Chapter 27 ISABELLA
Chapter twenty-seven
ISABELLA
Six Weeks Since Leaving Greece
The safe house doesn't look like much from the outside. A farmhouse in Tuscany, weathered stone and overgrown gardens, the kind of place tourists drive past without a second glance. That's the point.
Inside, it's been transformed. Clean beds, warm food, medical supplies, and—most importantly—locks that work from the inside. Locks that the women control themselves.
Liria Ademi sits at the kitchen table, both hands wrapped around a cup of tea that's long gone cold. She hasn't spoken much since Connor's people extracted her from Greek custody three weeks ago. Hasn't done much except stare at walls and flinch at sudden sounds.
I understand. I was only trapped for three days. She was trapped for eight years.
"The lawyer says your papers will be ready by Friday," I tell her, settling into the chair across from her. "New identity, clean passport, work visa. Whatever you want to do next, you'll have options."
She nods, but her eyes stay fixed on something I can't see.
"My daughter," she says finally. Her voice is rusty from disuse. "Marta. She would be sixteen now."
My chest tightens. Connor's people found records of a girl matching that description—sold separately from her mother, moved through three countries, trail gone cold in Romania two years ago.
"We're still looking," I say. "We haven't given up."
"Eight years." Liria's hands tremble around the cup. "Eight years I did everything they asked. Everything. Because they said if I was good, if I cooperated, they would let me see her."
"They lied."
"I know. I always knew." A tear slides down her weathered cheek. "But hope is a chain too. Sometimes the strongest one."
I reach across the table, cover her hands with mine. Her skin is rough, scarred in places I don't want to imagine.
"You're not chained anymore," I say. "Whatever happens next, you choose it. Not them. Not anyone else. You."
She looks at me then—really looks, maybe for the first time since she arrived. "You were trapped too. But you fought. You didn't cooperate."
"I had people coming for me. I knew help was on the way." I squeeze her hands. "You didn't have that. You survived the only way you could. There's no shame in that."
More tears now, silent ones, streaming down her face. She doesn't wipe them away.
"I tried to help. I tried to warn others. But they told me they'd kill my daughter and now? Now, I don't know how to be free," she whispers. "I don't remember."
"Then we'll figure it out together. One day at a time."
The sound of Franco's car in the courtyard has become routine over the past three weeks—deliveries, updates, the constant flow of information that comes with rebuilding lives. But this time, when I glance out the window, Franco is carrying something that makes no sense.
A travel crate. With something very loud inside.
"Antonio." I turn from the window, my heart doing something complicated. "What did you do?"
He's already heading for the door, but I catch the corner of his mouth twitching. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
I beat him to the courtyard.
Franco emerges from the car looking like he's lost a fight—scratch marks up his forearms, his usual composure replaced by the expression of a man who's been through hell. "Your husband," he says, thrusting the crate toward me, "is insane."
"You went to my father's compound." I can't breathe properly. "For my cat."
"I went to your father's compound," Franco confirms grimly, "for that orange demon. Who, by the way, has opinions about car rides."
As if on cue, Pavarotti lets out an aria of complaint that could shatter glass.
My hands are shaking as I undo the latch. The crate door swings open, and there he is—fatter than I remember, fur slightly matted, looking at me with the same expression of regal displeasure he's worn since I first adopted him at fourteen.
"Pav." My voice cracks. "Oh god, Pav."
He walks out of the crate like a king surveying conquered territory, sniffs my offered hand, and then—with the dramatic flair that earned him his name—collapses against my chest and starts purring.
I bury my face in his fur and let myself cry.
Elena appears at my elbow, eyes wide. "Bella-ballina, is that a cat?"
"This is Pavarotti," I manage through the tears. "He's named after a singer because he never stops making noise."
"That's one cat!" Elena starts counting on her fingers. "We have one dog and one cat now!"
Cerberus has crept closer, curious about the commotion. Pavarotti's paw shoots out with surgical precision, bopping him on the nose. The dog retreats. The cat returns to purring, victorious.
Behind me, Antonio's hand finds the small of my back. "Welcome home, Bell'cenda," he murmurs against my hair.
I turn into him, cat still clutched to my chest, and kiss him with everything I have.
"You impossible man."
"You needed him back."
"I needed you." But I'm smiling through the tears. "Pavarotti's just a bonus."
The cat yowls his disagreement. Some things, at least, never change.
The van idles in the predawn darkness outside the Naples shipyard. Franco's contact unlocked the container twenty minutes ago; the girls inside haven't moved.
"They think it's a trick," Paola says quietly. She's standing beside me, arms crossed, watching the open container door. "They've been tricked before."
I think about Elena, safe in her bed at the fortress. About the counting she does when she's scared. About how long it took her to trust that Antonio wouldn't send her back.
"I'll go," I say.
"Isabella—"
But I'm already walking toward the container, my hands visible, my voice soft. "My name is Isabella," I call in English, then again in the halting Albanian Liria taught me. "I'm not going to hurt you. I was trapped too, once. I know how it feels."
Silence from the darkness.
Then, so quietly I almost miss it: "How did you get out?"
"Someone came for me." I stop at the container's edge, letting my eyes adjust. Two shapes huddled in the corner, barely visible. "Now I come for others."
Paola is the one who identified the route—her years of trading information left her with contacts in places we couldn't reach. She'd spent a decade learning which men moved women like cargo. Now she uses that knowledge to intercept them.
"Alba would have loved this," she tells me, watching the sisters board a van to the safe house. Her voice is rough, but her eyes are clear. "She tried to save them one at a time, with sandwiches and spare blankets. This is bigger."
"This is what she started," I say. "You're just finishing it."
Paola doesn't answer. But she shows up every week, with new routes, new names. Earning her place.
The twins don't speak Italian or many words in English, but they understand kindness. They understand safety.
The third rescue is a woman from Nigeria who escaped her captors on her own, walking for three days through the Italian countryside before collapsing at a church. The priest called Connor. Connor called us.
By the second month, we have a system. Safe houses in four countries.
A network of doctors, lawyers, translators—people who ask questions we can answer and don't ask the ones we can't. Naomi handles the money, making it clean enough to use without drawing attention.
Connor handles extraction. Antonio handles protection.
And I handle the rest.
And with my incoming inheritance, we’ll expand.
A day later, Antonio finds me in the kitchen, coffee in hand, a look on his face that means business wrapped up.
"News on the Greeks," he says, settling across from me. "Thought you'd want to know how it landed."
I wrap my hands around my mug. I've been getting fragments for weeks—Theos arrested, the believers dispersing, lawyers circling. But I haven't pushed for details. Haven't wanted to look back at that island any more than necessary.
"Alexandros cut a deal. Testified against Theos in exchange for immunity." Antonio's jaw tightens. "He's rebuilding what's left of the family operation—shipping, real estate. The legitimate side. Nikos went with him."
"And Stefanos?"
"Gone. Left Greece the week after the extraction. Dimitri tracked him as far as Lisbon, then the trail went cold." A pause. "New name. No forwarding address."
I think about Stefanos on that boat, grief sharpening every word. The money he bled from his own family for months, dismantling them from the inside.
"He sent flowers to Marco's grave before he disappeared," Antonio adds. "White roses. Enough to cover the whole thing."
Something loosens in my chest. "Good for him."
"Yeah." Antonio's voice is softer than I expect. "Good for him."