Extras Ch 3: Anna - The Devotion of a Ghost
The first time Anna saw Dante, she knew he was lying.
She stood in the shadow of the upstairs corridor, a stack of fresh linens pressed against her chest, and watched through the window as Viktor Volkov's black car emerged from the coastal mist. The boy who stepped out was small and dark-haired, his coat too thin for the season. He looked up at the mansion with wide, frightened eyes.
But Anna saw the moment those eyes flickered. She saw the way his posture shifted as Nadia descended the steps. His shoulders curled inward. His chin dropped. His small frame seemed to shrink further into that inadequate coat.
He was performing. And he was very, very good at it.
Nadia fell for it immediately. She knelt on the damp stone and took his dirty hands in hers, her eyes already glistening with the familiar hunger Anna had seen a hundred times before.
Nadia collected broken things the way other women collected art. She craved the feeling of being indispensable. The boy gave her exactly what she wanted. A flinch at her touch. A trembling voice.
You're like me, Anna thought, watching the boy's performance. You know how to adapt quickly.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
His name was Dante.
Anna learned it from the kitchen gossip, which was extensive and largely useless. Viktor had found him on the streets of Zurich. An orphan. A survivor. The other servants speculated about his origins—the son of a gambler, perhaps, or a refugee—but Anna cared less about where he came from than what he was.
She watched him.
She watched Dante learn Nadia: how his voice softened when she was near, how he accepted her affection—the books, the lessons, the gentle touches—with a gratitude that never reached his eyes.
She watched him learn Viktor: how he lingered in doorways, waiting to be noticed; how his observations were sharp enough to be useful but never sharp enough to threaten; how he absorbed information like a plant turning toward light.
And she watched him when he thought no one was looking.
That was when she began to love him.
Not the performed version—the wounded orphan, the grateful protégé. The real one. The boy who stood at his bedroom window late at night, his face utterly blank, his dark eyes fixed on the sea. The boy who moved through the garden alone, touching the roses with a reverence that had nothing to do with Nadia's stories. The boy who sat in the library with a book open in his lap, not reading, just thinking, his mind visibly turning behind his still features.
He was alone in this house. Truly, completely alone. Surrounded by people who saw only the masks he chose to show them.
Anna understood that loneliness. She had lived inside it for nearly a decade.
She began leaving small things for him. A cup of tea when he studied late, placed silently at his elbow. A fresh candle when his burned low. A blanket draped over the back of his chair on cold nights. She never spoke when she did these things. She never waited for acknowledgment. She simply provided and vanished.
One night, when she set down the tea, he looked up. "Thank you, Anna."
His voice was quiet. Warm. She had heard him use that voice on Nadia a thousand times, but when he directed it at her, it felt different. Real.
She nodded once and left the room. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it too.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The years passed. Dante grew taller, sharper, more dangerous. Viktor began bringing him to meetings. The other servants whispered about the boy's unnatural cleverness, his cold eyes, the way he seemed to see through people. They feared him.
But Anna did not fear him. She understood him.
He was building something. She could see it in the way he moved through the house now—with purpose, with ownership. He was no longer the grateful orphan. He was becoming something else entirely.
And she wanted to help him build it.
She found excuses to be near him. Bringing fresh linens to his room when she knew he would be there. Arranging flowers in the study while he reviewed ledgers. Standing in the shadows of the garden while he walked with Viktor.
She learned his habits, his preferences. The way he took his tea—black, no sugar, slightly cooled. The way he organized his desk—precise, everything at right angles. The way he smiled when he was truly amused—a rare, quick flash that vanished almost before it appeared.
She collected these details like treasures. They were proof that she saw him. The real him. Not the performance.
And sometimes, when she brought him tea or adjusted the candles or performed some small, invisible service, he would look at her with those dark eyes and say, "Thank you, Anna."
Always her name. Always that warm voice. She began to believe that he saw her too.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
One night, she found him in Viktor's study.
She had been making her final rounds, checking the candles and the window latches, when she noticed the light beneath the study door. Viktor had retired hours ago. The household should be asleep.
She eased the door open a crack and looked inside.
Dante sat in Viktor's leather chair, a leather folder open before him. His face was utterly still, his dark eyes moving across the pages with cold, methodical precision. The candlelight caught the edge of the folder—old Swiss symbols, a rose.
Nadia's will.
Anna's breath caught. She watched him read, page after page, his expression never changing. But she saw the way his fingers tightened on the edge of the desk. The way his jaw set.
He wanted what was in that will. She could see it. The Zurich properties. The legacy Nadia guarded so carefully. The inheritance she would never share with him, no matter how many years he spent in this house, no matter how indispensable he became. He wanted it. And Nadia stood in his way.
So did Viktor, perhaps. Viktor, who had grown old and frail, who leaned on a cane now, whose heart was failing. Viktor, who had made Dante his protégé but would never make him his heir.
