Chapter 18 - Isabella
Chapter eighteen
ISABELLA
Idon't sleep.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Franco's blood spreading across white stone. Hear the wet thud of his body hitting the ground. Feel Henrik's breath hot against my ear as he whispered what tomorrow would bring.
Tomorrow night happens regardless of your consent, Isabella. The only question is how much pain you want to experience along the way.
Tomorrow is now today. The ceremony. The protocol. Whatever they're planning to carve out of me.
I've read Antonio's letter so many times the paper has gone soft, the creases threatening to tear.
Ti amo, ballerina mia. Come back to me. Words that feel like they belong to another life—one where rescue was possible, where the storm might break, where I wasn't counting down hours until a man who's stalked me to finally claims his prize.
The room they've locked me in is a museum of my childhood self.
Ballet trophies I don't remember winning.
Photographs of recitals I barely recall.
A music box that plays Swan Lake when you open it, the tiny ballerina spinning in endless circles, going nowhere.
Someone—my mother, probably—recreated this space from memory or surveillance footage or both, and the attention to detail makes my skin crawl.
Dawn creeps through the window like an unwelcome visitor, gray light filtering through storm clouds that haven't broken yet. Day six on this island. Maybe my last.
A knock at the door—not Franco's familiar rhythm, not Manuel's careful tap. Something sharper. Official.
"Isabella." Alexandros's voice, muffled through the wood. "Your mother wants to see you."
I don't move. Don't answer.
"It's important," he adds, and there's something in his tone I haven't heard before. Uncertainty, maybe. Or guilt.
The locks disengage—seven clicks in reverse—and the door opens. Alexandros stands in the hallway, his face grim as a diagnosis. Behind him, two of Henrik's guards wait with the patient stillness of men who get paid by the hour.
"She's been asking for you since dawn," Alexandros says. "She has... information. About your husband."
My heart stutters. "Antonio? Is he—"
"He's alive. More than alive." Alexandros's jaw tightens. "She'll explain. Come."
The compound feels different this morning. Charged. Staff members move with purpose, arranging flowers, polishing silver, preparing for something. The ceremony, I realize. They're decorating for my dissection like it's a wedding.
My mother's room smells like jasmine and antiseptic, that familiar combination of the perfume she's worn my whole life and the medicine that's keeping her alive.
She's sitting up when I enter—more alert than I've seen her since Henrik arrived.
Her eyes are red-rimmed, but focused. Clear in a way they haven't been through the haze of prednisone and desperation.
"Close the door," she says.
Alexandros hesitates, glancing at Henrik's guards.
"Close it," my mother repeats, and there's steel in her voice now. The steel I remember from before—from the woman who ran a household, managed my father's moods, survived in a world that devoured weakness. "What I have to say is for my daughter. Not for Henrik's dogs."
The guards exchange looks but don't argue. The door closes, leaving us alone for the first time since the dock. Since she pointed a gun at me and I realized the mother I'd mourned for thirteen years was a stranger wearing familiar skin.
"I've been getting reports." She gestures to a tablet on her bedside table. "From contacts in Italy. People who owe me favors, who've been watching the situation unfold." She pauses, and something shifts in her expression. Wonder, maybe. Or disbelief. "Your husband is coming."
"I know. He told me on the phone yesterday."
"No." She shakes her head slowly. "You don't understand.
He's not just coming—he's mobilizing everything.
Every resource. Every ally. Every favor he's ever been owed.
Ships are moving despite the storm. The Fixer is coordinating extraction routes.
Even Connor—the Irish one, the one who married your friend—he's apparently threatening to burn down anyone who gets in the way. "
"That sounds like Connor."
"It sounds insane." Her voice wavers. "Isabella, do you understand what I'm telling you? Antonio is risking his entire empire. His alliances. His safety. His daughter's safety. All of it—for you."
"Of course he is."
She stares at me like I've said something incomprehensible. "You say that like it's obvious."
"It is obvious. He loves me."
"Love." The word comes out strange, almost foreign.
"Men like him don't—they don't do this. They calculate.
They strategize. They weigh costs against benefits and cut their losses when the math doesn't work.
