26. Isabella
26
ISABELLA
M y hands tremble as I grip the edge of the car seat, watching Teo’s face in the dim glow of the dashboard. He’s silent, eyes focused on the road with a deadly intensity, his fingers tight around the wheel.
He hasn’t said a word since I told him what Leon is planning. I can barely stand to look at him, guilt twisting in my stomach like a hot blade.
I feel like a traitor, caught between blood and love. I feel like a fool for believing my mother so readily and without question when Leon has been warning me for years.
Now, he’s starting a war for me just because I believed my mother’s lies. He burned down a casino because he believed that I was doing the right thing.
This is all my fault.
I try calling him again, but it goes straight to voicemail.
“Come on, Leon. Please,” I murmur to myself, mentally begging him.
If he knew the truth, he would stop this. I know he would. I just pray that it’s not already too late for that.
The car speeds down the deserted highway, the hum of the engine the only sound in the silence stretching between us.
Teo’s jaw is clenched, his gaze locked ahead, not sparing me a single glance, but I can feel the anger radiating from him, crackling through the air like electricity.
“Isabella,” he says suddenly, voice low, taut, and it’s enough to make me shiver, “tell me exactly what he said. Word for word.”
I swallow, forcing myself to remember everything he had planned for Phase Two. “He…he wanted to make sure Rocco wouldn’t try to avenge you. He knew protection around him would be lighter now. He was going to attack him at his home.”
“Cas is with him,” Teo growls, his foot pushing the gas ever harder.
Cas…the pregnant wife from the wedding…the thought actually eases some of my anxiety. “He wouldn’t attack if she was there.”
“Forgive me for not believing the Natalis aren’t above murdering women and children.” Teo’s knuckles whiten on the wheel, and the car surges forward with a low growl.
“Leon wouldn’t,” I insist.
But his silence is worse than if he’d shouted. The worst part is, he’s right to blame me. It’s my family, my blood, doing this.
I bite my lip, looking out at the passing lights of the city. They blur as tears gather in my eyes, but I blink them away. This isn’t about me. This is about saving lives—about stopping Leon before he does something we can never come back from.
The minutes drag like hours, each one filling me with dread. I can’t shake the image of Cas and Rocco in their brownstone, blissfully unaware of what’s coming.
I imagine Cas, her hand resting on her belly, maybe reading or drifting off to sleep, feeling safe with her husband by her side. I close my eyes, and it’s all I can do not to scream.
Teo grabs his phone out of his pocket and thrusts it at me. “Call him.”
I do as he says, giving up on my own phone in favor of punching in Rocco’s details.
The phone rings. And rings and rings.
I don’t wait for Teo’s instruction, I find Cassandra’s number and call that next.
Nothing.
“They’re not answering, are they?” Teo says, his voice tight and with barely controlled panic.
A sick feeling settles in my stomach, dread settling over me like a heavy fog. What if we’re already too late? The thought makes me feel faint, and I clutch at my seatbelt, barely able to breathe.
Finally, we turn onto the narrow Brooklyn street, the brownstone just a block away.
But even before we’re close, I see it—orange flames licking up the dark sky, the air thick with smoke. The smell of burning wood, rubber, everything mingles into a thick, acrid scent that fills my nose, my lungs, choking me.
“No,” I whisper, barely able to get the word out as Teo slams on the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching halt in the middle of the street.
He’s out in seconds, running toward the house, not even waiting to see if I’m behind him. My feet stumble as I follow, the ground unsteady beneath me, my heart racing.
Rocco’s brownstone is engulfed, flames curling around the windows, black smoke pouring out. The fire’s so intense it lights up the entire street in a flickering, hellish glow.
I can’t see inside, but I can hear it—the crackle of flames, the shattering of glass. And the terrifying thought that Rocco and Cas are somewhere in there, trapped.
“Rocco!” Teo shouts, voice hoarse as he fights his way toward the entrance. But a wall of fire blocks him, so intense that he has to step back, shielding his face from the heat.
His fists clench, his entire body straining helplessly as he stares at the inferno, chest heaving with ragged breaths.
I take a step toward him, reaching out, but I don’t know what to say. There’s nothing I can say. The truth is there in front of us, in the destruction, the horror Leon has unleashed.
Teo’s voice breaks as he yells, “ Rocco! ” over and over, his voice barely carrying over the roar of the flames. He turns to me, eyes wild, pleading. “We have to get them out. Isabella, there has to be a way?—”
But the look on his face says he knows, deep down, that there’s nothing we can do.
I look up at the flames, feeling the guilt close in around me as if the fire is burning me from the inside out. This is my fault. My brother did this.
The thought sends me to my knees, and for a moment, everything blurs. All I can hear is the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“Isabella!”
A body barrels into mine, engulfing me in his large, familiar arms. Knocking what was left of my breath entirely out of me.
He pulls me to my knees, grabbing me by the shoulders so that he can examine me closer.
“Are you alright? FUCK ISSY. Are you okay?” Leon has soot in his dark blonde hair; his face is marked with the undeniable residue of fire and vengeance.
And I’ve never hated him more in my life.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?”
He takes a bewildered step back. “This was always the plan. What the hell is going on?”