They were obstacles. And Dante was too loyal, too restrained by whatever strange gratitude he felt toward the old man, to remove them himself.
Anna closed the door silently and stood in the dark corridor, her heart beating hard.
I can help you, she thought. I can give you what you want. And then you'll see. You'll see what I would do for you.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Nadia was the first.
Anna had access to everything Nadia consumed. Her tea. Her food. Her wine.
The logistics were simple. She began with small doses of a compound she had learned about from the old gardener—a plant that grew wild along the cliffs, harmless in small amounts, but devastating when concentrated and administered over time. It caused vivid dreams. Paranoia. A creeping fear that settled into the bones.
Nadia began to change. She stopped tending her roses. She stopped leaving her room. She would clutch Anna's hand and whisper about visions, about ghosts, about a darkness she could feel closing in.
"I see things, Anna," she said one night, her honey-colored eyes wide and wet. "Terrible things. I see Dante, and his eyes are empty. I see this house, and it's burning."
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"It's only dreams," Anna said, smoothing her hair. "Only dreams, madam."
"No." Nadia gripped her wrist with surprising strength. "It's real. I can feel it. Something is wrong. Something is coming."
You're right, Anna thought. Something is coming. And you put it in motion the day you decided he wasn't worthy of what you had.
But she said nothing. She held Nadia until she fell asleep. Then she went to the kitchen and prepared the next dose.
She felt no guilt. Nadia had been kind to her, once. Truly kind—not the performative kindness she showed Dante. Nadia had brought Anna with her from her maiden home, trusted her with the household, and confided in her during long afternoons in the garden.
But kindness was not enough.
Dante was the future. Dante was the one who saw her. And Nadia had spent years wounding him with her fake maternal warmth while keeping him in his place.
Anna was simply correcting an injustice.
The final night, she brought Nadia her evening tea. Nadia sat by the window, staring out at the darkened garden. She looked small and fragile, swallowed by her emerald gown.
"I used to be happy here," she said. "Before. When Kazimir was small. When Viktor was strong. When I believed..."
Her voice faded.
Anna didn’t move.
"When I believed I could save him," Nadia finished softly. "Dante. I thought if I loved him enough, he would become whole. But he was never broken, was he? He was always... what he is."
A faint breath of something like a smile touched her lips.
Anna said nothing.
“You knew that, didn't you? You’ve been watching him,” Nadia murmured.
She turned then. Her eyes were clear for the first time in months—steady, searching.
“I don’t blame you, Anna. We're the same, you and I.” A pause. “We love people that can't love us back."
She took the tea from Anna's hands. Held it for a moment. Then drank.
Anna stayed with her until the end. When Nadia's breathing slowed and her eyes grew distant, she held Anna’s hand and whispered, "He'll be free now."
Nadia's funeral was small and intimate, her white roses laid across her coffin in a blanket of pale blooms. Dante stood at the edge of the ceremony, his face smooth and unreadable. Anna watched him from across the room, searching for some sign of relief, some flicker of gratitude for what she had done.
She saw nothing.
But that was all right. He didn't know yet. He didn't know she had done this for him.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Viktor was different.
Anna had not planned to kill Viktor. Not at first. Viktor had given Dante a place in the world. Viktor had recognized his gifts and honed them. Dante respected Viktor—she had seen the way he spoke to the old man, the way he listened, the way he carried out his orders with precision and care.
But Viktor was also the gatekeeper. He had allowed Nadia's exclusion to stand. He had kept the Zurich territories separate, untouchable, outside Dante's reach.
And Viktor was old. His heart was failing. He leaned on a cane now, his silver hair thinning, his frame reduced by illness.
Perhaps it would be a mercy, Anna told herself. Perhaps it would be the final gift—removing the last barrier between Dante and everything he deserved.
His medication arrived every Tuesday from a pharmacy in the village. Anna collected it herself, as she had for years. She was trusted. She was faithful.
She began with small adjustments. A pill swapped here, a dosage shifted there. Nothing that would show on any test. Nothing that would alert the doctors. Just enough to weaken him further, to accelerate the decline that had already begun.
Viktor grew more tired. His walks in the garden became shorter. His voice grew thinner. He spent more time in his chair by the fire, a blanket over his knees. His grey eyes became distant.
"He's fading," the other servants whispered. "The old Don is finally fading."
Anna nodded sympathetically and brought him his tea.
She felt something when she looked at him—a flicker of regret. Viktor had always been decent to her. He paid her wages on time. He never raised his voice. He had loved Nadia, in his way, and he had tried to shape Dante into something formidable.
But he was an obstacle. And obstacles were meant to be removed.
The final dose was larger. Not enough to kill him instantly—that would raise questions. Just enough to stop his heart in his sleep, quiet and peaceful, the way an old man with a heart condition was expected to go. She found him the next morning. His eyes were closed. His face was peaceful. The cane rested against his nightstand, within reach.
She allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. It was done. Both of them. Every barrier between Dante and what he deserved—gone.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The house was quieter after Viktor was gone.
Dante moved through the halls with a new authority, his dark eyes cataloging everything, his hands already reaching for the levers of power.
Anna watched him from the shadows, her chest tight with anticipation. Soon. Soon she would tell him what she had done. Soon he would understand.
She found him in the garden, three weeks after Viktor's burial.
He stood among Nadia's roses. His hands were in his pockets, his dark eyes fixed on the sea of flowers. The afternoon light caught the sharp planes of his face, the silver just beginning to thread through his dark hair. He was beautiful. He had always been beautiful.
"Dante."
He turned. His expression was neutral, polite. The mask.
"I need to tell you something."
He waited. His silence was an invitation.
"I helped you," she said. Her voice came out steadier than she expected. "Nadia. Viktor. I removed them. You could have what you wanted now. The territories. The empire. Everything."
The silence stretched, but Dante's expression did not change.
"Anna." His voice was soft, almost gentle. "What are you saying?"
"I saw you," she said, stepping closer. "In the study. Reading her will. I saw how much you wanted it. I saw how much you hated her—how she pretended to love you while keeping everything for herself. I knew she was the one who hurt you most. So I removed her first."
She smiled. It felt strange on her face. She couldn't remember the last time she had smiled.
"Viktor. He was dying anyway. I just... helped him along. So you could be free. So you could have everything."
The greenhouse held its breath around them—thick with the scent of roses, sweet to the point of rot. A loosened petal drifted down between them, brushing the glass-warm floor.
Dante didn’t move. He looked at her for a long, measured moment. Then, very quietly: "You killed Nadia."
"She deserved it." Anna's voice was firm. "She never saw you. She only used you to feel good about herself."
"You killed Viktor."
"He was dying. I gave him peace." She reached for his hand. "I did it for you. All of it. Because I see you. The real you."
He pulled back. The motion was small, barely a flinch. But it cut through her like a blade.
"You took something from me." His voice was cold now, colder than she had ever heard it. "Nadia's fear. Viktor's respect. The game I was playing. You decided what I wanted, and you took the choice from me."
"But I—" Anna's chest constricted. "I thought—"
"You thought I wanted them dead." His dark eyes fixed on hers. And she saw it then—the emptiness she had always sensed beneath his masks. "I wanted to win. I wanted to prove that I could take what they wouldn't give me. I wanted to earn it. You stole that from me."
"I love you, Dante," she whispered.
Dante's expression did not soften.
“So what?”
He turned away.
"Dante—"
"Anna." He stopped, his back to her. "I won’t punish you or expel you. You can stay in this house, but you will never speak to me again. I never want to see you in front of me. Do you understand?"
"Yes." Her voice was barely audible.
"Then go."
She ran.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
That was twelve years ago.
Anna still moves through the halls of the Volkov mansion. She still changes the linens and checks the candles and brings tea to the guests who come and go. She is still invisible, as she has always been. More invisible now, perhaps, because the one person she wanted to see has erased her completely.
She still watches Dante from a distance. She can’t help it. She watches him grow older, colder, more powerful. She watches him shape Valentina into something sharp and fierce. She watches him maneuver through the world he built on the bones of the people she killed for him.
He never looks at her. Not once, in twelve years.
Anna has had years to think about what she did.
Does she repent?
She has asked herself this question a thousand times, in the dark hours before dawn, when the house is silent and the ghosts press close. She has turned it over and over, examining it from every angle.
She regrets that he rejected her. She regrets that her gift—her sacrifice—was met with coldness instead of gratitude. She regrets that she misread him so completely, that the version of Dante she loved never truly existed.
But does she regret the killings themselves?
Viktor was already dying. Nadia was already lost in her delusions. Anna merely accelerated the inevitable. She removed obstacles from the path of a man she believed deserved to walk it unburdened.
If she had known how he would respond—if she had known he would erase her—would she still have done it?
The answer, she finds, is yes.
Not because she believes she was right. But because loving Dante was the only thing that ever made her feel real. The only thing that lifted her from the shadows and made her visible, even if only in her own mind. She would rather be his ghost than no one at all.
And so she remains. She watches the new girl, Elena, struggle through the same halls. She sees the same patterns repeating—the fear, the slow erosion of self. She helps in small, hidden ways. Not out of kindness, but out of recognition.
When Elena asks about Dante, Anna tells her a version of the truth. She leaves out her own role. She paints Nadia as a victim, Viktor as corrupted, Dante as the architect of their destruction.
It is not a lie. Not exactly. It is simply incomplete.
The full truth—that Anna killed them, that she did it for love, that she has spent twelve years living in the shadow of her own mistake—is hers alone.
And she will carry that truth to her grave.