28. Isabella
28
ISABELLA
“ I always thought out of the two of you, Leon would be the bigger disappointment.”
My mother’s words pierce through me with unrelenting venom.
It was all too much. Her lies had felt like a betrayal before, but to see her now, looking at me like I’d seen her do to anyone she felt was beneath her.
She’s never looked at me like this before.
I was her equal. Or, at least, her protégé. She didn’t look at me like this.
For so long, I’ve been spared of this. For so long, I have bent myself over backward and done unspeakable things to gain her approval. For so long, that was all I ever wanted to do.
I would have been proud to have become her heir, to uphold her beliefs and to honor our family legacy. To help my brother lead the Prince’s Hand to prosperity.
But there was always a stark difference between what she was capable of and how far I was willing to go. And that difference is here, now, in her icy gaze with the backdrop of a burning building behind her.
“Teo, please.” I flinch slightly at the sound of Cas’ sobbing.
He had left. I had begged him to stay, but he had kissed me and gone anyway.
When I turn to look at him, I foolishly hope that maybe, maybe, he stayed for me.
But there’s no expression of kindness on his face. His dark eyes are fixed on my mother, fingers flexing at his side as if he hasn’t quite decided how he wants to kill her.
I think I might be sick.
“Go, Teo. She’s not going anywhere.” Leon suddenly straightens up at my side.
I’m not sure why this surprises me so. I may have never been on the receiving end of our mother’s ire. But Leon certainly has. Multiple times, often due to me.
When I look at my brother’s face, it’s clear that it’s not the betrayal that angers him. It’s the embarrassment of not seeing it before, of not acting against her sooner.
How long had my brother resented her? How long had I willfully ignored his warnings and encouraged him to take her advice and be grateful for it?
It’s all too much.
And suddenly, Teo moves again, and it’s far too much.
He’s going to die in there. He’s going to die, and it will all be my fault.
I watch his figure retreating back to the house, and the panic is overwhelming. I launch forward after him. Only for Leon to catch me again.
“He’s going to die,” I wail helplessly into his arms.
Mother laughs.
It’s long, and it’s bitter, and it pierces my skin like a careless blade. Its sole intent is to prolong my suffering.
“You foolish girl,” she sneers once the laughing has subsided. “Is that not the point? Or have you truly turned your back on this family?”
I have never wanted to harm my mother before now.
The fury with which I lunge for her almost takes Leon off guard, and I make it a few feet before he pulls me back.
“You’re a monster.”
“You have betrayed us, bambina. You got too close, didn’t you? He was your target, and you whored yourself out to him.”
“Under your orders.”
She laughs again. “You want to stand there and pretend you’re not loyal to him now?”
“You killed his sister!” I scream. “She was eight years old, and you killed her in cold blood.”
“She was a loose end. She would have grown up just like her brother and slit your throat in your sleep.” She jabs herself in the chest. “I’m the only one who could ever understand the lengths we needed to go to keep our family safe.”
“She was a child!”
“She was collateral damage.”
“Enough of this!” Leon roars suddenly before depositing me firmly behind him before he stalks forward toward our Mother. “Did you purposefully ensure a pregnant woman would be in that house today?”
Ida scoffs at him. “How dare you speak to me like this.”
“ANSWER ME!”
She doesn’t even flinch. “Like I said. Collateral damage.”
I watch as Leon’s shoulders aggressively rise and fall. “I gave you an order.”
“You can pretend to be the don all you like, but you and I both know where the Prince’s Hands’ loyalties lie,” she sneers back. “And it’s not with you. Not when you’re too weak to do what needs to be done.”
“I will not murder children. I will not murder pregnant women.”
“Then you are doomed to make the same mistake I made. That your great-grandparents made. It’s a cycle, Leon. The only way to ensure that we survive is to kill them off once and for all.”
I gape at her, unwilling to even comprehend what I’m hearing. “Cassandra has nothing to do with this!”
I glance over to where the woman in question is curled up, sobbing out Rocco’s name in sporadic intervals.
A few months ago, I would have sneered at her weakness, as my mother is now, but I can almost feel her heart being torn apart every second that building continues to blaze and no one emerges to end her greatest fear.
I can’t even imagine what it must be like to lose the person you love.
I don’t want to think about how close I might be to finding out.
“That harlot has the heir to the Guild growing inside of her,” Mother growls out. “What do you suppose will happen when it’s grown? They’ll take you to dinner and pardon you pleasantly?”
“We could have peace!” I cry out.
“There is no such thing, you ignorant little bitch. You suck that man’s cock, and suddenly, your head is filled with these naive little notions of tranquility and happiness? That’s not how the world works, Isabella. I taught you better than that.”
I want to scream at her, to fly at her and tear the words from her mouth.
But then there’s an almighty groan.
We all turn toward the building.
The fire lights up the night, casting an orange glow over everything.
Teo is in there, somewhere behind that wall of flame and smoke. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. He hasn’t come out.
My breath hitches as each floor buckles, collapsing into the one beneath it.
