Chapter 47 – Isabella
The sound of the front door slamming open trickled upstairs. I was petrifying, turning into stone as my muscles fused to the floor.
“Someone, help!” came the feeble croak.
Great. Now I was hearing things too.
The familiar voice of my old friend floated through the fog in my mind. Madonna, I missed him! Five days. Five terrible days since the angel of death descended to take one, and five nights not knowing what happened to the other. My damn imagination picturing the worst possible fate to overcome Alonzo after what happened to….
Gio….
How many times could a heart break? I barely had the strength to rise, drink water from the tap, and use the facilities before collapsing back in the middle of the floor. Yet my body managed to fuse the four chambers back together only for grief to shatter the damn organ the instant it began to feel again.
The strega showed me a picture of Gio’s body, screaming at me the whole time that it was what I deserved. How I brought that on my brother, and how Alonzo was no doubt in the same peril.
“Help me! Please,” the voice cried plaintively.
Muttonhead turned to look over his shoulder. He heard it too.
It wasn’t in my head. This wasn’t the ghost of the dead come to torment me. The voice was real!
It’s him! It’s Alonzo!
I shot to my feet, bones and muscles protesting the sudden movement. “Lonzo? Lonzo! Is that you?” I shouted.
“Isabella!”
He was downstairs. Why was no one helping him?
The house had been unusually quiet, but no one? There really wasn’t anyone home?
“Lonzo, you’re here,” I sobbed, the tears I thought were long dried pricking painfully in my eyes.
I stepped forward, but the sausage-fingered guard stiffened. His gummy gaze was infused with greed as he gaped at me.
“Seriously?” I demanded of the oaf. “He’s downstairs, and no one is helping him! I have to go to him.”
“Signorina Rinaldi is to stay in her room. She comes out, I break a leg.” The words were a lisping, robotic recitation of the orders he’d also received. This wasn’t the same meathead from the first day. It was his brother. The pair took shifts, blocking my door day and night at the orders of their witch overlord.
Always watching.
With the lack of doors in my room and bathroom, it wasn’t like it was hard.
“That is the don’s son, and he’s hurt. I need to help him,” I snapped, drawing myself up. I spent the hours of not knowing as a heap that fell apart. Not anymore. Action called, need summoned. I answered with a resounding fire that chased away the frigid numbness.
The guard was in the process of repeating his orders.
We didn’t have time for this.
Fury, livid and bright, fueled my veins as I stomped to the nightstand. It was a hot, welcome change to the freezing weight of grief. The secret compartment my father had designed specifically for me slid open, revealing the precious handgun I hid when not sleeping. There hadn’t been a good reason to use it before. I couldn’t escape without knowing what happened to Alonzo or… my phantom.
But now, it was time to rise and defend someone who needed me to be the strongest possible version of myself that I could be.
One short breath filled my lungs.
I rose, aimed, and fired.
The oaf stumbled back, a red burst blooming on his chest. He looked confused. His fingers pawed at the hole.
I was already sprinting through the door when he toppled, which was unfortunate because I would gladly have pushed him over.
From down the hall, the strega screamed, a noise only a banshee could envy. Cecilia sped from her room shouting about fire and murder. If there was an attack, a true enemy come to invade the house, her behavior would ensure she was the first to die. I threw her a cursory glance, checking that she wasn’t armed before rushing to the banister. It was odd that no guards came rushing through the front door at the gunshot, but they also hadn’t come to answer Alonzo’s shouts.
Where was everyone?
But everything else faded away when I spotted the form leaning on the bottom post of the stair banister. Alonzo. It was Alonzo. He looked like a living corpse! Cuts and lacerations decorated skin that was horribly discolored with an array of blotches.
“Lonzo,” I gasped, rushing forward.
Claws dug into my arms, ripping me back with the element of surprise. My gun went flying.
“Get back to your room!” Cecilia declared.
Cursing myself for not having a better hold on the weapon and for letting her sneak up on me, I rounded on the witch. “I’ve had enough, Cece!”
With that, I shoved her—hard.
She stumbled, shrieking as she crashed into the banister. Possessed by some inhuman strength, my body moved without my control. I launched forward, hands extended. The contact was abrupt and sweet.
The strega clutched wildly at me, but I was bigger. Stronger. Angrier. The reign of torment ended now. Smiling at her stammered protests, I lifted and flung her over the railing. Those grasping claws clung to me, not wanting to fall to the foyer floor below. It took three swats to force her to loosen her grip. The stance, and my solid thighs, honed from hours at the gym, kept me from succumbing to gravity, which proved to be my friend.
Cecilia fell.
The screaming filled the foyer, rising in bursts to the vaulted ceiling until the strega crashed into the floor. Silence sharply cut the noise off at the source.
I raced for my gun on the upper landing before sprinting down the stairs to the broken boy who lived.
“Lonzo,” I choked, rushing to embrace him.
He didn’t reach for me, which should have been odd.
But I moved for him, gripping him gently between my fingers.
“No, Isabella, don’t.” He pulled back at my touch.
My hands stilled in mid-air as my gaze darted about for signs of injury. There were too many to count. “What can I do?”
Alonzo wet his lips. “It’s nearly over, Isabella. You’re almost free.”
Confusion knotted inside me. He wasn’t talking about dying, was he? I wouldn’t let him! I reached for him again, but he pulled back, shaking his head.
“Leave it to you to be armed and prepared,” he murmured. “I’m proud of you. You would have made a phenomenal don’s wife—hell, an even better don.”
“Lonzo?” I warned. “You’d better start talking sense.”
He only smiled. “He’s lucky, you know. But I think you’re lucky too. A man like that will keep you safe.”
