Chapter 1 #2
Franco shifts behind me, and I don't need to look to know his hand has moved closer to his weapon. Antonio's protection, reaching across the Mediterranean.
"For your safety," Alexandros continues, "you'll have an escort. Everywhere."
"Of course I will."
The familiarity of it all tightens something in my chest. Different men, different country, same gilded cage.
But I'm not the girl who got auctioned off at her father's command anymore.
I'm not the woman who spent three months staring at salt-crusted windows, waiting for someone else to decide her fate.
My fingers dig into the armrest, and my left hand cramps—still not quite right from the cancer treatments, from months of gripping prison bars.
Antonio would notice. Once upon a time, he would have filed that weakness away.
Now I picture him in his study, watching a dot move across his screen, that muscle in his jaw ticking with every mile between us.
My phone buzzes.
You're there.
Two words. That's all. But they might as well be a lifeline thrown across the sea.
Of course he's tracking the flight. Of course he hasn't slept. I catch myself smiling—a real smile, not the mask I've been wearing—and I'm about to type a reply when fingers curl around my shoulder.
My body reacts before my mind catches up.
Every muscle locks. Lungs forget how to work. Because the last man who touched me like that was Antonio, and before that—
Before that was my father, the night he told me I was worth more as currency than as a daughter.
Alexandros's palm burns through my shirt. Five points of contact. Five too many.
"We're here," he says, breath too close to my ear. His cologne is expensive, sophisticated—nothing like Antonio's cedar and smoke. The sensation crawling up my spine isn't desire. It's a thousand spiders looking for escape routes.
There's a desperation beneath his polish now that I didn't sense before.
And desperate men make desperate choices.
I should know.
Behind me, Franco's chair creaks. I can feel his attention lock onto Alexandros's hand like he's memorizing exactly where each finger sits. For later. Definitely for later.
I shrug off the touch and stand, reaching for my bag. My hands want to shake, so I ball them into fists. A bead of sweat traces down my spine.
"Where is she?" The words feel strange in my mouth. My mom. Like I'm reading lines from someone else's script. "Where's my mother waiting?"
"The House of Aphrodite."
I almost choke. "The goddess of love. Really."
"The House of Leto was already booked." There's the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Goddess of motherhood."
"Did you just make a joke?"
Nikos shakes his head. "He thinks he's charming” He sounds amused. “Let's go."
"The doctor's already there," Stefanos adds, flat. "Preparing for your arrival."
The doctor. Right. Because my mother needs my blood to survive. The weight of that settles on my shoulders.
"You're sure this is even safe?" I ask. "Cancer survivors can't donate blood. Basic medical fact. You want to explain how I'm suddenly some kind of miracle cure?"
"The doctor will explain everything."
"The House of Aphrodite sounds like a strip club," Manuel drawls from behind us, like he’s waiting to see who flinches.
Nobody does.
"Though I imagine the real Aphrodite would be insulted," he continues. "Goddess of love reduced to... whatever this is."
I catch the way his hand rests on his hip—positioned exactly where a holster would sit. Same muscle memory Antonio has. Violence written into the body until it becomes instinct.
"I wish it were a strip club," Nikos mutters. "Been a while."
His brothers don't react, but I feel the air thicken. Stefanos's eyes slide toward me, and for a moment I brace myself, but what comes out isn't some crude comment about my body or my dancing.
"Your mother used to perform, you know. Before she graduated to puppet master." His voice drops. "Before she started pulling strings that got people killed."
There it is. The real target of his rage. Not me—her. I'm just the closest thing he can wound.
Fatigue uncurls in my chest.
"Everyone in our world has dead people they're angry about," I say quietly. "Everyone has someone to blame." I meet his gaze. "I'm not who you really want to hurt, Stefanos. And cutting at me won't bring back anyone."
The cabin goes very still.
Stefanos stares at me, and is that honesty in his eyes?
"No," he says finally. "It won't. Will it? Bring him back. Nothing fucking will."
Alexandros clears his throat. "The car is waiting."
The tarmac shimmers with Mediterranean heat as we descend the stairs. The air tastes different here—salt and wild herbs and something underneath I can't name. Freedom or trap, I can't tell yet.
This is it. No going back.
Franco strides ahead, "Standard protocol. Let's do another sweep," he grunts, but Alexandro's men form a wall.
"Our territory, our security." And they make a show at looking at the car again.
"Those fools didn't really do a thorough job."
Franco falls into step beside me. His nod is small but steady. Manuel flanks my other side. Antonio's protection, even now..
Now, as we approach, he angles his body to check what he couldn't before. "Humor me," he tells one of Alexandro's men. The youngest. "You want to make sure you get back to your bed tonight."
Alexandros shakes his head, but orders something in Greek that makes the young guard move to the side. Franco drops to one knee beside the car, as the young guard chuckles about old men and their superstition.
"We used the latest technology," he said in an English that barely has an accent.
Franco doesn't answer. His fingers ghost along the undercarriage. I watch his face go gray.
"Merda."
His hand emerges with something small and black. It looks like part of the car. But then he opens it, and there it is a red blinking light.
"Move back," Franco roars.
Time fractures.
I don't know what I'm looking at. Some part of my brain screams that blinking lights on devices under cars are bad, very bad, but the rest of me has gone somewhere far away.
Someone wants me dead.
Not married. Not controlled. Not used. Dead.
Blink—I'm eight years old, ballet slippers scuffing hot pavement, watching them load an empty coffin.
Blink—I'm seventeen, hiding in a doorway while Antonio screams and my father's men hold a brand to his back.
Blink—I'm in a hospital bed, clutching the rails while adenosine stops my heart so it can restart.
Blink—I'm in Antonio's arms, finally understanding what we are. What we could be.
"Isabella, MOVE!"
But I'm frozen, staring at that tiny red light.
Why now? Why here, before I can give my mother what she needs. Before I can learn what secrets she's been keeping. Before I can find out what this "revolutionary treatment center" really is and why the Greeks bet everything on it.
Someone doesn't want me to save her. Someone doesn't want her secrets spilling out with her last breaths.
I think of Stefanos's grief, his rage. Your mother promised things she couldn't deliver.
I think of the desperation I glimpsed in Alexandros's eyes.
I think of my father, who taught me that family is just another word for leverage.
Someone on this island wants me dead before I can find out the truth.
Welcome to Greece.