Their Bloody Rose

Who is La Rosa?

Tension hung heavy in the room, and even heavier in Marissa's stomach, as she tried to figure out how to tell them. She never thought she'd actually be doing this one day, so now that she was here she didn't know where to even begin. She leaned forward and dropped her head in her hands as a deep sigh left her chest.

"Does Alonso know who I am?" Marissa asked.

"We don't believe so," Phillip answered softly.

"But you all do know, don't you?" Marissa didn't even really need to ask it, she knew they did. She didn't have to see the nods happening around the room to know they were there.

Logan reached out and took her hand as he said, "At the warehouse, just before you fainted in Eddie's arms, you called yourself La Rosa. When I mentioned that to Knives, he, um, he found the rose you left, and told us about La Rosa Insanguinata and how you were the right hand of the former head of The Fatal Pantheon."

Marissa slowly lifted her head. "Yeah that's me, The Bloody Rose," she tried to say matter of factly but she couldn't keep the slight twinge of pain from her voice. "So Knives knows about me too then. Does anyone else?"

"Knives is the only person outside this room who knows," Eddie said as he tried to gently wrap his arms back around her. He knew her past staying a secret was deeply important to her and the idea of someone else knowing had to be scary, so he wanted to quell that fear as best he could. "And he'd rather die than ever tell a soul. He's apparently quite the fan of yours."

Marissa chuckled halfheartedly. "Well I guess I'll have to give him an autograph next time I see him then." She took a deep breath and let Eddie pull her back into his embrace while still keeping hold of Logan's hand. She knew she was going to need their comfort and support to be able to survive opening all the old wounds what she was about to tell them would open. Seeming to pick up on her needs, Joanie slid forward so Fiona could get in beside Marissa as well.

"But Knives missed some important details you need to know," Marissa said as she took another deep breath in through her nose, trying to fight back the tears threatening to form in her eyes. "I wasn't just the right hand of the former head, Ludovic Bianchi. I ... he-" Sadness cracked her voice, and her heart, like ice fracturing under a sudden weight. It had been four years since his death, but even still this was the first time since then that she'd ever spoken about him to anyone, and it was tearing her up far more than she'd thought it would.

Four sets of arms carefully wrapped her in a caring embrace as tears began to slide down Marissa's cheeks. Even Phillip reached out and placed a comforting hand on her ankle. They just held her quietly while she wept, giving her space to feel what she needed to feel and let it out.

After a few minutes Marissa wiped the tears from her eyes and forcibly pulled herself together. With Cain on the way here she knew they didn't have time to waste, and while the idea of having to face him again terrified her, she would do it a thousand times and more to protect these people here that she loved so dearly. So she used that drive to push through the pain and find her voice again.

"My full name," Marissa said, drawing all eyes to hers, "is Marissa Amilianna Bianchi. Ludovic Bianchi is my father."

A stunned silence blanketed the room. In all of their research about her past, the fact that Ludovic had a daughter had never come up even once. Everyone just believed that his family line had died with him which is why Cain was able to take over.

"If you're his daughter," Phillip began to ask tentatively, "does that mean you're..."

"The heir and rightful head of The Fatal Pantheon?" Marissa said finishing his question for him. "Yes, it does."