I blink, and then…
It’s gone. The entire house lies in an inferno of ruin. There’s nothing left.
My heart is pounding so hard it hurts. I stagger forward, barely aware of my own movement, my feet carrying me toward the building, my mind screaming that I have to get to him and pull him out.
But the flames only grow fiercer, a searing barrier of heat pushing me back, taunting me with the finality of what’s happening.
“No—Teo!” His name rips out of me, raw and broken, swallowed up by the roar of the fire.
I try to move forward again, but an arm catches me around the waist once again, dragging me back. Leon. Always there to catch me.
His face is tight, his grip like iron as he holds me back. I twist, fighting, clawing against him, desperate to get to the burning shell of the house. I barely recognize the sound that comes out of me. It’s a guttural, agonized cry.
“Isabella, stop! It’s too late!” Leon’s voice cuts through the haze, sharp and pained. “You can’t go in there—it’s over!”
I twist harder, rage and grief blurring my vision, making me wild, out of control.
“Let go of me!” I scream, my voice breaking. “He’s in there! He’s in there, and he’s… he’s…” I can’t even say the words.
The reality feels like glass in my throat, cutting every time I try to breathe.
He’s gone.
The realization slams into me with the force of a blow. My legs go weak, and I would collapse if it weren’t for Leon holding me up. I sink against him, sobs choking me, as Leon’s grip tightens, but it’s as if I’m barely aware of him anymore.
“You loved him,” he murmurs, his voice softer, something between anger and grief.
His words sink in, but they barely register. I close my eyes, my chest heaving as the truth tumbles out, spilling past the grief, past the pain.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I loved him. I love him.”
The words, never spoken aloud, tremble with that terrible truth. They hang in the air, heavy and final.
I love him.
And now he’s gone.
And then.
There’s a scream.
Cassandra, who was curled up on the ground, is now being dragged backward by her hair.
My mother’s claw-like fingers curl through the dark strands of Cas’ hair as she stands over her. With one swift movement, she brings a knife to the pregnant woman’s neck. “Get up, whore.”
I watch in terror as Cas wordlessly complies.
“Let her go,” the plea erupts from my mouth without thought.
But Ida Natali isn’t looking at me. She’s looking at my brother.
“You always wanted to know what it would take to win my approval. Let me teach you now so that you can become the leader I know you to be.”
Leon’s arms go rigid around me. “What?”
“Your sister has brutally disappointed me,” she says. “But none of our plans need to change. Vitale is dead. Moretti is dead. All that remains is this whore and her unborn child.”
I can feel Leon’s heartbeat begin to elevate.
“All you need to do is kill her. Then all of this, the war, the Guild, will be over. You will become the new don of the Italian Mafia. There’s no one left to stand in your way.”
It’s all he ever wanted. I know it is.
“Please, Leon. Don’t do this,” I whisper.
But mother’s voice drowns me out. “I’m giving you a gift, Leon. See how willing she is to accept her death?”
Cassandra is still violently shaking, but her neck is stretched out and exposed to Ida’s knife. Though weeping still, her eyes are closed in resignation.
“This is all that must be done” Mother tightens her grip on Cas’ hair and removes the knife from her neck.
Only to rest it on Cas’s stomach.
Cassandra’s eyes flash open in an instant, and she’s struggling, seemingly willing to tear her own hair out just to escape my mother’s threat.
“She still has some fight in her,” Ida grunts under the effort of keeping Cas restrained. “You need to learn what drives a person before you kill them. Then you’ll know who will come after you when they die.”
“I suppose you learned that the hard way.”
My heart stops beating.
Teo.
Staggering toward us, covered head to toe in soot and grime. Limping awfully but alive. Alive. Alive.
I don’t think. I just run, tears streaming.
He catches me in an instant, wrapping his arms around me protectively. And he’s filthy, and his burns reek of sizzling flesh, but he’s alive and here. And God, oh God…
“I thought you were dead.”
There’s a choking sound, and it doesn’t come from either of us.
I turn in alarm to see Leon staring at us, yes wide and unfeeling.
“See how she has betrayed us?” my mother goes on. “Come to me, Leon. Let me show you what it means to rule.”
To my despair, Leon takes a staggering step backward.
“Teo is weak and vulnerable. We can kill them all and end this,” she continues, turning the blade so that the handle is pointing toward Leon. “She’s not your sister. Not anymore.”
Leon gets closer.
Teo tries to stumble forward but half collapses into my arms. “No.”
“She’s made a mockery of everything we’ve built.” Ida presses the blade into Leon’s hand. “Don’t let her tear your victory away from you.”
“Will you have me kill her too?” His voice is nearly inaudible over the blood beating through my ears.
“Eventually. I would want to pick her brain apart first to see what else she knows about?—”
He moves so quickly I barely have a second to register what has happened.
One moment, Leon has a hold of the knife, pressed against Cassandra’s swollen stomach.
The next, there is a long, red gash across my mother’s throat.
“The cycle ends here.”