Chapter 7
Chapter seven
ISABELLA
The room steals my breath.
And not in a good way.
It steals my breath…Because it's mine.
Or rather, it's the ghost of mine. The girl I was before.
A ballet barre runs along one wall, positioned at exactly my height—not standard, but the specific measurement I requested when I was fifteen and obsessive about home practice. The mirror behind it is angled the way I like, tilted slightly forward so I can see my feet without craning.
The bookshelf holds my favorites from before the diagnosis.
The Viscount Who Loved Me. All the Brigerton series.
That worn copy of Moon Touched by Elizabeth Briggs I read three times the summer I was sixteen.
They're not just the same titles—they're the same editions.
I can see the cracked spine on Romancing Mr. Bridgerton from here.
I open a drawer. Lavender sachets. The same brand my mother used to tuck into my clothes when I was a child. The smell hits me like a fist to the chest, dragging up memories I've spent years trying to bury.
This isn't a guest room. It's a reconstruction. A museum exhibit of who I used to be, curated by someone who's been watching me for far longer than I realized.
My pulse kicks up.
I force myself to breathe. To observe without reacting. Because the intercom on the wall—the one Daphne showed me "for safety"—is almost certainly a listening device. Maybe a camera too. They've given me the illusion of privacy in a fishbowl.
"Testing," I whisper, barely audible.
The intercom light flickers. Just once. Just enough.
Someone's listening.
Wonderful.
I check the bathroom methodically—behind the mirror, inside the vent, along the ceiling edges. No obvious cameras, but that doesn't mean much. The surveillance could be in the light fixtures, the smoke detector, anywhere.
Still. I need to wash the salt and fear off my skin. Need a moment where I'm not performing for an audience I can't see.
The shower is scalding, the way I like it. The water pressure is perfect. Of course it is. Everything here is calibrated to my preferences, my history, my self—and that's what makes it terrifying.
I stay under the spray until my shoulders unknot slightly, until the heat seeps into muscles that have been clenched since the explosion on the runway. Then I wrap myself in a robe that's exactly the right size and step back into the bedroom.
The closet door stands open. I don't remember leaving it that way.
Inside, clothes hang in neat rows. Dresses. Blouses. Jeans. Not new with tags—worn soft, familiar. I reach for a dress without thinking, and my hand freezes mid-air.
Deep blue. Silk.
I wore this dress to my final Juilliard audition. The one three weeks before my diagnosis, when I still thought my biggest problem was whether I'd get into the summer intensive. I remember the way it swished when I walked, how my mother said I looked like a professional.
The label's been removed. But I know this dress. I know it.
These aren't similar clothes. They're MY clothes. From a storage unit, maybe, or my father's house. From a life that doesn't exist anymore.
How long have they been planning this? How long have they been collecting pieces of me?
My hands shake as I push the dress back. The hangers rattle against each other, too loud in the silence.
I dress for armor, not beauty. Tank top, soft from years of washing. Blue henley over it, the fabric worn thin at the elbows. Jeans that look like my favorite pair. Same brand, same wash, same fit. The sight of them makes my skin crawl, but I pull them on anyway. Heavy socks.
On the vanity—a piece of furniture I don't remember noticing before—sits a velvet box.
Small. Navy blue. The kind that holds jewelry.
I shouldn't open it. Every instinct screams that opening it means accepting something, participating in whatever game is being played here. But my hands move anyway, lifting the lid before my brain can override them.
A bracelet. Delicate gold chain, a single charm dangling from it—a tiny ballet slipper, diamonds where the ribbons would tie.
Beautiful. Expensive. Exactly the kind of thing I would have loved at seventeen, before I learned that gifts from powerful men always come with invisible strings attached.
There's a card tucked beneath the velvet cushion. Cream-colored, heavy stock, the kind of paper that costs more than most people's grocery bills. The handwriting is precise, almost architectural:
I've been waiting a long time to give you this. The first of many.
Soon.
No signature. No name.
My skin goes cold.
Someone knew I was coming. Knew I would be in this room. Knew enough about me to choose something this specific—not just ballet, but this style of slipper charm, the kind I used to sketch in the margins of my notebooks during boring classes.
