Chapter 16 Isabella #2
"I've had lawyers examining that wedding for months.
" Henrik slides papers across the table toward me.
"The marriage certificate was filed, yes.
But the ceremony was interrupted. Never properly completed under Italian law.
And the officials who processed the paperwork afterward?
" He shrugs. "The kind of people who accept bribes.
The kind who vanish when investigators ask questions. "
"You're lying."
"I'm litigating. Right now, my legal team is filing challenges in three jurisdictions. Your marriage to Antonio is invalid—fraudulent documentation, incomplete ceremony, and my personal favorite: duress."
"Duress?"
"You were sold at an auction. Purchased like livestock. Locked in a room for three months." He spreads his hands. "Any court would agree that's coercion, not marriage. You were a prisoner, not a bride."
He's taken our history—the messy, painful truth of how Antonio and I began—and weaponized it.
"The ceremony tomorrow creates what your first wedding failed to establish," Henrik continues.
"A proper union. Witnessed. Documented. Legally sound.
" He leans forward. "By next month, courts across Europe will be reviewing two competing claims—a blood-soaked mafia ritual versus a peaceful ceremony with credible witnesses. Which do you think they'll recognize?"
"No court would—"
"Courts follow evidence and money. I have both." His pale eyes hold mine.
"What ceremony?" My mother's voice cuts through—sharp, bewildered. "The medical extraction? The blood ritual? What does that have to do with marriage?"
Henrik's smile widens. "Katerina. Surely you read what you signed."
"I signed consent forms. Research protocols. Medical proxy agreements." Her voice is climbing. "There was nothing about—Theos, there was nothing about a marriage."
"Page forty-seven of the research partnership agreement.
" Henrik's voice is almost gentle. "Paragraph twelve.
'In the event that primary subject participation requires extended residency, secondary consent holder authorizes all necessary legal arrangements to ensure subject compliance with facility protocols, including but not limited to.
..'" He tilts his head. "I could quote the rest, but the legal language is rather dry.
The summary is: you signed away her right to refuse. "
"I didn't understand—the medications—I couldn't think straight—"
"You didn't want to understand." Henrik's gentleness doesn't waver.
"You wanted to believe you were signing consent forms for medical research.
You wanted to believe your daughter's blood could save you.
And every time a document felt wrong, every time a clause seemed strange, you told yourself it was just legal formality.
Just paperwork." He spreads his hands. "I'm not judging you.
You did what dying people do. You hoped. "
My mother makes a sound—something between a sob and a moan. She's staring at the documents like they're a death sentence. Which, in a way, they are.
"All you have to do is say the words," Henrik says to me, his voice soft now. Almost tender. "Stand beside me tomorrow. Let the witnesses see a willing bride." He pauses. "And if you refuse... I think you know what I'm capable of. What happened to Franco's family. What could happen to yours."
The table has gone silent. Even the believers have stopped their murmured conversations, sensing the shift in atmosphere.
Alexandros's jaw is tight. Stefanos looks like he wants to murder someone—Henrik or Theos or possibly my mother, I can't tell.
Nikos is typing furiously on his phone, probably documenting everything for some future leverage play.
"I didn't know it was him," my mother whispers, still staring at the papers. "And I didn't know—the contracts—Theos, you told me it was research. You told me—"
"I told you what you needed to hear." Theos's voice is calm. Measured. The voice of a man who's been managing desperate people for years. "You were dying. You needed hope. I gave you hope."
"You gave me to him." She gestures at Henrik, her hand shaking. "You knew who he was. You knew what he wanted. And you let me sign—"
"I let you try to save your own life." Theos doesn't flinch. "The research is real, Katerina. Marco's work was real. The possibility of isolating your daughter's immune factors—that's real. Henrik's... personal interests... are a separate matter."
"A separate—" My mother's laugh is broken glass. "My daughter's life is a separate matter?"
"Your daughter's life is the only reason any of us are here.
" Theos spreads his hands. "Without her, there is no research.
No funding. No facility. No hope for any of the people in this room.
" He looks at the believers—Siobhan, the Calabrian, the Russian woman with her aching joints.
"They came here because they believe. Because they need to believe. And belief requires sacrifice."
"Not her," my mother says. "Not like this. I didn't agree to—"
"You agreed to everything." Henrik's voice cuts through, patient and final. "Every page. Every paragraph. Every clause. You signed it all, Katerina. And tomorrow, I collect."
"You're looking at me like you're trying to figure me out.
" Henrik sets down his wine glass, amused.
"Let me save you the trouble. I can see the wheels turning—you're wondering what made me this way.
Looking for the tragic backstory. The dead sister, perhaps?
The noble mission corrupted by obsession?
" He laughs, and the sound is like ice cracking.
"That's what they write in your romance novels, isn't it?
The villain with the wounded heart, secretly hoping the right woman will redeem him? "
I don't answer. Don't give him the satisfaction.
"My father beat me." He says it casually, like he's discussing the weather.
"Regularly. Systematically. From the time I was old enough to stand until I was old enough to hit back.
" He takes a sip of wine, watching my face.
