Chapter 24 Isabella #2
"Isabella." His voice drops to that manipulative whisper again, the one that shaped my entire childhood. "You were perfect for what I needed. A beautiful puppet who never asked questions. But now..."
"I understand perfectly." The weapon feels steady in my hands, solid and real in a way nothing else has for days. "You killed them to steal their empire. And you kept me alive because I was useful. A puppet you could control."
"Kill you?" Chase laughs, but it sounds hollow, desperate. "Isabella, you were never a threat. You were perfect—beautiful, obedient, completely uninterested in real power. Why would I—"
His hand moves toward the desk drawer with practiced smoothness.
"Gun!" Rafe shouts.
Chase's fingers close around a pistol just as I squeeze the trigger.
The shot echoes through the warehouse like thunder. Chase stumbles backward, staring down at the spreading crimson stain across his white shirt with genuine surprise.
"You shot me." He says it like he can't quite believe it.
"You killed them." I keep the gun trained on him as he slumps against the wall. "You killed my parents and made me love you for it."
"They were... they were going to take you away." Red bubbles at the corner of his mouth. "To London. Going to... raise you normal. Weak."
"They were going to love me." The words come out broken, raw. "Without conditions. Without making me earn it by being perfect."
Chase slides down the wall, leaving a wet smear on the concrete. But his eyes are still sharp, still calculating.
"You think... you think the Rosettis are better?" He coughs, specks of crimson hitting the floor. "They're using you too, Isabella. Different cage... same bird."
"Maybe." I don't lower the gun. "But they never murdered my family and made me grateful for it."
"I made you... powerful." His voice is getting weaker, but his eyes burn with fanatic intensity. "I made you into something... that matters."
"You made me into a victim." I take a step closer. "But I'm done being what you created."
Chase's hand twitches toward something on his belt. A backup weapon. A knife. In the dim light, I can't tell which.
I don't wait to find out.
Three more shots echo through the warehouse. Chase Callahan jerks with each impact, his body sliding further down the wet wall. By the time the echoes fade, he's completely still.
The gun slips from my nerveless fingers, clattering to the concrete. Water drips through the broken windows, mixing with the spreading pool around his body. The air smells like cordite and copper and the end of everything.
Nothing. I feel nothing. Empty. Scraped clean.
"Isabella." Rafe's voice seems to come from very far away. "Cut me loose. We need to get out of here."
I stumble toward him on unsteady legs, pulling a utility knife from my jacket pocket. My hands shake as I saw through the zip ties, and when they finally snap, Rafe slumps forward with a grunt of pain.
"You okay?" he asks, which is ridiculous considering he's the one injured.
"I killed him." The words feel strange in my mouth. Factual. Empty. "I killed my uncle."
"You killed your parents' murderer," Rafe corrects, struggling to his feet. "There's a difference."
But I don't feel the difference. I feel hollow. Like someone took everything I used to be and burned it to ash.
Footsteps thunder up the stairs. Matteo's voice echoes through the corridor, sharp with panic. "Isabella!"
I should call out. Should let him know we're safe. Instead, I stare at Chase's body and feel absolutely nothing.
Matteo appears in the doorway, taking in the scene with one quick glance. Red pooling on concrete, bodies, Rafe clutching his wounded shoulder. Me standing in the middle of it all like a statue carved from ice.
"Christ." He moves toward me slowly, hands raised like I'm something dangerous. "Bella, are you hurt?"
I shake my head, still staring at Chase. "Everyone I love ends up bleeding."
"Hey." Matteo's voice is soft, careful. "Look at me."
I drag my eyes away from the corpse to meet his amber gaze. He looks older somehow, like the last few hours have aged him years.
"You saved us," he says. "You ended it."
"Did I?" The question comes out flat, emotionless. "Or did I just become exactly what he always said I was?"
"What are you talking about?"
"He said I was born for this. Born to be dangerous. Born to destroy things." I look down at my hands, still stained with gunpowder residue. "And here I am."
