47. CHAPTER 46—ISABELLA
CHAPTER 46—ISABELLA
C an a heart bruise? Because mine feels black and blue, each beat a fresh ache. I was ready for his rage, his fury - braced myself for him to declare last night's tenderness another weapon in his arsenal. Prepared to hear how thoroughly he played me.
I should congratulate him, really. He hasn't just succeeded in breaking me - he's elevated it to an art form. His words reach straight through my ribs, squeezing my heart just shy of shattering. Keeping me alive enough to feel every excruciating second of this execution.
The pain that burns hotter than chemo.
The regrets that cut deeper than any scalpel.
The remorse that weighs heavier than all my hospital stays combined.
"Still playing innocent." His voice scrapes out like gravel, dripping with scorn and disbelief. My mouth falls open, but my body already knows what's coming - tensing like it used to before bad test results. Before another battle I'm not sure I can survive.
His scent overwhelms me - expensive cologne and something purely him that makes my throat close up like before panic attacks. His face hovers inches from mine, a masterpiece of grief and rage painted in harsh lines. Grief for everything he lost because of me, everything he could have been if I hadn't helped destroy his world. No matter how much I ache to, I can't turn back time.
I can't save him.
I can't even save myself.
I can't soothe this pain, even though every cell in my body screams to wrap my arms around him. To hold him while I whisper endless apologies, tell him I'm here, tell him I understand the guilt eating him alive. Because he doesn't have to say it - it burns in those thunderous eyes, that same self-loathing that's been my constant companion since his mother disappeared.
"What do you mean?" My voice comes out weak as hospital air, betraying more than it should. His head shake carries disbelief, and that chuckle? It's more dangerous than any diagnosis - dry as desert bones and dripping contempt. It tells me more than any symphony ever could.
He's not done making me bleed.
"You ran to your father and ran your mouth. Maybe you hadn't seen the letter yet. Maybe you had... but my mother told you. She told you she wanted you to come with me and that enraged your father."
Everything stills around me.
And yet everything tilts.
I'm balanced on the edge of existence, about to plunge into an abyss I didn't know was waiting. My hands clench in sheets that still smell like us, like hope, like lies. I try to clench my heart too, but it's already in my throat, splattering onto silk stained with blood. Because last night Antonio showed me ecstasy, and now? Now he's teaching me what true torture feels like.
"She didn't. I... I did not know."
He pulls out another paper - one I've never seen. Another letter? Impossible. His mother and I had our own ways of hiding messages, our small rebellion against constant surveillance. When I started realizing my father’s world was darker than I thought possible.
"Read it," he commands, voice arctic enough to send a thousand shivers down my spine.
My trembling fingers take the paper like it's made of blades. "'Come with us, Bella Ballerina Mia. Antonio would never forgive me if we left you behind. You belong with us.'" Each word cuts deeper than the last, her elegant but hurried writing like daggers in my gut. Belonging - god, I've never really known what that feels like. Always dancing on the edges, alone except for Naomi. Now my mind floods with could-have-beens: laughter, love, a life where warmth didn't come with conditions.
"I never received this one," I tell him, but the words fall like stones in water - useless, sinking. He doesn't believe me. Worse, he doesn't care if it's true.
He moves closer, until his lips brush my ear, and his harsh whisper freezes my blood. "Even if you didn't... You were overheard telling your father that you'd rather leave with my mother and me than staying with him. That was weeks before your little story about asking him to make sure she stayed."
My chin quivers. My mind races. My heart slams to a stop.
Because I did say that. In a moment of pure rage. Three weeks before Antonio's mother disappeared. Before I even knew she wanted to escape.
My father had missed another recital - empty seats where family should have been. Then he'd demanded I attend one of his grand soirees, where Henrik's eyes followed me like predator tracking prey. Antonio wasn't there to run interference. When Henrik got too close, I almost buried my fork in his hand. Until my father's hiss of my name reminded me exactly what I was - decoration in a world I didn't understand yet.
All I knew then was that it was a world where my desires didn't matter. My wants. My needs. My right to choose who touched me.
That's the one time I truly confronted my father. The one time I dared stand against him. The one moment that shattered any future I might have had.
Because I can see it in Antonio's eyes - there's no path back from this precipice. No way to bridge this chasm between us.
No matter what truth I offer, he won't believe me. Or maybe worse - he won't care. His own guilt forms a wall too thick for any explanation to penetrate. His mother tried to save him, tried to prevent him from becoming my father's mirror, and that knowledge eats at him like cancer ate at me. I see his torment burning in those eyes, feel it in his relentless need for revenge. It's not just guilt consuming him - it's devouring whatever's left of the boy who used to play piano while I danced, leaving only the Beast's scarred shell.
Maybe if I shoulder all the blame, it will ease his burden. Even slightly.
