29. CHAPTER 28—ISABELLA
CHAPTER 28—ISABELLA
" W elcome to this intimate gathering," my father's voice flows smooth as morphine before it burns, his gesture encompassing the opulent dining room like he's hosting some twisted Gossip Girl episode. Crystal chandeliers catch light like tears, casting shadows that dance across silver settings worth more than most people's lives. As if we're not all just waiting to see who bleeds first.
My nails carve crescents into my palms - a pain I choose, unlike everything else in this nightmare. I catch his expression and something cold slides down my spine. That look in his eyes - pride mixed with calculation - it's the same one he wore when my ballet instructor promised I'd tour the world. Back then, I thought he was proud of me. Now I understand - I was just another asset, another way to force respect from a world that saw him as new money with bloody hands.
A fork clatters against fine china - Naomi, her composure slipping as Radomir slides closer like a snake preparing to strike. His smile flashes silver and menace, and my fingers find the mark his cruelty left on my cheek. The bruise Henrik's bite left there throbs in warning, a reminder that these men don't just want to own us.
They want to break us.
"Perhaps we should rearrange," I suggest, letting innocence drip from my voice like honey hiding poison. "In case Antonio joins us." The bait dangles between us like the roles I used to audition for, each word carefully choreographed. Henrik's head tilts - a predator scenting blood.
"Told you, little ballerina. He won't be gracing us tonight."
I lean closer, swallowing bile and pride. "You certainly reminded him there are no rules in the ring." My voice drops to a whisper meant to seduce. "I've hated him for so long." The lie tastes like copper on my tongue. Across the table, Connor drowns himself in beer like he's trying to wash away the taste of betrayal.
"Antonio keeps his word." Connor's declaration carries more weight than his drunken slouch suggests. He raises his glass in a mocking toast to my father. "But this? This shouldn't surprise me. Survival means shedding your skin, and you're the deadliest snake in the pit."
Silence drops like a curtain before final bow.
Henrik's hand finds my thigh, heavy as death and twice as unwelcome. Every inch of my skin crawls where he touches me, but I force myself to stay still, to play my part in this twisted performance. His smirk says he thinks he's winning, thinks he's claiming. My pulse races like it does before SVT kicks in, but this isn't my heart betraying me - it's pure, distilled disgust.
My father's laugh hits like winter wind, bouncing off gold-leafed walls with calculated cruelty. "Seems you're refusing my family's embrace, Connor." His words spin like a spider weaving threats into silk. "Such a shame. We offer such... protection." The predator's smile he wears makes my skin prickle with remembered fears.
"Protection?" Connor stands, chair scraping marble like nails on a coffin. "Like burning half a man's face and murdering his mother? This auction had rules. I'd rather lose business—"
“Murdering his mother?” I lift my chin, my voice shaking.
I knew he beat her up. He told me she ran. Disappeared. That she agreed to never reappear or he’d kill Antonio. He said her blood was on my hands as he showed me his own hand, marred with red. Her blood. When he broke her nose. Broke her jaw. Broke her.
But she’s not dead.
She can’t be dead.
"Oh, please. Let’s not talk about a past that means nothing. You’d rather lose more men?" My father's eyebrow arches with deadly precision. "Than lose her?"
Something raw flashes across Connor's face. "She was never mine." The words carry weight I don't understand, but they taste like truth and tragedy.
"Irish." My father dismisses centuries of pain with a wave. "Always drowning in sentiment." Radomir's laughter sounds like bones breaking.
Naomi bolts up like she's been shocked. "Bathroom," she manages before fleeing. Radomir watches her go, licking soup from his spoon with obscene satisfaction. The butternut squash doesn’t taste like anything, even knowing lobster ravioli in champagne cream comes next has my stomach in knots - another course in this feast of fears.
I should follow her, but Henrik's question anchors me here: "Those scars - where'd they come from?" His words slur slightly, hand finally retreating from my thigh. Maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's whatever they gave him for the beating Antonio delivered. Either way, it's an opening.
"Life," I say, letting my smile carry secrets. "Death." I pause for effect. "More life." Each word a truth wrapped in mystery, a performance for a man too drunk to see the steel beneath silk.
"Cryptic." He leans closer, and I don't flinch.
"You want cryptic?" I watch my father's animated discussion with Radomir about peace between territories, about truces written in blood and broken promises.
"Was?" Henrik's smile shifts as German slips from his whiskey-loose tongue.
"Was du nicht sagst," I murmur. What you don't say. The words feel like betrayal on my tongue, but I've learned to swallow worse things.
His smile cracks open, almost real. "You speak German?"
"Ein bisschen." Just enough.
