Chapter 22 - Ana
Papa’s knife slides into the lock of Dante’s desk drawer, the same blade I once pressed to his throat. My hands shake from the weight of violating the only trust he’s ever asked of me.
The mechanism clicks softly. Too loud in the silence of three AM, but Dante doesn't stir from his leather chair.
Actually asleep for once. In two weeks of marriage, I've never seen him truly rest. He's always alert, always watching, even when pretending to sleep.
But now his chest rises and falls in deep, even breaths.
His face looks younger in sleep, the harsh lines softened, the weight of violence temporarily lifted.
Moonlight cuts across his features, highlighting the scar at his throat. The damaged tissue that stole his voice. Someone did that to him. Deliberately. Cruelly. The same night Papa died.
The basement violence from hours ago still clings to my skin like smoke, like blood that won't wash off no matter how hard I scrub.
Every time I close my eyes, I see that prisoner's empty sockets, hear Luca's casual humming as he worked.
Feel the twisted arousal that flooded me watching them destroy for me.
But it's the questions that drove me from bed, that put Papa's blade in my hand for a different purpose than murder. What secrets does my husband keep locked away? What truths has he hidden while taking my hatred like penance?
My fingers ease the drawer open, terrified of what I'll find. Evidence of more murders? Plans to eliminate me once I've served my purpose?
But what spills out makes my blood freeze.
A manila folder labeled "Moretti - 2015."
That's the year. The year everything ended. The year Papa died.
My trembling fingers open the folder, and photographs cascade onto the desk like accusations. But not accusations against him. Against everything I've believed.
Security footage printouts, time-stamped and dated. The night of the massacre. But the timestamps… they don't match what I was told. What I've believed for ten years.
9:48 PM - Armed men entering the warehouse. I lean closer, my heart hammering. The tattoos on their necks aren't Rosetti marks. The ink is different. Cyrillic letters. Russian? But we were told…
9:52 PM - Gunfire erupting. The timestamp burns into my retinas. The killing had already started. Already started when…
9:58 PM - Dante arriving with backup. Not leading the attack. Arriving after it began. The photo shows him and his brothers fighting the attackers, not joining them. Fighting to get through. Fighting toward…
"No no no no no. This can't be right."
But the evidence continues, each photo more damning than the last. Dante fighting through waves of the real attackers. Dante reaching the conference room where Papa was. And then the photo that breaks me completely:
Dante cradling my father's body, Papa's blood soaking his clothes. But it's Papa's hand that destroys me. Resting on Dante's face not in accusation but in something that looks like… gratitude? A blessing? Like he's thanking the man trying to save him.
The sob tears from my throat before I can stop it.
"Oh God. Oh God, what have I done?"
The photo blurs through my tears, but I can't look away.
Papa's fingers on Dante's cheek, the same gesture he used to comfort me as a child.
And Dante's face. Younger, unscarred at the throat, but his eyes…
Madonna, his eyes hold such anguish. Such desperation.
The face of a man watching someone die that he's trying desperately to save.
My mind races back to our wedding day. The sacristy. My knife at his throat. The way he caught my wrist, not rough but absolute. How he adjusted my grip with patient hands, teaching me to kill him properly. "Next time, mean it," he'd signed.
He knew I was wrong about him. Knew I was aiming my hatred at an innocent man. And he helped me anyway. Taught me anyway. Because he felt guilt from that night, but not in the way I thought. Because he thought I needed it.
More documents. Medical reports dated three days after the massacre.
Dante Rosetti, admitted with severe injuries.
Vocal cords severed. Evidence of systematic torture.
Burns, cuts, wounds that match the scars I've traced with my fingers.
They tortured him. After he tried to save my family, someone tortured him for three days.
My fingers find the worst of it. A close-up photo of his throat injury. Fresh. Raw. The surgical precision of it makes my stomach turn. This wasn't rage. This was deliberate silencing. Someone wanted to make sure Dante Rosetti could never speak about what he saw that night.
A single page in Dante's precise handwriting. A timeline:
Received intel about pending attack at 9:45 PM. Assembled team immediately. Arrived to find massacre in progress. Roberto Moretti (brother of Romeo) dead. Romeo Moretti dying. Ana Moretti, whereabouts unknown, presumed dead. Attackers' identity: Unknown. Russian connections suspected.
My legs give out. I sink to the floor, photos scattering around me like broken wings. Each image is another nail in the coffin of who I thought I was.
"He didn't… he never… oh God, what have I done?"
I tried to kill him. Multiple times. On our wedding day, I held a knife to the throat they'd already destroyed. I called him a monster, a killer, my family's destroyer. And he just… let me. Took my hatred like penance for a crime he didn't commit.
The memory crashes through me. That first night in his bed, me clutching Papa's knife, him watching from his chair. "I hate you," I'd signed, the movements violent enough to hurt my wrists. And his response, patient as always: "I know."
