4. CHAPTER 3 – ISABELLA
CHAPTER 3 – ISABELLA
“ W -wife?” I sputter.
I'm sorry, what? Can I rewind that? Or maybe rewind my entire life. So many mistakes I would erase.
"What did you say?" I croak out. I must have misheard. Misunderstood.
"An auction, Isabella. A tournament. It's an honor, really. Men vying for your hand. They don't know… you're… well… you." He tilts his head.
Each word is a paper cut. I flinch, my fingers automatically finding my pulse point on my neck. At least it’s not racing right now. Mrs. Romano appears at my side with a glass of water, her worried eyes meeting mine.
I’m afraid to inhale deeply. Afraid a wrong movement will start the tachycardia. I gulp down the water, letting the cold wash over me.
“I’m okay,” I whisper to her. Even though I’m not.
My father's disappointed head shake makes it clear: another weakness, another flaw. Another way his perfect ballerina has stumbled.
"You still have a role to play." His voice carries the same tone he used when I was eight and forgot my steps at recital. "And you'll play it."
He pauses, and something shifts in his face—like he's remembering ghosts. "Your dear mother..." The word 'dear' sounds like a curse. "When she died, it messed up our books. Messed up my business more than you know." His fingers drum against the table, a rhythm of contained violence. "And your stepmother—" Another pause, heavier this time. "She didn't give me the heir I needed."
Something dark flashes across his face. "And let's not talk about your former stepbrother." His hand tightens on his glass as if the simple thought of Antonio has rage building inside of him. "I should have killed him for what he did, for what she did, for the way he looked at you. At least you’re still innocent. That will get the bidders more… motivated."
I struggle to swallow.
The threat hangs in the air like stage smoke, making it hard to breathe. Then his businessman mask slides back into place. "This auction is what our family needs. It's not a choice."
The world stops spinning like a broken pirouette. A spotlight I never asked for is thrust onto my face.
Blinding. Disorienting.
Just like that, I'm back to being weak, being broken—being something to be bartered away.
An auction. A tournament. My marriage.
This isn't a romance novel I can slide under my pillow. This is my life being choreographed by hands that have already proven they know how to break things. Break people.
Break me.
Looking at him now, all CEO swagger and mafia menace, I barely recognize the man who used to sneak extra chocolate in my ballet diet.
When I was younger, dumber, still playing at being daddy's perfect princess, I thought he was a ruthless businessman with a thing for imported furniture and creepy portraits. What a joke. When I figured how feared he was was the time one of my ballet teachers disappeared and his daughter yelled that I was responsible. A warning for others.
I still didn’t believe it.
Or maybe I didn’t want to.
You don't get to be king of Chicago's underworld by being nice—I just never thought I'd be the one whose legs would shake at his command.
God, I was stupid. All those college applications sitting in my room might as well be confetti now.
"I hope you understand, Isabella," he says, his voice steady. As if he's negotiating another shipment of whatever-the-hell-it-is he actually sells, not auctioning off his daughter like last season's Louboutins.
Understand? The only thing I understand is that I've been stupid. Again. Thinking I could escape through college applications and literature studies. As if my father would ever let his broken beauty slip away.
I want to scream, to rage, to fight. But my legs—these useless, treacherous legs that already failed me once—refuse to move. My hands grip the edge of the table, knuckles white, trying to ground myself as the room tilts sideways.
A heavy knot forms in my stomach, and I press my fingers to my neck. Not now. Please not now. The world blurs into a kaleidoscope of imported marble and judgment, and I can feel my grip on reality becoming as shaky as my arabesques.
The room shrinks, air thinning like it did during treatments. I need out. Need to breathe. Without a word, I push back my chair and stand, my legs trembling like a baby deer's.
As I inch away, my father's voice follows me like a death sentence.
"Prepare her,” he tells Ms. Romano. “This time it’s really happening."
“This time?" The words scrape my throat like chemo. Like bile.
"I was waiting on your latest PET scan." He says it like he's discussing the weather, not my life. Not my body feeling like it was waging a war with itself. "Your doctor says you're still in remission. Which is good because I was getting tired of postponing."
I’m in remission. Still in remission. Those are good news and yet…
I barely make it to my room before collapsing, mind spinning with memories of another time I thought I had control. Another time I made choices that ended in screams and scars and silence.
Tears come, hot and useless, just like me. I never wanted to be a mafia princess. Never asked for that life.
But the last time I tried to stand up to my father...
Well. Antonio's face tells that story better than I ever could.
A few hours later, the quiet murmur of conversation echoes through the empty halls as I sit across from Naomi in the opulent library. Her presence brings a semblance of normalcy.
My father agreed to let me see the folders I had found in his office. For a split second, he looked like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be furious or proud that I had snuck in there. Actually, his words, were: “You should study each folder anyway. Learn what you can. After all, this is your way of helping the family.”
Thanks, Dad.
The desk in the library is now cluttered with a dozen glossy folders - each one representing a life-altering decision I never asked to make.
"Twelve," Naomi says, her fingers tapping rhythmically against the desk like she's counting down to doomsday. "Twelve men who've decided they want to bid for your hand in marriage. Welcome to 'The Real Housewives of the Underworld,' where the rose ceremony involves actual thorns." She shakes her head, her blonde curls bobbing with the motion.
"Sounds like a twisted version of 'The Bachelorette', doesn't it?" I attempt to lighten the mood, my heart pounding anxiously in my chest.
"Twisted? Yes. Fucked up? Most definitely. I’m so sorry, Bella." Her smile wobbles like her first attempt at walking in high heels for a date that she had dubbed “Most Likely To Make Me Yawn”. Her light brown eyes meet mine, and for once there's no hint of sass, just raw concern. "But this is reality, and honey, Chris Harrison isn't going to pop up and save us with a dramatic rose ceremony."
