Chapter 2 – Isabella
ISABELLA
“Fight for your life; don’t look back; don’t let them catch you; be brutal.”
Birdie’s fierce whisper zoomed me back to consciousness faster than anything.
I’d been slowly coming back, trying desperately to take stock of my body and figure out my whereabouts when Birdie came over and unfastened my tied wrists.
What the hell was going on?
Vince had trusted Hawk, Birdie, and the team from Raptor Security with our evacuation mere days after the wedding, had sent Jemma, Mira, and me away to keep us safe.
And instead, our convoy to the private airfield had been attacked, we had been captured, and ended up…
in a van? Clearly this must’ve been an inside job.
How else could they’ve known? And who the fuck were they anyway?
The van came to a stop.
Merda.
“Fight for your life; don’t look back; don’t let them catch you; be brutal.”
Great advice. There was only one problem: I couldn’t feel my legs.
Instead, I propped myself up and watched Birdie explode out of the van as soon as they opened the door. She took the two guards by surprise, then sprinted toward the closing gate in the back with Jemma hot on her heels.
Birdie made it through.
Jemma wasn’t as lucky. Two masked men grabbed her just shy of freedom.
She almost made it.
My heart beat heavy in my chest. And I tried again to get my damn legs to function. What exactly did they do to me? Was I paralyzed? Jemma didn’t have the same problem; at least she was able to struggle and kick as they dragged her back.
Our eyes met for a second before they pulled a hood over her head.
Fuck.
Oh my God, why couldn’t I be strong for once? Instead, I wasn’t useful at all.
I was dead weight as they grabbed me, hauled me out of the van.
I looked back, and Mira and Milli—one of the Raptor Security operatives—were still inside. Why did they only take us girls?
I looked around: more guards in black tactical gear, their faces hidden behind masks.
I focused on the surroundings. They resembled a factory building that was either still under construction or had been abandoned during the process. The air was cold, breath-condensating cold. But it was still daylight, and they brought us here in a van, so we couldn’t be that far from La Dimora.
They marched—more like carried—me in a different direction than Jemma. I turned my head back to the van where they unloaded Mira.
Then they pulled a hood over my head. Shit. I couldn’t see a thing aside from my own feet being dragged over concrete floors.
I focused on the direction they were taking me. Two rights, then left. Everything sounded hollow, and the concrete floor was cold underneath my bare feet.
Wait, when exactly did I lose my shoes? But also, hallelujah, apparently my feet were coming back online. I wiggled my toes, moved my legs…they were definitely coming back online.
They carried me up a flight of concrete stairs. More concrete corridors. Finally, after a short stop and a strange hissing sound, they dragged me into a room with a pristine white floor that was much warmer, pulled the hood from my head, and shoved me inside.
My legs gave out, and I stumbled forward into the room—if you could call it that. The walls were a pearlescent, glossy white that seemed to be solid and alive at the same time. No windows, no visible corners, seams, or edges.
I turned around at the hissing sound and stared at the closing door. It sealed perfectly into the wall, leaving no trace of an entrance.
What kind of high-tech fuckery was this place?
I crawled back to the door. The smooth surface felt simultaneously cool and warm against my palm and was vibrating. My heart hammered in my chest as I tried to piece together what I knew so far.
We’d been in the car on our way to the private airstrip. There was an ambush. I’d fought as hard as I could and followed Birdie’s advice by zigzagging toward the tree line.
Jemma and I almost made it.
But in the end, it was all for nothing, and they’d caught us anyway.
Jemma had been hit with some kind of dart. I padded the back of my neck where I’d noticed the sting before it knocked me out. The area was still tender. How long was I out?
How long did it take us to get here, and what the hell was this room, and how did it have this kind of strange vibrating vibe going on? Was it an electromagnetic field? No, that didn’t make sense. Were they sound waves?
I looked up and around. The lighting came from everywhere and nowhere at once. Even the metal chair bolted to the floor gleamed white, its surface as frictionless as everything else.
Get your act together, and think logically.
This clinical, otherworldly space, together with the vibrating sound, were designed to disorient and confuse.
I felt around for the seam of the door, which was barely there. This was too high-tech, too smooth. Nothing my father, with his brute Mafia tactics, would orchestrate.
I pressed my other hand against my chest and tried to steady my breathing. I was Isabella Salvini. My brothers had made sure Mira and I were trained for situations like this.
I just needed to not panic and rely on my brain and logic.
Every small detail might help me understand where I was and who had taken us.
