Chapter 17 – Isabella #2
The drug pulled at me, urging me to speak. I bit my tongue until I tasted blood, but the words bubbled up against my will.
“He’s…not what he seems,” I heard myself say, horrified at my lack of control. “Everyone sees the cold exterior, but inside he’s…he’s caring. Protective. Like my brothers.”
Grey leaned forward, his interest sharpening. “And is that all? Just…brotherly affection?”
I tried to look away, but my body wouldn’t obey; it was as if I’d lost control over my muscles, along with my mouth.
Images flashed through my mind—Ivan’s gentle hands as he cleaned my wound; the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when I made an Austen reference; the safety I felt in his arms despite everything; when he let me use his body heat.
“He makes me feel safe,” I whispered, the truth dragged from somewhere deep inside me. “Even when I shouldn’t. Even when I know better.”
“The way he looks at me,” I continued, unable to stop the flow of words. “Like he sees past all my defenses. Like he knows me. Really knows me.”
Grey cocked his head. “That is very unlike Ivan. But you guys have quite the shared history. Maybe there is such a thing as destiny.”
“I think about him when he’s not there,” I admitted. What the fuck? Why couldn’t I shut up? But each word felt like it was being torn from my chest. “I wonder where he is, what he’s doing. If he’s thinking about me too.”
“Do you have a crush on him, Isabella?” Grey’s voice was soft now, almost sympathetic, which somehow made it worse.
The drug wouldn’t let me lie. “Yes. Maybe.”
Grey’s expression darkened. “How disappointing. I had higher hopes for you. Both of you.”
He stood and walked around the desk, and perched on the edge directly in front of me, too close for comfort.
I tried to scoot back, but apparently my legs had turned to rubber. Had the white-coat overdosed on the relaxant?
“Tell me, Isabella, how much do you know about my connection to your mother?”
The question caught me off guard. “My mother? Nothing.”
Grey studied me, then nodded slightly. “Interesting. I know you looked into her past after she died. It triggered several alarms in our system, and we had to shut down your research immediately. I assumed you’d discovered at least some of our…history.”
He reached out and touched my face, his fingers cold against my skin. I tried to pull away, but my body refused to cooperate.
“I was in love with Mariella, you know,” he said, his voice taking on a distant quality. “Before your father. I was just a young recruit. And she was…extraordinary. Brilliant, beautiful, fierce.” His thumb traced my cheekbone in a way that made my stomach turn. “You have her eyes.”
I struggled against the drug, fighting to keep my expression neutral as revulsion crawled through me.
“The Paraskia ordered me to stand down when Alfredo claimed her,” Grey continued, his tone hardening. “At that time, they valued the alliance with the Salvini family more than my happiness, more than hers.” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t fathom the audacity.
He returned to his chair, his movements precise and controlled despite the emotion in his voice. “They should have anticipated the consequences. But that’s ancient history now. Let’s discuss more recent events. Your activities as Iset, for example. You’ve been quite…disruptive.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I managed, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue.
Grey’s smile was cold. “You cost me millions, Isabella. Did you think I wouldn’t find you? That operation stationed in Singapore was particularly profitable until you redirected all the funds to various charities. Very clever, but very…inconvenient. It was you, wasn’t it?”
My mind raced despite the drug’s fog. Singapore.
I had redirected funds from a trafficking operation there last year, after we’d traced the money through a labyrinth of shell companies before exposing the entire network.
We’d never been able to identify the ultimate bosses of the operation—the masterminds behind it all.
But yes, we technically stole all of their funds, which effectively ended their ability to operate.
So Grey was behind that? Or was it the Paraskia…and Ivan? The realization made me nauseous. “I didn’t know that was you, running a trafficking ring.”
“I prefer to think of it as asset management,” Grey replied smoothly. “Human resources are the most valuable commodity in our business. But yes, that was one of my more lucrative ventures until you interfered.”
“My ventures,” not the Paraskia’s but his own. So Ivan wasn’t involved?
He opened a laptop and turned it to face me. “The Falcones’ investigation is getting dangerously close to exposing several of my operations. So I’m running out of time for small talk.”
He pushed the laptop closer, and someone pushed my chair toward the desk. “I need you to access the Paraskia’s central database. There are some records I need straightened out.”
My fingers itched to touch the keyboard, the drug making it hard to resist. But something in me rebelled against the compulsion. “Why can’t you do it yourself? Don’t you have access?”
Grey’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “My access is…limited in certain areas. The organization values its compartmentalization.”
“So you’re asking me to hack into your own organization’s systems?” I fought to keep my thoughts clear.
“That’s the whole reason you’re here on this island. I couldn’t make it any easier for you, could I? Direct access to the network from the inside.”
He gave me a smile, an honest one, which was so, so creepy. Was he really thinking he was entitled to my services? “What records do you need?”
“The Paraskia monitors everything,” Grey said dismissively. “Even its highest-ranking members. But you don’t need to know. Just give me access, and I’ll take it from there.”
I stared at Grey, then at the laptop he nudged closer to me. I tried to rack my brain for something to stall for time. “Why me? There are other hackers.”