Naomi carefully peels back the cover of the first folder like she's disarming a bomb. Her face goes ghostly pale in the soft afternoon light filtering through the drapes, and that's when I know it's bad. Naomi doesn't do pale unless we're entering DefCon territory. I watch as she slowly turns towards me, the folder open in her hands like it might bite.
"Radomir Sizov," she reads aloud, her voice dripping with disdain. "Shit. He looks like he eats puppies for breakfast and washes them down with the tears of his enemies. Is your father running a marriage market or casting for the next Bond villain?"
“Didn’t he have a wife?” I murmur, remembering a woman. A singer.
Naomi winces. “I heard… one of the guards mentions that she’s gone. I think he killed her while she was singing. Fuck.”
The photograph on the first page features a man who looks to be in his early forties. His gaze is cold, distant, as if reflecting the harsh winters of Russia. The document says he's a prominent figure in one of the most feared organized crime syndicates in Moscow. The stark black and white of the photograph doesn't soften his stern features, the brutal lines of his face hinting at a life of violence and power.
A bitter chill runs through me as I imagine a life as Radomir Sizov's wife. Is this what my father sees as my future? A trophy wife to a notorious Russian mobster?
Naomi's voice breaks through my dread-filled thoughts, her fingers tightening around mine as she flips to the next page as if that might erase him."The next one is..." she starts, but the color drains from her face as she sees the photo.
My heart pounds against my ribcage, anticipation and fear gnawing at my insides. Who could be next? Some old billionaire looking for a young bride? A vampire waiting for my blood? At this stage, this might actually be better.
The possibilities make me feel sick, the uncertainty ratcheting up the tension in the room.
"Henrik Müller," she finally breathes out. "Oh look, another contender for 'Most Likely to Make Serial Killers Nervous.' At least this one's pretty, in that Nordic-death-god kind of way." Her attempt at humor falls flat as she notices my face. "Bella? You look like you've seen a ghost... Wait, you know him? Is that?”
I nod and she curses—not under her breath. "That fucking asshole." She takes a pen and pokes his photograph, striking his sharp, angular face and cold blue eyes staring back at us from the page, his polished appearance doing nothing to hide the lethal power that radiates off him. "Without his signature stupid baseball cap, I didn’t recognize him at first. The way he kept asking about you at that gala, all polite smiles and perfect manners. But his eyes..." She stabs the photo again. "They reminded me of that shark documentary we watched in your hospital room. Dead. Hungry."
“Ohmygod, ohmygod.” I inhale deeply, exhale slowly. Because Henrik being there makes me want to throw up.
At that gala, he'd cornered me in a hallway, his intent clear and terrifying, but someone had come to my rescue.
Antonio.
The thought of Antonio, my ex-stepbrother, stirs a whirlpool of emotions within me. The folder I had seen on my father’s desk earlier today crosses my mind again. It had Antonio's name on it. Could it be? Could he be part of this horrifying auction?
“We can stop, if you want,” she murmurs.
And I shake my head. “No. Let’s continue. I need to know.”
She nods and flips to the next page. My heart catches in my throat. Because there is my answer, staring back at me with dark, hardened eyes, is Antonio.
Naomi's sharp intake of breath matches my own. "Holy shit," she whispers, and I catch her hand trembling slightly as she touches the edge of the photo. This isn't the same guy who used to roll his eyes at our terrible karaoke attempts. The boy who taught her to swear in Italian is gone, replaced by someone who looks like he could make those same curses come true.
It's impossible not to notice the scar.
It cuts across his cheek, stark and brutal against his olive skin. The ridges of the healed burn wounds are visible, a hideous reminder of the fire that nearly claimed his life. A fire that I witnessed.
And the knife slash. My father’s knife.
My heart clenches painfully in my chest. The memory of that day is as vivid as if it happened yesterday. The crackling of the fire, the sharp glint of the blade in my father’s hand, Antonio's screams as it sliced through his skin. The look of betrayal in his eyes when he realized I couldn't stop it.
An unwanted shiver runs down my spine, goosebumps prickling my skin.
"Isabella?" Naomi's voice, full of concern, cuts through my spiraling thoughts. She has been watching me, waiting for me to speak.
She heard enough about my daydreams about him. A crush Taylor Swift could have written albums about—and Naomi had teased me endlessly about it, dubbing him my "forbidden snack" and writing terrible stepbrother romance plots that made me laugh until I cried.
But she doesn't know everything.
She doesn't know about what happened in the days before. About my guilt. Not because I don't want to tell her—but because I know the power knowledge can have. The destruction it can wreck.
"Isabella," she repeats, her usual snark replaced with genuine concern as she squeezes my hand. "I know that look. That's your 'I'm-fine-but-actually-dying-inside' face. The one you wore through chemo when you didn't want to worry anyone."
I return her grip, forcing a smile onto my face. "I’m fine," I manage to say, though my voice trembles.
But I can't tear my gaze away from Antonio's photo. His dark eyes, so different now, capture me. This isn't the Antonio I knew, the one who laughed and joked, the one who protected me. This is someone else, someone hardened by the life he's been forced to lead.
The realization settles into my bones like chemo drugs through an IV line, slow and cold and sometimes burning and yet with a tinge of hope.
Antonio is now one of the men my father has auctioned me to. The same hands that once played piano while I danced, that caught me when I stumbled, that turned gentle when I needed gentle—they could be my prison or my salvation.
And I have no idea if he's here to save me, or destroy me.