Chapter 4
Chapter four
ISABELLA
"Why the fuck does she have a gun?"
Franco's words barely register. I'm asking myself the same question, my eyes locked on the weapon trembling in my mother's hands.
She lifts it toward us.
For one horrible second, I can't tell if she's protecting herself or attacking us. The barrel swings in an unsteady arc—toward us, toward the sea, back to us. I stare straight down it for half a heartbeat. Dark. Empty. Ready.
My ballet training kicks in without permission: count the beats. One-two-three-swing. Four-five-six-point. She's got a rhythm to her trembling. Even dying, she's keeping time.
Like mother, like daughter.
My body goes cold then hot then cold again—the same terrible cycle I remember from those first weeks of chemo when my body didn't know how to process what was happening to it.
This is my mother. The woman who used to kiss my scraped knees, who taught me to plié before I could properly walk, who made hot chocolate from scratch while snow fell outside our window.
Now she's holding a gun like it's an extension of her hand.
The world tilts. My sea legs—what little I have after that nightmare boat ride—betray me.
I stumble, the rough wood of the dock scraping my palm as I catch myself on the balustrade.
The salt wind cuts through my jacket, but I barely feel it.
All I feel is the weight of that gun barrel pointed somewhere between my chest and the horizon.
Franco shoves me back toward Manuel. Mr. Silent-and-Stoic angles his body to take a bullet if it comes to that.
"I repeat," Franco growls, "why does she fucking have a gun?"
"Because a car just exploded?" Stefanos sounds as exhausted as I feel, his golden hair whipping in the wind. He shakes his head like this is all just a minor inconvenience in a day full of them. "And she doesn't trust you?"
"She doesn't trust anyone," Nikos says quietly. His emerald eyes are fixed on my mother with something that looks almost like pity—or maybe fear. "Not since she started dying. The closer death gets, the tighter she holds that thing."
"Like it'll stop the inevitable," Stefanos mutters. Then louder, to her: "Your daughter's here. The one you've been begging to see for thirteen years. Maybe put the gun down before you accidentally shoot your miracle cure?"
I press two fingers to my wrist, counting beats like I learned during treatments. Too fast. But not SVT. Not yet.
This is so not how I pictured our reunion.
In my fantasies—the ones I'd never admit to having, not even to Naomi—she'd be standing.
Strong. She'd run to me with open arms, crying, apologizing, explaining everything in a way that made sense.
She'd smell like jasmine and vanilla, and when she hugged me, thirteen years would dissolve like they never happened.
Instead, she's in a wheelchair with a gun, and I'm calculating whether I can dodge a bullet.
Alexandros steps forward, and I notice how his whole body changes—shoulders dropping, hands open, voice going soft. Like he's done this before. Like calming her down is something he's practiced a thousand times.
"Let me talk to her," he says. "I know we're all on edge, but trust me—she's not going to jeopardize.
.." He glances at me, and his ice-blue gaze makes my skin crawl.
That same look from the dinner at Antonio's fortress—lingering, appreciative, like I'm something he's been promised. "...this reunion."
"Reunion, shmunion," I mutter.
Manuel actually chuckles. Who knew he had it in him?
Alexandros approaches her slowly, hands raised, speaking in low Greek. The words wash over me—I don't understand them, but I understand the tone. Soothing. Intimate. The way you speak to someone you've spent years learning to handle.
Whatever promises he's making, she nods. Eight million euros of debt makes even dying women agreeable, I suppose. But there's something else there too. The way she tilts her head toward him. The way her eyes track his face like she's reading familiar scripture.
When she hands him the gun, her fingers linger on his wrist. Not just touching—holding. The gesture is too tender. Too practiced.
And then I see it. The way his thumb traces a circle on the inside of her wrist before he pulls away. The way her lips curve, just slightly, before the mask slides back into place.
How long have they been playing this game together? And what exactly has she promised him?
I think of the dinner at Antonio's fortress.
The way Alexandros looked at me—his eyes sliding over my body, his fingers trailing down his wine glass in a way that made Antonio nearly launch across the table.
At the time, I thought it was just typical mafia posturing. Men treating women like territory.
But now, watching the intimacy between him and my mother, I'm starting to wonder if it was something else entirely.