He knew. He knew I hated him for something he didn't do, and he signed "I know" anyway. Let me hate him. Let me plan his death. Let me sleep with a weapon meant for him. Night after night, sitting in that chair, protecting someone who wanted him dead.
Why?
My mind reels back to that night in his study when I'd thrown his ring at him, demanded he act like the monster I needed him to be.
The way his control had cracked, how he'd caged me against the desk.
"You want a monster?" he'd signed, and I'd said yes, God help me, I'd said yes.
And even then, even when I was begging him to be cruel, he'd been gentle.
Careful. Making sure not to actually hurt me even as I demanded violence.
The photos blur through my tears. How many times did I sign "I hate you" while he signed back "I know"?
How many nights did he sit in that chair, guarding my sleep, while I plotted his death?
He made love to me knowing I planned to kill him after.
Loved me despite my hatred. Protected me even from the truth.
"I'm the villain," I whisper to the evidence surrounding me. "I've always been the villain."
Ten years. Ten years of shaping myself into a weapon aimed at an innocent man. Ten years of Papa's ghost demanding vengeance against the wrong person. Ten years of Dante carrying the weight of my family's death and my hatred both.
The medical report details more injuries. Defensive wounds on his hands from trying to protect my father. A bullet graze on his shoulder from taking fire meant for Uncle Roberto Moretti. He bled for my family before they made him bleed for trying.
I remember touching those scars, tracing them with my fingers while he stood still as stone, letting me explore his damage.
"Who did this?" I'd asked, hoping and dreading it was my father.
He'd shrugged, but his eyes had held murder.
Not for my family. For whoever actually destroyed us both that night.
My body remembers his touch, how carefully he handled me even when I was trying to destroy him.
The memory of his cock inside me burns through my grief.
How he claimed me on his desk, made me his completely, knowing I still planned his death.
"Mine to protect," he'd signed with bloody hands in that basement, and I'd finally understood.
Not possessive. Protective. He'd been trying to keep me safe even from my own misguided vengeance.
How can someone love that deeply, that selflessly? How did I not see it?
Another photo catches my eye. Dante being dragged away by the attackers. His face is turned toward the camera, and even through the blood, I can see him looking back. Looking toward where Papa died. Still trying to get back. Still trying to save a man who was already gone.
"You let me hate you," I whisper to the photo, my tears dropping onto the glossy surface. "You let me call you a monster. Let me try to kill you. Because you thought I needed someone to blame. And because you blamed yourself for their deaths, in a way, because you couldn't save them."
Who am I without my revenge? Without my hatred? Without the purpose that brought me here?
Just a woman who's been torturing the one person who tried to save everyone I loved.
I remember the restaurant attack, how he'd moved to cover me without hesitation.
His body over mine, taking glass meant for me.
And after, when those Detroit soldiers had threatened me with such vile promises, how he'd destroyed them.
Not for territory or power. For me. Always for me.
"No one touches what's mine," he'd signed, and I'd thought it was possession.
It was protection. It's always been protection.
Every sign he's ever made takes on new meaning.
Every patient look when I promised murder.
Every gentle touch when I expected violence.
The way he played piano at two in the morning.
Not just expression but confession. Playing out the truth he couldn't sign, wouldn't sign, because he thought my hatred was keeping me alive.
My fingers find another document, this one in Nico's military-precise handwriting: Subject refuses to identify attackers despite extensive interrogation.
Claims memory loss from trauma. Medical evaluation confirms severe psychological distress but suggests selective amnesia.
Recommendation: Do not pursue. D's protecting something or someone.
Protecting me. Even then, even under interrogation, he was protecting me from a truth he thought would destroy me. Let everyone think the Rosettis were responsible rather than leave me with no one to blame, no way to channel my grief.
The door opens behind me. I don't need to look to know it's him. I'd recognize his presence anywhere now. His footsteps pause, taking in the scene: me on the floor surrounded by evidence of his innocence, Papa's photos spread like confession around my knees.
Through my tears, I see him. The innocent man I've been tormenting. He's still in his sleep clothes, hair disheveled, looking more vulnerable than I've ever seen him. The moonlight catches his throat, that terrible scar that someone gave him for trying to save my father.
"Dante," I sob, holding up the photo of him cradling my dying father. "You didn't… you never… oh God, what have I done to you?"
The photo shakes in my grip, Papa's blood dark on Dante's hands.
Hands that have only ever been gentle with me, even when I was trying to destroy him.
The same hands that played piano in the darkness, that signed "I know" to my hatred, that made me come apart with pleasure even while I planned his death.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper, the words breaking on a sob. "I'm so sorry. You tried to save him. You tried to save Papa, and I've been… oh God, I've been the monster all along."