Chapter 15 Isabella
Chapter fifteen
ISABELLA
Day Four
Something's changed.
I notice it at breakfast—the way Daphne keeps glancing at the door, the extra staff moving through hallways with purpose, the flowers being arranged in the main hall like someone's preparing for a state visit.
My mother notices too. She's barely touched her tea, her fingers drumming against the table in a rhythm that speaks of nerves, not impatience.
Every few seconds, her eyes drift toward the window, toward the water, like she's waiting for something she doesn't want to see.
"Special occasion?" I ask casually, reaching for a piece of toast I have no intention of eating.
Daphne's smile is too bright, stretched thin at the edges. "A new investor arriving today. Dr. Theos wants everything perfect."
My mother's cup rattles against its saucer. A small sound, but I catch it. Catch the way her knuckles go white around the handle.
"Anyone I should know about?" I keep my voice light, but I'm watching her now. Watching the way her face has gone carefully, deliberately blank—the way it used to go blank when my father was in one of his moods and she was calculating how to survive the next hour.
"A generous benefactor." Daphne straightens a napkin that doesn't need straightening, then moves to adjust a flower arrangement that's already perfect. Nervous hands. "He's been supporting the research for years. Very interested in meeting you."
Very interested in meeting me. The words land wrong, tilted, like a picture frame that's slightly askew. Why would an investor be interested in meeting me specifically? Unless I'm not just a visitor here. Unless I'm part of what he's investing in.
"Which benefactor?" My mother's voice cuts through my thoughts, sharp enough to make Daphne flinch. "Dr. Theos didn't mention anyone coming in person. The agreement was remote oversight. Financial support. Not—" She stops herself, but too late. The crack in her composure is already showing.
"I'm not sure of the name, ma'am." Daphne's eyes dart between us like a rabbit caught between two foxes. "Just that he's arriving this afternoon. Private boat. Dr. Theos asked me to prepare the west guest suite—the one with the security features."
Security features. For a guest. Or to contain one.
My mother stands so abruptly her chair scrapes against stone with a sound like a small scream.
"I need to speak with Theos. Now. Have him meet me in his office.
" She's already moving, faster than I've seen her move since I arrived, the oxygen tube trailing behind her like a leash she's forgotten she's wearing.
At the doorway, she pauses just long enough to look back at me.
"Stay in the main house today, Isabella.
Don't go to the beach. Don't go anywhere alone. "
Then she's gone, and I'm left with cold toast and a growing certainty that whatever's coming on that boat, my mother didn't plan for it.
Didn't want it. Which means the control she thought she had over this situation—over Theos, over the Greeks, over my presence here—is slipping through her fingers like sand.
I push back from the table and go to find Franco.
The compound feels different as I move through it.
Charged, somehow, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Staff members who smiled at me yesterday now hurry past with their eyes down.
The believers I've been cataloging—the Irish woman with her quiet grief, the Calabrian with his sick nephew, the Russian woman who speaks of bone marrow like it's holy water—have gathered in small clusters, speaking in low voices that stop when I approach.
I find Franco in the service corridor near the kitchen, the same blind spot I've been using to avoid cameras. He's standing with Manuel, both of them tense in a way that makes my pulse quicken. When Franco sees me, something in his expression shifts—relief and worry braided together.
"There's a boat coming in this afternoon," he says without preamble, pitching his voice low. "Private charter out of Athens. I got a look through the binoculars—armed guards on deck, at least six that I could count. Professional security, not local hired muscle."
"The new investor?"
"Has to be. And whoever he is, your mother's terrified of him.
" Franco's jaw tightens. "I passed Theos's office twenty minutes ago.
She was in there with him, shouting. I've never seen her lose control like that—she's always so calculated, you know?
Every word measured. But she was screaming at him.
Saying things like 'he wasn't supposed to come here' and 'this wasn't what we agreed to' and—" He pauses, exchanges a look with Manuel.
"And 'you promised me he'd stay in Vienna. '"
Vienna. My mind races through possibilities. Who do I know from Vienna? Who would my mother know? Who would have eight million euros to invest in experimental medical research, and a specific interest in meeting me?