Your father would have—" She stops, swallows hard.
"Your father would have written me off. Mourned publicly, moved on privately.
Found a new wife within a year to secure the alliance. "
"Antonio isn't my father."
"No." The admission seems to cost her something. "He isn't, is he?"
Silence stretches between us. The machines beep their steady rhythm. The oxygen hisses. Outside, somewhere, Henrik's men are preparing for a ceremony that will cut pieces out of me in the name of salvation.
"Tell me about him," my mother says finally, and her voice is different now.
Smaller. Younger. Like she's asking permission for something she doesn't deserve.
"Not the beast everyone whispers about. Not the mob boss with the burned face.
Tell me about the man who's apparently willing to start a war to bring you home. "
So I tell her.
I tell her about Elena—the little girl who counts everything, who asked me to teach her ballet, who calls me Bella-ballina and cries real tears when I leave for more than a day.
I tell her about the silly voices Antonio does during bedtime stories, how he pretends to be pirates and princesses and dragons, dignity be damned, because making his daughter laugh matters more than maintaining his terrifying reputation.
I tell her about the nightmares. How I wake up screaming sometimes, trapped in memories of chemo or my father's house or the auction, and Antonio holds me without asking what the dreams were about.
How he never makes me feel weak for breaking.
How he stays awake afterward, one hand in my hair, until I fall asleep again.
I tell her about the letter. The one I've read so many times I have it memorized. The one that says ti amo in handwriting that shakes, like the words cost him something to write. Like admitting love was harder than any violence he's ever committed.
I tell her about a man who was supposed to be my enemy. Who locked me in a tower for revenge against something I did as a child. Who somehow, impossibly, became the only person in the world who makes me feel safe.
When I finish, she's crying. She looks old in this moment—older than she did even yesterday. Like something inside her has finally stopped fighting.
"I didn't think that was possible," she whispers.
"I didn't think men like that existed. Not in our world.
Not after everything I've seen, everything I've done, everything I've survived.
" She wipes at her face with trembling fingers.
"I thought I knew the rules. Strategy. Alliances.
Control. Love as a weapon, never a gift. Something to exploit, never to trust."
"Maybe you were wrong."
"Maybe I've been wrong about everything." The admission seems to drain something vital out of her—I watch her deflate, watch the last of her certainty crumble. "Maybe I spent fifty years surviving and never once actually lived. Because I was too afraid to risk feeling something I couldn't control."
She reaches for my hand. Her grip is weak, trembling, but fierce.
"He's really coming? Even knowing it's a trap?"
"He's really coming."
"Because he loves you."
"Yes."
She closes her eyes. For a long moment, she doesn't speak, and I think maybe she's fallen asleep—the medications pulling her under, the conversation exhausting what little energy she has left. But then she opens her eyes again, and they're clear.
"I need to tell you something," she says. "About tonight. About what Henrik really wants."
My stomach clenches. "I know what he wants. Me."
"It's more than that." She squeezes my hand harder. "The ceremony—it's not just about the blood work, the samples. Henrik's been planning this for years. The medical proxy documents, the consent forms—they include things I didn't understand when I signed them. Things Theos deliberately obscured."
"What things?"
"Marriage provisions." The words come out bitter, broken. "If the ceremony is completed."
The room tilts. "That's not—that can't be legal."
"In Greece, with the right paperwork, the right officials, enough money changing hands?" She laughs, and it sounds like something dying. "Anything can be legal. Henrik's been planning this for months. He's thought of everything."
"Then I don't participate. I fight. I refuse—"
"The proxy consent covers that too. If you're deemed unable to consent due to medical emergency, Theos can invoke the full protocol.
And Henrik has doctors who will declare whatever emergency he needs.
" Her grip on my hand is almost painful now.
"That's why you have to stall, Isabella.
Buy time. Antonio is coming, but he needs hours.
Maybe more. Every minute you can delay the ceremony is another minute for him to reach you. "
"How do I stall? They have guards everywhere. Franco's injured. Manuel's locked up. I'm alone—"
"You're not alone." Her voice drops to barely a whisper. "The courier. Antonio's advance man. He's already on the island."