Chapter 26 Isabella
Isabella
Iwake to silence so complete it feels like drowning.
Not the warehouse. Not the cold concrete floor where Chase's blood spread in dark pools. This is soft. Warm. The scent of expensive sheets and something clean and masculine that makes my chest tight with recognition.
My body feels wrong. Heavy. Like I'm moving through thick water with every small shift. There's a sharp ache in my left side, and when I try to sit up, pain shoots through my shoulder like lightning.
"Easy."
Matteo's voice, low and careful. I turn my head slowly, and he's there in the chair beside the bed, wearing a black t-shirt and dark jeans. His auburn hair is messy, like he's been running his hands through it. There are shadows under his eyes, and his usual coin is nowhere to be seen.
"Where are we?" My voice comes out scratchy, barely above a whisper.
"Home." He stands, moving toward the nightstand with deliberate care. "The mansion. You've been sleeping for eighteen hours."
Home. The word feels foreign. I've never had a home, not really. Just places where I was useful, where I was wanted for what I could provide. This room, with its pale gray walls and single abstract painting, feels like something else entirely.
"I tried to get up," I say, though I'm not sure why. The admission feels important somehow.
"I know." He picks up a glass of water from the nightstand, ice clinking softly. "You fell. I caught you."
The memory surfaces slowly. Waking in panic, the room spinning, trying to stand on legs that wouldn't hold me. Strong arms catching me before I hit the floor. The gentle way he helped me back to bed, checking my bandages with clinical efficiency.
"You're hurt," I realize, noticing the way he favors his left arm.
"I'm fine." But his jaw tightens, and I can see the careful way he moves. "You're the one who hit concrete hard enough to scrape half your skin off."
Right. The warehouse. The fight. Concrete scraping against my palms when I hit the ground, gravel biting into my knees, something sharp catching my shoulder as I rolled behind cover. At the time, adrenaline made it feel like nothing. Now every movement sends little sparks of pain through my body.
I catch my own scent then—dried sweat mixed with something metallic that might be blood, the warehouse still clinging to my skin like a second skin. My hair feels stiff with grime, and when I touch my cheek, I can feel grit embedded in my pores.
"I need to shower," I say, the awareness suddenly overwhelming. "God, I can smell the warehouse on me. I need to get clean."
"Can you manage it?" His voice carries concern, but not doubt. Like he knows I need to try.
"I think so." I push myself up slowly, gritting my teeth against the protests from my scraped ribs and bruised shoulder. The room tilts slightly, and I pause, breathing through the dizziness.
Matteo is there immediately, his hand gentle on my back. "Easy."
"Why are you still here?" The question comes out sharper than I intended, even as I lean into his touch despite myself.
Something flickers across his face. Not hurt, exactly. More like he was expecting this. "Where else would I be?" A ghost of his familiar smirk appears. "Though I have to say, your bedside manner could use work. Most people start with 'thank you for saving my life.'"
Despite everything, I almost smile. Almost. "Thank you for saving my life."
"Better." The smirk fades into something more serious. "And to answer your question—celebrating felt premature when the woman I love was dead to the world for eighteen hours."
"This is my life." He slides one arm around my waist to support me. "You're my life."
The contact sends heat spiraling through me despite everything, my body responding to his closeness with embarrassing predictability.
My pulse kicks up a notch where his arm encircles my waist, and I hate how even now, scraped raw and emotionally gutted, I want to lean into his warmth. "Let me help," he says softly.
The bathroom is elegant and spotless, all marble and clean lines. Matteo keeps one hand on my back as he turns on the shower, steam beginning to fog the glass. When he turns back to me, his eyes are careful, asking permission.
"Your clothes are torn," he says quietly. "And there's blood."
I look down at myself properly for the first time. The black shirt I wore to the warehouse is ripped along one side, dark stains marking where I hit the ground. My jeans are shredded at the knees. I look like I've been through a war.
Which, I suppose, I have.
"I killed him," I say quietly as my hands shake reaching for the hem of my shirt. "I killed my uncle."
"You ended a monster." His hands cover mine, gentle but firm. "That's what heroes do."
"I can manage," I say, but my fingers fumble with the hem of my shirt. The tremor isn't from pain—it's from the way he's looking at me. Like I'm something he wants to unwrap slowly.
"Isabella." His voice is soft, but there's an edge to it that makes my stomach flutter. "Let me."
The words hang between us, loaded with meaning that goes far beyond helping me undress. This is about surrender. About letting someone see me stripped down to nothing but bruises and need.
I should say no. Should maintain some distance, some control. Instead, I find myself nodding, my breath catching as his hands cover mine.
"Is it?" I have to raise my arms as he lifts the fabric carefully over the worst of the scrapes. "He was family. He raised me. And I put a bullet in his chest without hesitation."
"Because he was going to kill you. And Rafe. And eventually all of us." His jaw tightens as he takes in the damage mapped across my skin. Scrapes along my ribs where I rolled behind cover. Bruises darkening on my shoulder from hitting the warehouse floor. "You saved us."
The shirt comes off in pieces, fabric catching on dried blood and grit. "I destroyed everything I used to be," I confess as he traces the air just above the worst scrape, not quite touching. "I don't know who I am anymore."
"You're Isabella Callahan." His hands move to the button of my jeans, and I have to close my eyes against the rush of want that sweeps through me. "The woman who chose to stand up instead of kneel. Who chose to act instead of endure."
"I don't feel like her." I'm standing in his bathroom in nothing but my underwear as he helps me step out of the ruined denim, scraped and bruised and completely exposed. "I feel like something else. Something dangerous."