Grey’s patience visibly thinned. “I’ve been monitoring you since you were a child, Isabella. Steering your development. Molding your talents. Many of the coincidences in your life weren’t coincidences at all. And when I found out you’re Iset… I didn’t spend all that time and energy for nothing.”
A chill ran through me despite the drug’s warmth. “What are you talking about?”
“That computer club you joined in high school? The mentor who took such interest in your abilities? You had the brains, and you had natural talent.” His smile was that of a proud creator admiring his work.
“But talent and brains are nothing without proper development. I made you; now I need this in return.”
My mind reeled with the implications. How much of my life had been manipulated? How long had I been a pawn in his game? It was almost comical. Here I thought my biggest oppressor had been my father and the oppressive traditions of my Italian Mafia family.
“You’ve hidden your identity well,” Grey continued, his tone shifting between admiration and frustration. “Iset—the Egyptian goddess. Clever. But you can’t outsmart me, Isabella. I’ve known everything about you, and I’ve been playing this game far longer than you’ve been alive.”
The more he spoke, the more I realized how truly dangerous Grey was. Not just powerful or corrupt, but unhinged in his obsessive self-flattery and narcissism. I needed to keep him talking, to buy time.
“Tell me about my mother,” I said, steering the conversation toward what seemed to affect him most. “You said you knew her before my father.”
Grey’s expression softened, and for a moment, he looked almost human.
“Mariella, Marcus, and I were inseparable once. The dream team, they called us. We had dreams…” His eyes grew distant.
“Then your father appeared, and everything changed. Alfredo Salvini with his money, power, charm, and connections.” Grey nodded, lost in memory.
“Your mother was supposed to be mine.” The expression on his face hardened.
“But your father was more valuable. They took her from me.”
He leaned forward, his eyes boring into mine. “I watched her from afar, watched you children grow up. I knew you were like her when…”
The laptop screen flickered, pulling Grey’s attention back to the present. His expression darkened as he saw I hadn’t even touched the keyboard.
“I lost once,” he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “I won’t lose again. No matter who stands in my way.”
The implication sent a wave of nausea through me that had nothing to do with the drug. Did he mean me? Or Vince? Or Ivan? “My family and the Zotovs have nothing to do with this.”
“Don’t they?” Grey’s smile was knowing and cruel. “Doesn’t he?”
He twirled his thumbs. “Your mother chose the wrong man, Isabella. It was a mistake she regretted for the rest of her short life. And now…history is repeating itself,” he murmured, more to himself than me.
“There’s no mistake to make,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “There’s nothing… Ivan and I aren’t—”
“Aren’t what? In love?” Grey laughed, the sound brittle and sharp. “Of course not. Not yet. And I will make sure it stays that way. The truth serum doesn’t lie, my dear. And neither do my instincts or my surveillance cameras.”
Shame and anger burned through me. Had he been watching me…us? Our conversations, our moments of vulnerability—all observed and cataloged by this obsessive man?
“You still haven’t touched the keyboard,” Grey noted, his patience visibly wearing thin. “Stubborn like her, too. Mariella never knew what was good for her either.”
I summoned what strength I had left, channeling my fear into defiance. “Like mother, like daughter,” I mumbled. Except, maybe my mother knew what was good for her…and if she chose my father over Grey, that fact spoke volumes.
Now, would just someone—anyone—come and rescue me? What did they do to the rest of the girls? Was Ivan or my brothers already looking for me?
Grey’s face contorted with rage. He snapped his fingers, and the man in the white coat approached with another syringe.
“Since you’re not providing the cooperation I need, perhaps this will help.” Grey nodded, and I felt another sharp sting in my neck. “A cognitive enhancer of our own design—still experimental—but it should make your remarkable brain even more…efficient. Now get to work.”
The new drug burned through my body like fire, making my vision blur and my heart race dangerously fast. I gasped, struggling to breathe as the room spun around me.
“Your protector won’t be able to save you this time,” Grey said, his voice seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. “You think Ivan Zotov can protect you? I made him what he is. He’s just a tool, like you.”
The words penetrated the fog engulfing my mind. What did he mean, he made Ivan? What connection did Grey have to Ivan’s past?
I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. I was hot and cold, and my heart beat as if I was having a heart attack.
Through the haze, I sensed the doctor step closer, felt his hand on my pulse.
“Shit.”
Grey’s head snapped up, his expression shifting from rage to calculation in an instant. “What?”
“Her body’s overreacting.”
“Overreacting? Get her out of here,” Grey ordered sharply. “Back to her room. If they find her here, it will complicate matters.”
Rough hands lifted me from the chair. The world tilted and swam as they carried me through a hidden door down a corridor.
My consciousness faded in and out like a bad radio signal while my heart raced in my chest.
I was carried through a dark tunnel right toward the light at the end. Was I dying?
We entered the harsh light, which was blinding me.
For a moment, I could see nothing, could hear nothing but my racing heartbeat echoing in my ears, then everything suddenly zoomed back into focus.
Outside. I was outside again. Somewhere where they could find me.
Ivan will find me, I thought as consciousness slipped away. He always does.
And in that moment of pure vulnerability, with no defenses left, I realized a truth I hadn’t even let myself acknowledge fully: I didn’t just need Ivan to save me.
I needed him. Period.
That was my last coherent thought before the light claimed me completely.