His hand returns to my thigh, heavy as guilt and twice as unwanted. I slide another beer his way, watching his control slip like blood through fingers. "You seem awfully confident about my stepbrother's... delay." The words taste like acid, but I force them out sweet as honey while my father's conversation with Radomir dies down.
"Let's just say snakes..." He leans closer, alcohol and victory making him careless. "...are deadly."
Then his mouth is on mine - clumsy, invasive, tasting of beer and triumph. Everything in me screams to bite, to run, to vomit. Instead, I kiss him back, thinking of Naomi, of Antonio, of everything at stake. My reward comes whispered against my lips: "Blade and poison. Always works."
His tongue invades again, sloppy and demanding. I don't pull away despite every cell in my body begging for escape. Let him think the beer made him loose-tongued. Let him forget he gave away his game.
My father clears his throat and I jerk back like a guilty teenager - the perfect performance for a girl trying to rebel.
But inside? Inside I'm cataloging every word, every slip. Blade and poison. Always works.
"Henrik." My father's voice cracks like a whip. "Control yourself."
"Of course, of course." Henrik's hand wavers as he lifts his glass. "A toast."
Crystal clinks while my eyes drift to the bathroom where Naomi's found temporary sanctuary. At least one of us escaped, even for a moment. I need to warn Antonio. Or Paola - if that number she made me memorize when I thought she was an ally instead of another player in my father's game leads anywhere but a trap.
The moment the toast ends and Naomi returns, I make my move. "Cold," I murmur, all delicate shiver and practiced grace. The bedroom feels like freedom until I remember it's just another cage. Inside the closet, my fingers shake as I type: " Tell the doctor it's poison. Snake venom. Paola, if you're there - make sure he knows ."
The phone disappears behind my suitcase like another secret I have to keep. I grab a cardigan, arrange the pillow just so - every movement a performance, every second counted like heartbeats between doses.
I've barely settled back into this feast of fears when Mrs. Lefevre sweeps in, her smile sharp as Antonio's blade. "Well, well. Don't tell me you started without me." Her presence shifts the air like storm clouds gathering. "I want to know everything."
And isn't that perfect? Another predator joining our deadly dinner party.
The evening drags like chemo hours - too many courses, too many smiles that don't reach eyes, too much weight pressing down while I wait for news about Antonio. Every minute feels like those moments between test results, between life and death.
It’s been two hours since I sent that text to the number Paola had me learn by heart—when she pretended to be my friend. My one ally in this world of deceit.
I trusted her too quickly.
Because sometimes you don’t have a choice.
Finally, back in our room, Naomi collapses onto the bed. The defeat in her shoulders reminds me of my reflection during bad treatment days, but she's trying to hide it - always protecting me, even now.
"What about messaging your father?" I whisper, though hope feels dangerous here.
"He's watched constantly." Her voice carries resignation learned too young. "One wrong move and..."
"Still nothing from—"
"I checked while changing. Radio silence."
My father's voice thunders through the door, fury vibrating through wood like hospital monitors screaming warnings. "He survived?"
My heart performs the kind of leap that would panic my cardiologist, but I don't care. I press against the door, wood grain marking my skin like another scar I'll wear gladly. Relief floods through me, loosening the vice grip around my chest.
A muffled voice responds: "He did. Wedding's still on."
"How?" My father's demand carries death in its wake.
"They say his Doc's the best in Europe."
And the flutter in my chest isn't SVT or fear.
It's hope.
Dangerous, beautiful hope.
Something slams - a drawer, a fate, a future - followed by my father's voice, cold as hospital tiles at midnight. "Henrik played his part well. He'll be rewarded. And Isabella..." A pause heavy with manipulation. "She's learning. Starting to see that Antonio walks closer to death than life, survival or not."
"Sir?" Confusion threads through the response.
My father's next words drop like bodies in the Mediterranean. "When the wedding happens, Isabella will kill the Beast herself."
"You'd trust your daughter to—"
"I have methods." The certainty in his voice makes my blood freeze. "And if she fails? Naomi becomes Radomir's prize. Isabella will choose her friend's safety over any... lingering attachments."
Each word builds my cage higher, stronger, deadlier. I stumble back from the door, lungs forgetting how to work like those first days after treatment. My gaze finds Naomi - my best friend, my sister, my constant through every nightmare - and panic claws up my throat sharper than any chemo.
I promised to protect her. Promised to save her from becoming another casualty in my father's power play. But this?
Kill Antonio or condemn Naomi?
The choice sits in my chest like poison, like the venom they used on Antonio. Only this time, there's no antidote. No miracle doctor to save us.
What the hell am I supposed to do?