"You're waiting for the part where that made me sympathetic.
Where I tell you I'm trying to save other children from the same fate, or that I understand suffering because I've suffered. "
He leans forward, and his pale eyes are flat. Empty. Patient.
"But here's the truth, Isabella: my father taught me that power is the only thing that matters.
That people are either the ones holding the whip or the ones feeling it.
I spent eighteen years on the wrong end.
" His smile widens, showing teeth. "Now I'm on the right end. That's not tragedy. That's education."
"You think that makes you strong," I say quietly. "It just makes you him."
"Perhaps." He shrugs. "But I'm the one with the guards, the money, the contracts, and you.
" He gestures around the table. "Your mother's dying.
Your husband's trapped by weather. Your protectors have been declawed.
And tomorrow night, you'll give me exactly what I want—not because of some mystical connection between us, but because you have no other choice. "
He stands, adjusting his cuffs with precise, deliberate movements.
"I'm not the Beast from your fairy tales, Isabella. I'm not waiting to be transformed by love. I'm just a man who learned early that taking is easier than asking." He pauses at the door. "And I've been waiting months to take you."
The silence that follows is absolute.
Then Franco speaks, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade.
"She wants to call her husband."
Henrik raises an eyebrow. "Does she?"
"I do." I straighten my spine, channeling every performance I've ever given through exhaustion and pain and fear. "You said communication is difficult because of the storm. But not impossible. Let me talk to Antonio."
"And say what? Help, I'm being held prisoner on a Greek island by a cult and my stalker?
" Henrik laughs softly. "He already knows something's wrong, Isabella.
I made sure of that on the dock. At least he should be grateful I killed the Greek guard who actually set up the bomb.
Did you know not all Greeks love you? As for your soon to be ex-husband?
The question is whether he can do anything about it before tomorrow night. "
"Then it won't hurt to let me try."
He studies me for a long moment, something shifting behind those pale eyes. Calculation, maybe. Or amusement at my refusal to simply surrender.
"One call," he finally says. "Supervised. Two minutes. You say anything that sounds like a location or a coded rescue message, and the line goes dead." He gestures to one of his guards. "Take her to the communications room."
They lead me through hallways I'm learning to map in my head—left at the marble statue, right at the painting of the shipwreck, down the stairs to the lower level where the original villa's bones show through the modern renovations.
The room they bring me to is small, windowless, dominated by an old landline phone that looks like it belongs in a museum.
Henrik follows, positioning himself where he can hear every word.
"Two minutes," he repeats. "Make them count."
I pick up the receiver. Dial the number I know by heart—Antonio's private line, the one only a handful of people have access to. The phone rings twice before he answers.
"Who is this?"
"It's me."
The change in his voice is immediate—sharper, more alert, every word suddenly weighted with meaning. "Bella. Are you safe?"
"For now." I choose my words carefully, aware of Henrik's eyes on me. "The ceremony is tomorrow night. Moonrise. They're planning to—there's medical procedures. Blood work. Bone marrow. They have documents my mother signed. Medical proxy consent."
"I know about Henrik." Antonio's voice is controlled fury, barely leashed. "I know he's there. I know what he wants."
"Then you know I'm running out of time."
"The storm—" Static crackles on the line, fragmenting his words. "—trying to find a way—Dimitri's working on—" More static. "—hold on, Bella. Whatever they want, whatever they threaten—"
"I know." My throat is tight. "I know."
"I'm coming." The words cut through the static clearly. "Do you hear me? I'm coming. Whatever it takes. Whatever I have to—"
Henrik plucks the phone from my hand.
"Hello, Antonio." His voice is pleasant, conversational, like they're old friends catching up. "I wanted you to know that your wife is being very well cared for. She's healthy. Safe. A bit dehydrated, perhaps, but we're working on that."
I can hear Antonio's response—low, dangerous, promising violence in languages I don't speak.
"The storm should clear in a day or two," Henrik continues, ignoring the threats. "Feel free to visit then. By that point, the ceremony will be complete, and we can discuss the new... arrangements... like civilized men."
He hangs up before Antonio can respond.
"There," Henrik says, handing the phone back to the guard. "Now you've both had your dramatic moment. Feel better?"
I don't answer. Don't trust myself to speak without screaming.
They escort me back through the villa, past the dining terrace where the believers are finishing their meal, past my mother's empty chair—she must have fled during the phone call, unable to sit with what she's learned.
Franco falls into step beside me, close enough that I can feel his tension, his barely contained rage.
"Soon," he murmurs, so quiet only I can hear. "We have a plan. Just hold on."
Hold on. That's what Antonio said too. Like holding on is easy. Like it doesn't take everything I have just to keep breathing, keep moving, keep pretending I'm not terrified out of my mind.
They take me to my room—the reconstructed museum of my childhood self—and lock the door behind me. Seven locks, seven clicks, everything in sevens on this island.
I sink onto the bed, Antonio's letter pressed against my chest like a talisman.
Come back to me, ballerina.
I intend to. Whatever it takes.
But tomorrow is coming, and the monster is already here, and I don't know if holding on will be enough.