She's been making promises, big ones, Stefanos had said. Every relationship is calculated.
What if I'm one of those promises?
The thought should make me angrier. Instead, it just makes me tired. Because of course. Of course my own mother would use me as currency. Why would she be any different from everyone else?
I file that away for later. Right now, the gun is gone. I should move.
Nikos catches my eye. For a second, something passes between us—not warmth, exactly, but acknowledgment.
He's the one who dropped the bomb about my mother being alive back at Antonio's fortress.
The one who watches everything and says little.
Now he gives me the smallest nod, like he's saying: Go on. This is what you came for.
My legs feel like I've danced five thousand performances of Giselle back to back, but I force myself forward.
One step. Another. The dock creaks under my weight.
The smell of salt and pine mixes with something medicinal—antiseptic and something bitter underneath, like the chemo ward. Is that coming from her?
"Mom." The word scrapes out of my throat like broken glass.
Her hazel eyes—so like mine that it hurts—lock onto my face. I search for warmth. Recognition. Love. Anything.
Her hair is streaked with gray now, but pulled back in a perfect bun.
Her nails are manicured, dark red against paper-white skin.
She's wearing a heavy coat that looks more suited for a gala than a medical facility—silk lining visible at the collar, buttons that probably cost more than my first pair of pointe shoes.
It's like she's trying to maintain the image of the woman I remember, but the illusion is cracking at the edges.
The coat hangs too loose. Her cheekbones cut too sharp.
"Bella."
She smiles, and this time it almost reaches her eyes. Her fingers rise to touch something at her throat—a necklace. Old, tarnished, the chain too short for fashion. Completely wrong against that expensive coat.
I made that necklace. Third grade. Macaroni and string and too much glitter glue. I'd been so proud of it. She'd cried when I gave it to her.
She kept it. All these years of playing dead, she kept it.
For a second, I'm transported back. Hot chocolate in the kitchen, snow falling outside our window.
She'd make it from scratch—real chocolate, not powder—while I sat on the counter swinging my legs.
Dancing is in your blood, Kardia mou, she'd say, guiding my arms into first position.
But first, you must be strong here. She'd tap my chest, right over my heart.
My feet move before my brain can stop them. Eight-year-old Isabella taking over—the one who never got to say goodbye. The one who stood in ballet slippers on hot pavement, apple juice going sour in her hand, watching a hearse carry away a coffin full of lies.
"You're really here," she whispers, and her voice cracks. It sounds like the mother I remember. The one who sang lullabies and braided my hair and promised that everything would be okay.
"Mom?" My voice breaks on the word. Just for a second, I let myself hope. Maybe she'll explain. Maybe there's a reason that makes sense. Maybe she had nothing to do with Antonio's mother's death. Maybe somewhere under all these lies is a truth I can live with.
She reaches out, and her cold fingers brush my cheek. "My brave girl," she murmurs. "Look at you. All grown up. A married woman now."
The touch feels foreign. Wrong. Like she's reading from a script she memorized but doesn't quite believe.
"I've thought about you every day," she continues, her thumb tracing my cheekbone. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. For the... the treatments. The hospital."
The word hospital hits different coming from her. Like she's been tracking my medical records from afar. Which, I realize with a chill, she probably has.
"I survived," I say carefully.
"Yes. You did." Her eyes scan my face now, and something shifts in them. The warmth starts to calcify into something else. "Though I understand there were... complications."
Complications. Such a clinical word for early menopause at twenty-one. For the doctor explaining that chemotherapy may have taken more than just the cancer. For crying in a hospital bathroom while Naomi held me and told me it would be okay, that the doctor said everything might come back.
"Some," I say, my voice flattening.
She squeezes my hand—the gesture meant to be comforting but landing somewhere colder. "Children are such a blessing," she says softly. "I always imagined you'd have a little girl someday. Teach her to dance, the way I taught you."
The words slice through me, precise as a surgeon's blade. She knows. She knows exactly what the chemo took from me, and she's—what? Testing me? Reminding me?
"I heard that might not be possible now." Her voice drips with something that wants to be sympathy but tastes like inventory. Like she's cataloging what's broken. "Such a shame. But perhaps modern medicine..." She trails off, shrugging one thin shoulder.
I go still. Very, very still.