I think of my mother's files. The medical records Theos has access to. The years of surveillance that reconstructed this room down to the exact angle of the ballet barre.
But this doesn't feel like research. This feels personal. Possessive. Like a love letter from someone who's been watching me from the dark.
I close the box. Shove it to the back of the vanity drawer, underneath a stack of silk scarves that smell like someone else's idea of who I should be.
My hands are shaking.
I reach for the cardigan they've provided, then stop. Antonio's hoodie lies crumpled on the bed where I stripped it off—his scent, his protection, the burner phone still hidden in the pocket. I can't wear it over these clothes without looking suspicious, but I can't leave it behind either.
I fish out the phone and tuck it into my jeans pocket. The denim is snug—they got my exact measurements, which is its own kind of violation—but the phone fits. Barely. Then I fold Antonio's hoodie carefully and hide it under the mattress. If I need to run, I'll know where to find it.
The cardigan smells faintly of lavender and something chemical underneath. New fabric spray, maybe…trying too hard, for sure. I pull it on anyway.
I look in the mirror. The woman staring back looks like me. Feels like a stranger.
My fingers find Simona’s locket where it rests against my collarbone—the cool weight of it grounding me the way Antonio’s letter does. A piece of my past, a promise for our future, he’d said when he pressed it into my palm at the airport. I haven’t taken it off since.
The letter. I need the letter.
I retrieve it from where I tucked it inside my shirt, the paper soft and warm from pressing against my skin. Twenty-four times I've unfolded it now. Twenty-five.
I sink onto the bed (ridiculously comfortable, because of course it is) and let Antonio's handwriting anchor me.
Bella Mia,
By the time you read this, you'll be with her. The mother who let you believe she was dead while my mother actually died. The irony isn't lost on me.
For years, I blamed you. Your name was the last thing my mother said before she died—I thought it was accusation.
Took me three months of watching you survive that room to understand you were just another victim of your father's games.
Took me three days of having you in my bed to realize I can't live without you.
You asked me once what kind of beast I am. I'm the kind that still dreams about you at seventeen, dancing while I played Chopin. The kind that branded your body with my mouth until every inch of you knew you were mine. The kind that would burn down Greece if they hurt you.
Bell'cenda, I still taste you. That morning when you let me touch you, when you fell apart on my tongue—I've been starving for you ever since. When you come back, I'm going to take my time. I'm going to make you forget every moment of fear.
Bella, you know what you did? You took everything—my rage, my hunger, my desperate need to own you—and gave it back as forgiveness. Do you know what that did to me? You conquered the Beast by choosing him.
Remember Pavarotti? I used to talk to that cat when no one was watching, told him you were a spoiled princess who needed to learn the world wasn't ballet and privilege.
But really I was telling myself lies about why I couldn't stop watching you.
Even when I hated you, I missed you. Even when I blamed you, I wanted you.
Elena is already asking when you're coming home. So few days and she loves you more than anyone except me. Maybe more than me. I can't blame her.
I'm tracking your every breath, Bella. The second something feels wrong, I'm coming. Not to rescue you—you've never been a princess in a tower. But to remind them all that you're mine. My wife. My obsession. My fucking weakness. My strength.
Don't trust your mother. Don't trust the Greeks. Trust that I'll burn down the world before I let them keep you.
Come back to me, ballerina. Come back and dance on the ashes with me.
Your Beast, Antonio
P.S.—If they've prepared too well, if they know things they shouldn't—run. I'll find you wherever you go.
The words blur slightly. I blink hard, refusing to let tears fall where someone might be watching.
Everything in this room is what someone thinks I want. A simulation of comfort, assembled from stolen pieces of my past.
Antonio knows what I actually need. Not the girl I was. The woman I've become.
I fold the letter carefully—crisp lines, precise edges—and tuck it back against my heart. The paper crinkles softly, a secret sound.
I want to call him. Need to hear his voice, that low rasp that makes my pulse do dangerous things. He made me memorize his number in bed, tracing the digits on my spine while I repeated them back. Burn this number into your brain, Bella. If you can't reach me any other way.