"They've doubled the security since this morning," Manuel adds, his voice barely above a whisper. "And they moved me to different quarters—separated us. On purpose."
"To keep you from coordinating," I say. "In case something goes wrong."
"In case we try to get you out." Franco's hand moves toward his hip—like he hopes for another gun. "Whatever's happening tonight, Isabella, I need you to stay close to me. Don't go anywhere alone. Don't eat or drink anything I haven't checked first. And if I tell you to run—"
"I run."
"Without looking back. Without waiting for us." His eyes are fierce, urgent. "Antonio would never forgive me if something happened to you. And I'd never forgive myself."
The weight of his loyalty settles over me like armor. This man barely knows me—knew me first as his boss's prisoner, then as his boss's reluctant wife—but he'd die to protect me. Because Antonio asked him to. Because that's the kind of man Franco is.
"Do you know who's coming?" I ask. "Specifically?"
He hesitates. I watch the struggle play out across his face—the desire to protect me from something, warring with the knowledge that ignorance won't keep me safe.
"I have a suspicion," he finally says. "But I hope I'm wrong."
"Franco." My voice doesn’t shake and yet, I know… I know who he’s talking about. And maybe he’s been hiding in Vienna. He speaks German, after all.
"The auction." The word falls between us like a stone into still water. " Do you remember? Tried to drag you toward the exit before anyone could stop him. Said something about how it wasn't over. How he'd see you again."
The memory surfaces like a corpse rising from deep water. A hand on my arm, grip bruising. Pale eyes, flat and hungry. A voice in my ear promising things that made my skin crawl.
I always get what I pay for, one way or another. We'll meet again, Isabella. Count on it.
"Henrik." The name tastes like bile. "Henrik Müller."
Franco nods slowly. "If I'm right—if that's who's on that boat—then this isn't about medical research. It never was. It's about him collecting on a debt he thinks he's owed."
"I need to talk to my mother," I say.
"Isabella—"
"She knows something. Maybe everything. And if Henrik is really coming, if she really made a deal with him without knowing who he was—" I stop, because the alternative is worse. The alternative is that she knew exactly who he was, and sold me anyway.
I don't want to believe that. Despite everything—the abandonment, the lies, the thirteen years of silence—I don't want to believe my mother would hand me to a monster willingly.
But I need to know for certain. One way or another.
I find her in her room an hour later. She's sitting by the window, silhouetted against the gray afternoon sky, staring at the water like she's waiting for her own execution to sail into view.
The manic energy from breakfast has drained away entirely, leaving her gray and diminished.
She doesn't look like the woman who pointed a gun at me on the dock.
She doesn't look like the master manipulator Stefanos described, the one who traded husbands and lovers for information and power.
She looks like what she is: a dying woman who's just realized her last gamble has gone catastrophically wrong.
"Mom."
She doesn't turn. Her voice, when she speaks, is barely above a whisper. "You should stay in your room tonight. Lock the door. Don't come out until morning."
"Who's coming?"
"No one you need to concern yourself with."
"You're lying." I move closer, and I can see her hands now—trembling, gripping the armrests of her wheelchair hard enough to turn her knuckles white. "You've been lying since I got here. About the treatment. About what you want from me. About Alexandros and the Greeks. About all of it."
"I've been trying to protect you—"
"From what?" I crouch beside her chair, force myself into her line of sight. Up close, I can see the tear tracks on her cheeks, hastily wiped away. Can smell the jasmine perfume she's worn my whole life, now mixed with something medicinal. Something dying. "Mom. Who is on that boat?"
For a long moment, she doesn't answer. Just stares at me with those eyes that are so like mine—the same shape, the same color, the same shadows underneath from too many sleepless nights.
When I was little, people always said I had my mother's eyes.
I used to love that. Used to practice her expressions in the mirror, trying to capture her elegance, her poise, her ability to walk into any room and command it.
Now I wonder if I also inherited her talent for self-destruction.
"A mistake," she finally says. "The kind you can't take back. The kind that follows you forever, no matter how far you run."
"What kind of mistake?"