“THERE’S A PREGNANT WOMAN IN THERE!” I scream, not caring that my anger is leaking out of my eyes as tears as I gesture toward the burning building.
Leon only frowns further. “No, there’s not, it’s just?—”
There’s a scream.
A wholly feminine, blood-curdling scream.
And it comes from inside the house.
“ Rocco, NO!”
Leon stills instantly. “No. No. No, no. She wasn’t there. We made sure she wasn’t there.” He shakes his head as if somehow his denial will make it so.
But my attention is captured by Teo once more.
Now, skirting around the edges of the property, Teo has an arm over his face to defend himself from the thrashing flames. “Cassandra! WHERE ARE YOU!”
No. Don’t you dare. Don’t you…
“Teo!” The name is wrenched from my mouth as I watch, too far away to stop him, as Teo dives into the burning building.
I stagger forward out of my brother's now lax grasp, blindly stumbling through the smoke toward the building. To where I last saw Teo.
It’s so hot. The ash gets caught in my throat, and I cough horribly. But still, I press forward, absolutely terrified by what I might find.
The window Teo jumped through is still open…I could just reach forward…
Something yanks me back by the waist, just as the window I was reaching for blows out, shattering across the ground where I had been standing seconds before.
“Teo!” I scream, even as Leon drags me back to safety.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” Leon roars in my ear.
“Let me go!” I sob as I claw at his arms.
But Leon doesn’t back off an inch. Not until he’s dragged me far enough for the smoke to have subsided.
“You have to let me go. You have to help him,” I repeat over and over. My eyes frantically dart back through the smoke, hoping for a glimpse of someone emerging from the building.
“Isabella, stop,” Leon takes me by the shoulders again to hold me in place. “There’s nothing we can do now.”
“She was PREGNANT!”
Leon’s voice breaks. “I didn’t know. She wasn’t supposed to be there. It was an accident.”
“YOU’RE A MONSTER.”
“I KNOW,” he roars back, devastation echoing on every feature of his face. “But you can’t go in there. I won’t let you die for any of them.”
I clasp my hands over my mouth before another sob comes out. “ Teo.”
“He’s our enemy, Issy.”
“No,” I croak. “Leon, he’s not. He’s…she lied to me, Leon. She killed them.”
“Slow down. What do you mean?”
I grab at his arms. “You have to call off the war. You have to save them.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Mother lied!” I all but scream. “She killed the Vitales. She set fire to their home.”
Leon looks at me like he’s entirely bewildered for a beat before his expression sours. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing—”
“If he so much as touched you?—”
“Jesus CHRIST, can you just listen to me? Teo’s sister died in that fire, and his parents died trying to save her. Your mother lied. She lied and told us they did it to themselves so that she could carry on pretending she didn’t have the blood of an eight-year-old on her hands.”
Leon visibly recoils. “What?”
“He doesn’t want the casinos, Leon,” I cry. “He just wants her. He just wants peace for his sister. She was innocent.”
He looks back at the flaming inferno that is now the brownstone as the truth settles hard and heavy on his shoulders. It pulls him right down to the ground. And there, crouched against the burning backdrop, he screams, “FUCK.”
I take a tentative step forward to put a hand on his shoulder, but he recoils again at the touch. His eyes are ablaze as he stares right past me, slack-jawed.
Then he stands up suddenly, abruptly, and reaches for my arm again.
“Issy. She’s the one who told me.”
“What?”
“She’s the one who said the wife would be occupied,” he closes his eyes. “Cassandra. Mother said she had her covered.”
I think I’m about to be sick. “Loose ends.”
But before either of us can dwell on that terrible thought, there’s a cry from the building.
We both turn around and see, through a break in the smoke, two bodies stumbling blindly from the building.
My heart begins to race, but Leon springs into action faster, launching himself toward the building without a second thought. He’s there in an instant, propping up the person in the middle as they begin to move toward me at pace.
It takes a moment for the smoke to clear enough for me to make them out.
But there my brother is, with Cassandra’s arm thrown over his shoulder. The woman looks worse for wear, covered in soot with her swollen belly close to bursting, and sobbing uncontrollably.
My heart restarts at the sight of Teo at her other side, filthy and limping but alive. His dark eyes instantly search for me, and the relief on his face when he does must mirror mine.
I run to them immediately, helping them lower Cassandra softly to the ground. But the second we let go, she tries to crawl back to the house. “NO!”
Teo holds her firm. “Cas.”
“NO! Teo, he’s STILL IN THERE.”
“I know,” Teo chokes. “I’m going back for him.”
My hand snatches at his shirt before he can take a step. “You will do no such thing.”
“ Belle.”
“You will not leave me here!” I plead, desperately clinging on to him.
His endless eyes bore into mine for a second. The sound of Cas sobbing on the ground, the fire crackling behind us, it’s all too much.
He kisses me. It's so soft I can barely feel it. Just a whisper, a promise that this will be okay. He won’t be going anywhere.
And foolishly, I let go.
“No!”
He immediately steps back from my grasp and begins to turn toward the burning building.
But he barely makes it ten paces before someone steps out through the smoke.
Somehow, still immaculately dressed, Ida Natali’s cold eyes fall directly on me.
“Well, isn’t this an interesting development?”