33. Isabella
Chapter thirty-three
Isabella
M y entire body is coiled tight, every muscle tensed like before a grand jeté with my understudy waiting in the wings. I can feel my pulse hammering beneath my skin, that dangerous rhythm my cardiologist warned me about. The air in this room is suddenly too thin, too heavy with secrets that have festered for years.
Because Antonio is right. Alexandros is hiding something, and based on the way his jaw clenches—that tiny muscle jumping beneath his skin—he hates being called out on it.
"Did she know?" My voice doesn't waver, though inside I'm shattering like pointe shoes after final bow. The question burns my throat, scrapes past lips that suddenly feel too dry. "Did my mother know I spent nights crying for her? That I watched my father destroy himself searching for answers? That I danced until my feet bled because it was the only piece of her I had left?"
Memories of hospital rooms flood me: antiseptic smell burning my nostrils, the steady beep of monitors counting heartbeats I wasn't sure I wanted to keep. Endless hours of staring at ceiling tiles, thinking how different everything would be if she'd been there to hold my hand through chemo.
Turns out, she was alive the whole time.
Alexandros takes another infuriatingly slow sip of his drink, like we're discussing the weather instead of the shards of my broken past. The crystal catches light as he tips it back, reminding me of those IV bags that kept me breathing when cancer tried to steal my air.
"Fucking answer her. You know what she's asking." Antonio's voice is pure gravel and steel, and I shouldn't feel that flicker of gratitude warming my chest. It's ridiculous how my body still responds to him—like muscle memory from our wedding night that my heart has tried desperately to forget.
Naomi, who had been sitting back after dropping that bombshell about our parents' affair, leans forward. Her voice carries that familiar blend of snark and fierce protection that got me through those endless treatment days. "Everyone wants to know. You're hiding shit left and right, and you're hoping we're too shell-shocked to smell it. Well, you're throwing it in our faces, so of course we're smelling the shit."
Connor's lips twitch, and suddenly, a burst of laughter erupts from him, his hand finding Naomi's in a show of solidarity. "My wife is right. Your brand of bullshit is especially nauseating."
Alexandros sighs—a sound I've heard too many times from doctors before bad news. "The family had to keep your mother... restrained for a while. We had to make sure she didn't put herself in danger. She had to help us. She acted in the shadows." He pauses, and something like regret flickers across his face. "But she came to see you at the hospital. Going against everything we told her. She came to see you."
"I thought it was a dream," I whisper, the memory washing over me like fever chills. The gentle pressure of a hand on my brow as I fought through the worst of the transplant side effects. The soft whisper of a lullaby in my ear when pain threatened to break me. The faint scent of jasmine and vanilla that always clung to her skin. "My nurses said it was the meds playing tricks... but it was really her."
"After that, let's just say, she lost some privileges." The clinical detachment in his voice makes my blood run cold.
"Is she a prisoner?" My fingers twist the fabric of my shirt, a habit from hospital days when IVs made it impossible to clench my fists.
"No." But his voice isn't as sure, and that tiny sliver of doubt is enough to send my heart racing in that dangerous flutter-skip pattern.
"She's not fine. She's sick," Stefanos cuts in, his voice like a scalpel slicing through tissue. There's an edge to his words, a bitterness that reminds me of those days when nurses whispered behind curtains, thinking I couldn't hear their pity. "She's dying. That's why she wants to see you. She didn't want us to tell you. But she doesn't make the fucking rules."
The news hits like that day my oncologist walked in with scan results, face already giving away what the words would confirm. Like the floor is suddenly gone and I'm in free fall, waiting for an impact that will shatter every bone.
Stefanos isn't done, though. His eyes flash with a fury that burns hotter than chemo ever did. "Also that little stunt she pulled at the hospital? Someone died because of her. Someone who mattered. And you guys only give a fuck about yourselves. You talk about nauseating? You reek."
As much as I want to argue, I recognize that tone—it's grief twisted into rage. I've heard it in my father's voice, in Antonio's, in my own when I screamed into pillows after treatments. There's a kernel of truth in his words that sticks like bile in my throat. I've been so focused on my own need for answers that I've forgotten about the bigger picture.
It's a bitter pill to swallow—worse than the handful I'd choke down each morning during treatment—but one I know I need to face if I'm ever going to find peace.
Stefanos stands up so quickly his chair vacillates before crashing to the floor, the sound echoing like those machines that flat-lined in rooms down the hall from mine. The sudden movement startles me, but somehow steadies my resolve.
"I need to see her," I whisper, the words forming before I can reconsider. "I have to see her." My hands shake worse than those first days of neuropathy, when my body betrayed me in new ways I hadn't imagined possible.
Because I know what I'm asking for. I know the risks, the danger I'm putting myself in—and if I'm finally being honest with myself, other people too. But I've survived my father, survived cancer, survived three months in stone isolation—I'll survive this.
Antonio's entire body tightens next to me, muscles coiled like mine before performances. I can feel the tension radiating off him in waves, the unspoken fear and anger and desperation that mirrors my own. But when he speaks, his voice is steady, resolute. "Fine," he says, and that one word claws its way inside my chest.
I shouldn't need his permission. After everything he's done, after locking me away like his personal little secret, I should be able to see my dying mother without him having a say.
And yet, hearing him agree sends relief flooding through me like those first clear scans after treatment ended. Because deep down, in a place I don't like to acknowledge, I know he wouldn't let me go if it wasn't safe.
I hate that I still need him, that I still find comfort in his presence despite everything he's done. But right now, I'm too raw, too fragile, like those days when my body was a battlefield and every breath felt like victory. I'll take whatever strength I can get, even if it comes from the Beast who once promised to destroy me.
Who knows if their story is even true?
"How do we make sure we can trust you?" Antonio asks, the question I was too afraid to voice hanging between us.
"We brought something for you," Alexandros replies, like he was expecting this. "Ask your man to bring the folder here."
I straighten my spine like before taking the stage, that familiar resolve settling in my bones. I've faced cancer. I've faced the Beast. I've faced my father's betrayal.
I'm not going to let my mother slip away from me now. Not without a fight.