But using my brain was surprisingly hard.
The seamless white walls, the vibrations, or maybe it was the remnants of whatever was in that tranquilizer dart, seemed to blur the edges of my thoughts, making it hard to focus on anything except the pressure on my chest and the growing sense of isolation.
The temperature-controlled air raised goose bumps on my arms. My designer clothes felt out of place in this sterile environment, like wearing couture to a hospital.
And what happened to my shoes?
I closed my eyes to steady my racing thoughts.
It was of zero importance what I was wearing or what I wasn’t.
I opened my eyes again and stared at my bare feet.
Apart from my breathing, the utter silence was oppressive, absolute, and suffocating.
No outside noise penetrated the walls—no hint of the construction site beyond—just the sound of my own rapid breathing.
I sat down on the chair for a while, stared at my watch, which had stopped working.
EMP. That’s what Hawk had said right before the attack. Of course, it stopped working along with all the other shit.
I stared at the walls, counted my breaths, and even did some yoga to pass the time and prime my body.
And again and again, I traced my fingers over the seamless surface of the walls, searching for some kind of weakness in the structure.
I was standing on the chair, sweeping the ceiling, when a soft hiss broke the silence.
I jumped down as the previously invisible seam split open again. The door slid aside with mechanical precision, and I sprinted out of the strange pod as fast as I could. Whoever was coming for me needed to catch me first.
I passed the exit and caught a glimpse of the person staring at me passing by at full speed.
As soon as my brain kicked in, I skidded to a stop, slithering in my bare feet over the concrete floor—which hurt like hell.
But the pain was immediately replaced by relief flooding through me as I recognized Birdie’s face. She came back for me.
I opened my mouth but immediately shut it when she basically jumped me, clamped her hand over my mouth, and dragged me back to the white structure.
She seemed calm, not even fazed by my micro-sprint, as she kept her back to the wall, her posture alert but controlled.
“Are you okay?” she whispered while she surveyed our surroundings with practiced efficiency. Then her eyes darted back to me, and she pulled her hand from my mouth when I nodded.
“Yes,” I whispered while I desperately tried to slow my breath and my racing heart. “What about the others?”
“Jemma’s already heading out. Follow the corridor through there.
” Birdie pointed to an entrance. “Go left, then right twice, then left again. You’ll find metal stairs leading outside.
About fifty yards to the right of those stairs, there’s a hole in the fence.
Slip through there, and don’t stop running until you hit the tree line. ”
My mind raced. “What about Mira? And Milli?”
“On it.” Birdie’s tone left no room for argument. “You need to move now while you still have the chance.”
I hesitated, torn between escaping and the urge to help search for Mira. But Birdie’s stern look reminded me of all the tactical training my brothers had drilled into me—when you get an opening, you take it.
“To the left, right twice, left, metal stairs, hole in fence fifty yards right,” I repeated back to her. At her nod, I took a deep breath and prepared to run.
“Go,” Birdie urged. “The rest of us will be right behind you.”
Her voice in God’s ears.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I moved toward the door, my bare feet hurting from my sliding stop. As I stepped through the door, I paused. There was one long corridor, which made me weirdly uncomfortable.
“Che cazzo…” I muttered, turning back to look at Birdie. Only she wasn’t there anymore. I stared at where I’d been held. It wasn’t a room—it was some kind of massive, egg-shaped pod, like something out of a sci-fi movie. Even from the outside, it seemed to pulse with an otherworldly glow.
My stomach churned. This was way beyond normal Mafia business. Way beyond what my father would use. This was something and someone else entirely.
The construction site around me was a mess of concrete pillars and half-finished walls. Plastic sheets snapped in the wind like ghosts. The contrast between the high-tech pod and the abandoned building sent chills down my spine.
I spotted other pods through gaps in the walls.
For a second, I hesitated, then clenched my jaw and moved along the corridor.
Leaving Mira behind felt like ripping out my own heart, but I trusted Birdie would do whatever it took to get all of us out.
I slipped into the next hallway, moving as quietly as I could, which was damn quiet thanks to my bare feet. Each step forward—away from Mira—felt wrong. But I forced myself forward.
Once I was back at La Dimora, I would find out what this place was and who was responsible, and they had no idea what kind of enemy they’d just made.
I might not be a warrior in real life. But I was damn good behind the computer screen.
And if this really was my father’s doing, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t make it my mission in life to destroy everything he held dear.
Which sure as shit wasn’t his family.