"Isabella." Rafe's voice cuts through my spiral. "Chase Callahan spent fifteen years trying to break you into his perfect weapon. Don't let him win by believing his poison."
But the poison is already there, spreading through my veins like ice. The knowledge that I'm capable of this. That killing came naturally, easily. That some dark part of me enjoyed watching the life leave his eyes.
"I need..." I can't finish the sentence. Need air, need space, need to be somewhere that doesn't smell like death and the end of everything I thought I knew about myself.
I walk past Matteo without looking at him, past the spreading pool of Chase's remains, toward the door. Behind me, I hear Rafe explaining what happened, hear Matteo's sharp intake of breath when he learns the truth about my parents.
But their voices fade as I make my way down the stairs, through the maze of machinery and shadows, toward the loading dock where this all started.
The storm has turned to drizzle, soft and gray and peaceful. Police sirens wail in the distance, getting closer. Soon this place will be crawling with investigators, reporters, people who want to pick apart what happened here and turn it into headlines.
But right now, it's just me and the water and the weight of what I've done.
I sink onto a concrete barrier, letting the drizzle soak through my hair and clothes. The gun is gone, left upstairs beside Chase's body. My hands are empty now, clean of weapons but not of guilt.
"Isabella." Matteo's voice makes me look up. He's standing ten feet away, rain streaming down his face, looking at me like I'm something fragile that might shatter.
"Don't," I say quietly. "Don't try to fix this."
"I'm not trying to fix anything." He takes a careful step closer. "I'm trying to understand."
"There's nothing to understand." I stare out at the dark water of the East River, watching droplets create ripples on its surface. "I killed someone. Someone who raised me, who tucked me in at night, who taught me how to appreciate beautiful things."
"Someone who murdered your parents."
"Both things can be true." The words taste like ash. "I can be justified and damned at the same time."
Matteo moves closer, until he's standing directly in front of me. When I don't pull away, he reaches out and touches my face, his thumb tracing the path of water down my cheek.
"You're not damned," he says softly. "You're free."
I want to believe him. Want to think that killing Chase was some kind of liberation instead of just another link in a chain I'll never escape. But the hollow feeling in my chest tells a different story.
"I don't feel free." I lean into his touch despite myself, needing the warmth of human contact. "I feel empty."
"Then we'll figure out how to fill the emptiness." His other hand comes up to frame my face completely. "Together."
"What if there's nothing left to fill?" The question comes out broken, desperate. "What if this is all I am now?"
"Then I'll love the broken pieces until you remember how to be whole again."
The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing what little breath I have left. Love. That word he threw at me three days ago while thunder crashed around us. The word I've been too terrified to acknowledge, too convinced of my own toxicity to accept.
"I love you," he says again, fierce and certain. "Not the version of you that Chase created. Not the perfect museum piece or the grateful niece or any other mask you've worn. I love the woman who chose to walk into hell tonight because she couldn't live with anyone else bleeding for her sins."
Sirens scream closer now. Red and blue lights flash against the warehouse walls, turning the water into colored streaks. Soon we'll have to face questions, statements, the legal aftermath of tonight's violence.
But I can't let those words reach me. Can't let them take root in the poisoned soil of what I've become. Love is what Chase used to manipulate me for fifteen years. Love is the lie that kept me grateful while he built an empire on my parents' crimson.
"Don't," I whisper, pulling back from his touch. "Don't say that to me."
His hands fall away from my face, and I see the hurt flash across his features before he can hide it.
"I'm toxic," I continue, each word cutting my throat raw. "Everyone who gets close to me ends up bleeding. You've seen what I'm capable of now. What I really am underneath all the pretty manners and museum polish."
"Isabella—"
"No." I stand up from the concrete barrier, putting distance between us. "I killed him. I looked him in the eyes and pulled that trigger and felt nothing. Nothing, Matteo. What kind of person does that make me?"
The question hangs in the air between us like smoke, heavy and suffocating. In the distance, sirens wail through the storm, but they feel like they're coming from another world entirely.
A world where I used to be someone else.