17. Isabella
Chapter seventeen
Isabella
M y feet resonate against the wooden floor as I enter Antonio's imposing office, wishing Cerberus was by my side, at least then I'd have something to do with my hands. I can't decide whether to clasp them behind my back or just let them hang, and I'm overthinking every movement like it's my first time on stage.
Look natural, Bella. As if your former stepbrother's tongue wasn't driving you wild just last night. Totally cool. Just fine.
My gaze meets his and there's a dangerous cocktail of hunger, hurt, and heat swimming in those midnight eyes. For a heartbeat, my pulse does that stupid flutter-skip thing that would have nurses running. I keep my chin lifted like I learned to do during treatments, a dancer's posture, a survivor's defiance, but I know he can see my racing pulse. He probably even hears it. Franco definitely does.
I imagine myself standing in the wings before stepping onto stage: the lights, the anticipation, the smell of old wood and rosin. Nervous butterflies would invade my chest then too, my mouth always desert-dry no matter how much water I drank. Just like now, only there's no music about to rescue me, no choreography to lose myself in.
Well, I managed to be the best damn Sleeping Beauty the academy ever had even with my nerves going ballistic. Surely I can pretend my body isn't aching for him and my heart isn't shredded from all the wounds he's inflicted.
Maybe I can blame my flushed face on being outside, even if the Mediterranean air was chilly today. It's not fair that this man has a pure magnetism that draws me in despite everything. I want out of his gravitational pull and yet, my very core clenches remembering him between my thighs, looking up with that same wild need in his eyes.
That image needs to be surgically removed from my memory. Pronto .
"You wanted to see me?" Thank god my voice doesn't betray the hurricane raging inside me.
Antonio steps toward me without a word as Franco closes the door behind him, leaving us alone. My husband (the word still feels foreign, dangerous) hands me a bottle of water.
I raise an eyebrow and he grunts, "Doctor's orders, remember?"
"Sure." My hand trembles slightly as I take it, being painfully careful not to brush his fingers. Even this non-contact feels like playing with fire.
Needing to do something, anything, other than stare at him in silence, I take a sip of the cold water. And another. And another. I did forget to hydrate while I was in the yard with Elena, and the fact that he remembers shouldn't fill the crater he carved in my chest with even an inch of warmth. He only wants me functional for that stupid dinner coming up. Just another chess piece positioned correctly.
Dean enters the room before I can say another word or blurt out something stupid about Antonio's Phoenix tattoo on his arm. His very muscular arm. That shirt is criminal, really. And why do I suddenly want to scream or break something before whirling around and slamming the door behind me? My brain feels simultaneously on overdrive and wading through fog. Maybe it's Antonio's cologne lingering in the air, reminding me what it was like to feel his powerful body against mine, his lips brushing my neck, my breasts, my thighs, my—
Shoot. What are they saying?
I shake my head and realize I'm the only one standing. Wonderful. Way to stay present, Bella.
Antonio gives me a knowing look like he was watching that very private movie reel playing in my mind.
Well, Beast, do you also remember how that night ended? With me sobbing until I couldn't breathe and you escaping my room without a single word.
I smooth my hands over my sweatpants again, straining to hear the soothing rhythm of the ocean beyond these fortress walls, and settle into the leather chair next to Dean. It's comfortable enough that in another life, I could pretend this is normal. Like, pretend I wasn't sold at an auction to my former stepbrother who only wanted revenge but somehow still makes my body betray me with want.
Yep. That's the game we're playing.
Antonio doesn't clear his throat. He doesn't need to. He simply leans forward, and that's enough to command the attention of the room. The Beast in action.
"I asked you both here because I'd like Dean to recount what happened before my mother's death."
He's keeping his word to me about looping me into the investigation, and that relaxes my shoulders a fraction.
Dean frowns. "I already told you everything I know."
Antonio glares at him in a way that makes Dean seem to physically shrink in his chair. I shift on the leather seat, the material crinkling beneath me like hospital bed sheets.
"Maybe go back further," Antonio says. "You mentioned my father and my mother had been having arguments."
"Everyone knew that," I interject, finding my voice. "You knew that too." I meet his gaze directly, refusing to be the timid ballerina he expects.
Antonio tilts his head, his fingers tracing patterns on the desk that have me mesmerized. Why do his strong, calloused hands make me clench my thighs together? He gives me one of those looks that makes me wonder if he's as attuned to my body as I am to his.
"You're right," he growls after a few seconds charged with electricity. "But there's information Dean shared that I didn't know. Apparently, my mother used to visit Naomi's father. Alone."
"Alone?" I frown, trying to make sense of this new piece. "Naomi's father?"
"Yes."
I search my memories for any rumors, any whispers about them. Nothing surfaces.
"Do you think he's the one who betrayed her?" I narrow my eyes, but even if something was happening between them, he had everything to lose by coming clean. He was the one person who seemed to truly care about Naomi, about protecting her. That kind of love doesn't coexist easily with betrayal.
Antonio gives me a knowing nod. "It doesn't make sense, does it?"
"No. No, it doesn't." For once, we're aligned in our thinking, and the realization is more unsettling than comforting.
