gift of all.