Something warm washed over me. It couldn’t be….
“A man like whom?” I stammered, even though I already knew the answer.
“Your Russian cage fighter—the bear.”
“What does Ilya—I mean, Elijah have to do with anything?” I breathed.
“ Ilya saved me. He’s freeing us, both.” The smile that twisted Alonzo’s lips was anything but happy. “But I can never have you. It’s a hard price to pay for my life, don’t you think?”
Speech failed me. I sat hard, clasping my face with my hands. Ilya’s plan worked. We were done with the famiglia. Two of us would make it out alive, leaving behind the body of the third. The spikes of emotion overwhelmed me.
Before anything else could be said, there was the sound of a vehicle coming to a sudden halt outside.
Alonzo’s voice hardened. “Right on time. That will be the don.”
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“Go to your room, get your things,” Alonzo instructed quietly. “My father and I are going to have a long, overdue chat.”
Dread slithered through me. But watching the boy rise from the steps, I had to admit that we’d all underestimated Alonzo. Because before me stood a man, bound and determined. He adjusted his shirt. I caught a glimpse of the weapon tucked in the waistband of his pants. It was time for Alonzo to right the injustice done to him.
I rose too, wanting to help, but not knowing how.
Shit! The strega!
“Cece,” I hissed, darting into the foyer to the limp body.
Her chest rose and fell—which meant I wasn’t a murderer. Unfortunately. While the killing rage was gone, there wasn’t a bone in my body that wanted to save this woman. Her labored breathing gave reassurance that she wouldn’t rise anytime soon to interfere.
I gripped her bony chicken wing arms, dragging her easily into one of the many rooms off the hall. Once I was sure the damage wouldn’t be discovered, I peeped around the aperture to see Alonzo facing his father.
“You’re home.” Was that surprise in the don’s voice?
Alonzo studied his sire. “I am.”
“You look like shit. Couldn’t clean yourself up?” the don sneered. “We have a reputation to uphold, boy. Haven’t I told you that?”
I frowned. Aldo seemed so worried when we learned of the boys’ abduction by our enemies. For days, he’d been a general on the warpath to end the scourge taking out our men. He rallied the dwindling ranks and waged a vicious war on the Scorso Famiglia.
“Sorry, there wasn’t time to tidy up, seeing as I just escaped Cosimo’s clutches,” Alonzo spat.
Hold up. I gaped. Did I really hear that properly? My feet inched a few steps. I leaned forward to catch every syllable.
“Careful, boy,” the don growled, voice dropping several octaves as the don glanced through the still-open door at the soldiers standing guard.
“You think you can make a deal with the Fabrizi to remain don, so long as Cosimo is your heir? Where did that leave me, father? Hmm?” Alonzo’s voice was packed with hate.
The truth suddenly became very clear despite the lack of details.
“Let’s go into my office. You’re clearly suffering from the…strains of your ordeal,” Don Aldo quickly responded.
Alonzo didn’t fight him but followed his father inside.
Mind reeling, I sagged against the wall. The don and the underboss, my brother and Alonzo—pieces of the puzzle flipped and spun, trying to notch into one another as the picture formed in my mind.
A scuffle followed by a thud whispered through the open front door.
My heart jumped, only to patter wildly a moment later when a massive form filled the doorway, blocking out the light. The scruff on his jaws couldn’t distract from the haunted look in his eyes. The beast I always knew lurked inside him was in command. Despite the shadows crossing his face, and blood smeared across his skin, he wasn’t terrible. Not to me.
Ilya was every bit the predator his nickname suggested.
I ran to him.
Launching myself into the air, I leapt into his arms, wrapping all four of my limbs around him. “You’re here,” I breathed. “You’re here, you’re here, you’re here.”
“Hush.” He smoothed a hand down my back, splaying it protectively over my spine.
I only squeezed tighter. “I was so scared, Ilya. Scared that you hadn’t come, frightened by the idea of you coming.”
“Izzy—”
“So much has happened!” I protested, pulling back and cupping my hand behind his head. And you haven’t been here.
I didn’t have to say that thought. I read it in his eyes. He knew.
“Your brother…” he started and stopped.
My lips pursed tight. I gave him a hard nod, fighting and struggling to keep back the tears. “You did everything you could.”
Disbelief shot across his face like a bolt of lightning. “I didn’t do enough, Izzy!”
The finger I pressed against his lips silenced anything else. “If there was a way for you to save him, not even the demons of hell could stand against you. It’s all raw, very fresh. But when I tell you that I don’t hold it against you, when I say you did everything you could, I need you to believe that. Okay?”
His answer was cut off by a gunshot.
My poor heart stopped beating.
Time slowed as I turned toward the don’s door. The world fell from under me. This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen. I was supposed to save them!
And then, a small miracle appeared. It was the youthful face that moved through the doorway.
A sob choked me. My spectre tightened his grip, but I felt the relief coming from him too.
“You killed the guards?” Alonzo met the phantom’s level stare.
Ilya nodded. “You killed the don?”
“I did.” A shudder rolled down my friend's frame.
But when he finally looked at me, a small smile flickered on his face. “Here, Isabella, take this back. I truly believe it’s what kept me safe. And Ilya—thank you for everything.”
I reached for the cornicello necklace.
In the distance, something click-clicked.
I should have known that sound, but my too-tired mind couldn’t comprehend the noise. As my fingers brushed over the warm metal chain, Ilya jerked. Harsh words were on the tip of my tongue, but the spectre turned sharply, shielding me as he ducked back toward the front door, Alonzo scampering after us in a blur of motion.