Dean waits for Antonio to signal him to continue, like a soldier awaiting orders from his general.
Once he does, Dean sits straighter. "I drove Simona to that house more times than I can count." He pauses. "But she wasn't hiding it."
"She wouldn't have asked you to drive her anywhere she wanted kept secret," I murmur, and Dean glances at me, surprised I've made the connection.
"She could trust me." He sounds almost indignant, and I wonder if he realizes what kind of web we've all been caught in.
"Okay. But... could my father trust you?" I lean forward. "I can picture him putting tracking devices on the cars, bugging phones, reading mail." The truth about our reality still feels like acid burning through the fairy tale I once believed. "The father I knew turned out to be a villain, not a hero. He put me up for auction, for crying out loud. Not exactly Father of the Year." I take a sharp breath, forcing down the rage that threatens to overflow. "Who does my father really trust? If he thought your mother was leaving... if he had been reading the letters we exchanged, he knew I was starting to ask questions..."
"You?" Antonio raises an eyebrow, disbelief etched in every line of his face.
"Why do you think I feel so guilty about what happened?" I snap, the words scraping my throat raw. "You may recall me mentioning I didn't know who my father really was."
"You didn't want to see," Antonio doesn't mutter. There's a river of blame running under his words, threatening to drown me.
"Sure. Whatever. Potato. Potahto." I cross my arms, armor against the accusations I've been hurling at myself for years.
Dean glances from me to Antonio like he's watching a tennis match, but one where the players might pull out knives at any second. Not many people go toe-to-toe with the Beast of Naples, but then again, most people don't share our particular brand of toxic history. I refuse to shrink under Antonio's glare. I've spent enough time cowering in that forgotten wing.
"The point is," I say, my voice steadier than my pulse, "I was asking your mother questions about my own mom. I wrote to her like she was the only friend I could confide in." I lift a shoulder in that casual shrug I perfected during treatments, the one that says 'this doesn't hurt as much as it does.' "Back then, I didn't think Naomi knew anything about the underbelly of our world."
I pause, gathering fragments of memories that feel like holding broken glass. "Your mom never wrote 'your father is a mafia boss' in a letter, but she guided me, asking questions about my childhood, my memories." I wince, feeling the familiar tightness in my throat. "She asked about my mother. If I remembered her favorite song, her favorite book..." My voice threatens to crack. "Her favorite flower."
Suddenly I'm eight years old again, watching Mom arrange peonies and roses in our sun-drenched living room. The scent of lavender and her vanilla perfume mingles in the air as Chopin plays softly in the background. "Mom, mom. Dance with me," I'd called, and after watching me for a moment, she joined, both of us twirling faster and faster until we collapsed onto the polished hardwood floor, laughing until we snorted. I can still feel her hand in mine: soft, secure, loving.
It's been forever since I've let myself remember that. It used to feel like ripping open a wound that would never heal, but now? Now the memory makes me want to cry and smile simultaneously. Like I told Elena, my mother lives on in me. She lives in how I care for others, even in the flowers she planted outside our Chicago home.
Dean tilts his head now, like he's tuning into a frequency only he can hear. "Simona had me looking into florists about three months before she died. She used to order peonies."
"Those were my mom's favorites," I murmur, something cold sliding down my spine. "Where did she put them? I never saw any in the house."
"I'm not sure. Your father's office, maybe. And in the bedrooms." Dean shifts his weight, discomfort etched into the lines around his eyes. "And a month before that, there had been a big argument." He gives me a careful look. "The auction and tournament wasn't a new idea."
His words float in the air between us, and I don't want to catch them. Don't want to understand. I remember how my father presented the auction, as my duty, my way to be useful after disappointing him with my illness. I remember how he made me feel guilty for my treatments, for not being the ballerina princess he once showcased, for what he saw as my failure to be the perfect Moretti daughter.
"What do you mean?" Antonio's voice isn't calm anymore. It's thunder before lightning strikes.
"He told Simona he was planning to organize it as soon as Isabella turned eighteen," Dean says slowly. "And he wanted Henrik to win."
A dull numbness washes over me like the moment before they inject the contrast dye for PET scans, that moment when you know something unpleasant is about to happen but you can't stop it. This can't be true. It just can't.
"He said..." Dean hesitates, and I strain to hear, the world narrowing to just his voice. "He said a virgin like her could rack in millions and influence."
"He said what?" The words scrape out of my throat like they're made of broken glass. Antonio roars something, slamming his fist onto the table, and Dean murmurs something apologetic, but it's all muffled by the static in my head and the hollow pit forming in my stomach. My lungs forget how to function and my heart plummets along with any fragile hope I'd been clinging to, that somewhere, deep down, my father had loved me. Even a little.
I blink rapidly, determined not to cry, but my throat constricts like there's invisible hands squeezing it. The truth hits me with the force of a truck: not only does Antonio hate me, but my father never loved me. Never cared for me. I was never his princess ballerina, just another asset to be traded when the time was right.
As the realization sinks in, emptiness spreads through my chest like cancer once did. Everything's always been a lie.
Has there been any truth in my life at all?