I struggle to inhale, exhale, trying to steady myself like I used to before performances. "Fine. You're right. I did it. I said those things. I wasn't careful." The words tumble out like confessions in a fever dream. "I was stupid. And my stupidity led to your mother's death." Another shaky breath as I meet his gaze. "I'm responsible. I told you I’m guilty. Me. Not you."
The moment those words leave my lips, something raw and agonized flashes through his eyes. But it vanishes so quickly I might have imagined it.
"Of course you,” he roars. “Confession is only the beginning." His voice cuts like a surgical blade. Those fingers that traced my scars with such care last night now grip my chin with deceptive gentleness before tightening. "You're going to pay, Isabella." Then he releases me like I burn.
He stands, leaving me alone with bruises that go deeper than flesh. I hear him calling his men, his voice winter-cold as he orders them to take me to my prepared room.
The same gilded cage or a different one? It doesn't matter. A prison's still a prison, no matter how expensive the bars.
"I... I'm sorry," I whisper, but he might as well be carved from stone. His back - the same one I raked with my nails hours ago - doesn't even flinch. Like I've already ceased to exist.
My eyes drift to sheets that still hold our memories. His careful preparation, his passionate claiming, how his strong fingers and clever tongue made my body sing. The way he felt inside me, thick and hard and perfect, forging a connection that went beyond everything I’ve ever known. His voice growling my name like prayer and possession mixed together.
All of it was just strategy. Just the Beast playing with his prey before the kill. And he succeeded - I'm shattered into pieces too small to ever fit back together.
This can't be the end. There has to be more.
"Antonio." His name falls from my lips like a last prayer, but he's stone-still at the window, watching waves crash like they hold answers I can't give.
"Get her out of my sight. Forever." Each word drops like a death sentence, but I won't break. Won't let him see me shatter.
Instead, I lift my chin like before performances, wearing nothing but his shirt that still smells like last night's lies. Follow his men with whatever grace cancer and heartbreak haven't stolen.
Paola appears in the doorway, triumph curved across her lips. "He's mine now."
She doesn't understand. This isn't about winning some prize, about claiming territory.
I just want him whole. Want him to find light in all this darkness.
The tears burn like acid. I want to run to him, shake him, make him see we don't have to become our parents - don't have to let history repeat in blood and betrayal.
One last glance back stops my heart. Paola slides against him like smoke, all feline grace and victory. He stands there at the window, shoulders rigid under that black shirt I was clinging to hours ago, muscles coiled like he's fighting something inside.
When her arms wrap around his waist from behind, his jaw clenches - but he doesn't pull away. Not like in that corridor before our wedding, when he made sure I watched him claim her. Now he just... accepts her touch, lets himself lean back slightly into her embrace. His scarred profile catches morning light, turning him into some tragic marble statue while her fingers spread possessively across his stomach.
And he still doesn’t turn to look at me.
And whatever light was still shining in my chest crumbles.
"Move it." The command snaps like a whip. They march me away from Naomi's wing, deeper into stone and shadow where salt air mingles with decay. My escort's as large as my wedding party, but their laughter carries different music now - celebration of plans perfectly executed.
After all, isn't that what this is?
A marriage of revenge.
The Beast's perfect choreography of destruction.
Franco's eyes catch mine in the crowd - something complicated there, pity mixed with worry. Once, I would have dissected that look like choreography, found meaning in every nuance.
But now?
Nothing matters anymore.
Not Naomi's friendship I'll never see again.
Not the way dance used to make me feel alive.
Not the memory of Antonio's smile or how safe I felt in his arms last night - like maybe love could heal what cancer tried to destroy.
"Time to lock up the princess and celebrate!" Someone shouts, shoving me forward into another shadowed hallway.
"Don't." Franco's warning cuts sharp - but who is he talking to? Me? The man with hands like brands on my shoulders?
Bodies press in from every direction - leading, flanking, following. The air grows thick as hospital rooms at midnight. I'm more surrounded than I ever was during treatments, but I've never felt so alone.
"Welcome home, Ballerina." Snake-eyes opens a door that belongs in a dungeon, not a fortress. When he pushes me inside, my chest constricts like before bad news.
No books to escape into.
No music to dance to.
Nothing but stone and silence and the death of every dream I was stupid enough to believe in.
Just a bed and there, laid out like evidence at a murder scene - every letter his mother wrote me. Every letter we hid from his father. From him. From everyone.
Letters filled with love and laughter and hope.
The sight sends barbwire twisting around my lungs, proving just how naive I was to think I'd already felt the worst pain possible.
Because this? This is Antonio showing me exactly how thoroughly he plans to erase me. Each letter a reminder of what I helped destroy, what I failed to protect. The second act of his revenge carefully choreographed to break whatever's left of me.
But he doesn't see what's happening to him - how every step deeper into darkness transforms him into something his mother feared most. The Beast isn't just consuming me anymore. It's devouring whatever light she tried to preserve in him, replacing it with rage and revenge until nothing else remains.
I helped forge these chains without knowing.
Helped create this monster wearing her son's scars.
And now I have to watch him burn away everything she died trying to save.