"You are dangerous." His voice is soft, but there's something underneath it. Pride? Admiration? "You always were. Chase just tried to convince you otherwise."
He reaches for the clasp of my bra, unhooking the black lace with practiced ease. The fabric falls away, and heat floods my cheeks. Not from embarrassment, but from the way he's looking at me.
"You're not afraid of me," I realize.
"Afraid of you?" He helps me into the shower, hot water immediately soothing my aching muscles. "Bella, I've been fascinated by you since the moment I saw your photograph. Every layer you've shown me, every wall you've torn down, every time you've surprised me."
"You're beautiful," he says quietly as he reaches for the soap.
"I'm a mess."
"You're perfect," he repeats, working soap into a lather. Steam rises around us, creating a cocoon of warmth and intimacy.
"I've got you," he says, his hands gentle as they work around the worst of my scrapes. The words break something open in my chest. How long has it been since someone said that and meant it?
Pink bubbles swirl down the drain, taking the physical evidence of the night with them. But the emotional scars remain. "I enjoyed it," I say quietly, the words barely audible over the water. "Some part of me enjoyed watching him die."
"Good." His voice is fierce. "He deserved every second of pain you gave him."
"That makes me like him."
"No." His hands frame my face, forcing me to meet his eyes through the steam. "It makes you human. It makes you someone who refuses to be a victim."
"I don't understand you," I whisper as his thumbs stroke across my cheekbones.
"You don't have to." Water runs down his chest where his shirt has gotten soaked. "You just have to trust me."
Trust. The word lands like a stone in still water, sending ripples through everything I thought I knew about myself. "I want to. But I don't know how."
"What if I am toxic?" The confession tears out of me. "What if everyone I care about ends up hurt?"
"Then we'll deal with it." He reaches for the hem of his soaked shirt, pulling it over his head in one smooth motion. "Together."
The sight of him, water-darkened and half-naked, sends heat pooling low in my belly. The word 'together' settles into my bones like a promise. When was the last time I wasn't alone in my fears?
"I don't know how to be someone's..." I trail off, unable to finish the thought as his hands settle on my waist.
"Someone's what?"
"Someone's anything." The admission feels like ripping open a wound. "I don't know how to belong to someone."
"You belong to yourself first." His voice is steady, certain. "Everything else is just details."
"And if I belong to myself, and I'm dangerous?"
"Then you're dangerous." He steps closer, and I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. "I can handle dangerous."
The casual acceptance undoes something inside me. Some knot of tension I've been carrying since childhood finally loosens.
"I shouldn't want anything right now," I whisper as his thumbs trace patterns on wet skin. "I should be grieving or processing or figuring out who I am now."
"Maybe wanting is part of processing." His honesty is disarming. "Maybe it's okay to want to feel alive after coming so close to death."
"I might disappear anyway." The confession slips out before I can stop it. "I might decide I'm too dangerous and run."
"Then I'll find you." His voice is simple, matter-of-fact. "I'll always find you."
The promise should terrify me. Should trigger every self-preservation instinct I've carefully cultivated. Instead, it makes me feel safe.
"Kiss me," I whisper.
He doesn't need to be asked twice. His mouth finds mine, gentle at first, then deeper as I respond.
The kiss tastes like steam and promises and the possibility of healing.
I lose myself in it, in the warmth of his hands on my skin, in the way he holds me like I'm something precious instead of something broken.
When we finally break apart, I'm breathing hard. Not from exertion, but from want.
"Better?" he asks.
"Getting there." I lean into him, letting his strength support me. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For staying. For not being afraid of me. For helping me remember that I'm still human."
"You were never anything else." His arms tighten around me. "Even at your most dangerous, you were never anything but human."
The feeling swells in my chest, terrifying and wonderful and too big for words. Something that might be love, if I were brave enough to name it. But I'm not. Not yet.
After we're both clean, he helps me into one of Carmela's soft robes, the cashmere gentle against my tender skin. Back in the bedroom, I settle against the pillows, feeling more human than I have since the warehouse.
"That's okay," he says when I mention not knowing how to do this. "We have time."
Time. When was the last time I had time? When was the last time I could just exist without calculating angles, without performing for an audience, without wondering what was expected of me?
"Everyone leaves," I whisper as he settles beside me, careful not to jostle my injuries. "Everyone dies or disappears or finds something better."
"Not me." His voice is fierce, certain. "I'm not everyone."
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly it hurts. But trusting feels like stepping off a cliff, and I've spent my entire life learning to keep my feet on solid ground.
"Promise?" The word comes out smaller than I intended.
"Promise." He brushes a strand of damp hair away from my face. "I'm not going anywhere."
I study his face in the afternoon light streaming through the tall windows. The late sun turns his auburn hair to copper, highlights the strong line of his jaw. When did I start memorizing these details? When did this face become something I wanted to wake up to?
"What happens now?" I ask.
"Now?" He leans back against the headboard, pulling me carefully against his side. "Now we figure it out. Together."
That word again. Together. It settles into my bones like something that was always meant to be there.
Outside, I can hear the distant sounds of the city. Life continuing, the world spinning on, people going about their daily routines with no idea that everything has changed. That the woman I used to be died in that warehouse, and someone new is learning to breathe in her place.
"I'm scared," I admit.
"Of what?"
"Of this. Of you. Of what I might become if I let myself want something." I press my face against his chest, breathing in his scent. "But I'm more scared of going back to who I was before."
"Then don't." His arms tighten around me. "Be who you are now. Be who you choose to be."
The simple permission breaks something loose inside me. Some final wall I didn't even know I was still holding up.
For the first time since I was eight years old, I'm not afraid of what tomorrow might bring. Because whatever it is, I won't face it alone.