Chapter 28 ANTONIO
Chapter twenty-eight
ANTONIO
Two months Since Leaving Greece
He wants to meet. Neutral ground. Tomorrow.
Luca's text. About Luciano.
Isabella stirs beside me. "What is it?"
"Your father." I show her the screen. "He's finally ready to talk."
She sits up, the sheets pooling at her waist. One month since the island, and she still sometimes wakes gasping from nightmares. But not tonight. Tonight, her eyes are clear.
"He's out of options."
"Finally." I've been tightening the noose for weeks.
Cutting supply lines. Turning informants.
Buying out his allies one by one. Knowing he helped a serial killer actually crossed a line.
Knowing he helped a cult that preyed on some mafia families crossed yet another line, too.
Luciano Moretti isn't a crime lord anymore—he's a cornered animal, and he knows it. But cornered animals are dangerous.
"You're going."
"I have to. He still has information I need." I cup her face. "There are girls, Bell'cenda. Routes he never documented, buyers he never named. People who disappeared into holes only he knows about. As long as that information stays locked in his head, those women stay lost."
She's quiet for a moment. Then: "I'm coming with you."
"Absolutely not."
"He's my father. This is my confrontation too."
"Isabella—"
"You married a partner, Antonio. Not a princess in a tower." Her voice is steel wrapped in silk. "I faced Henrik. I can face him."
I want to argue. Want to lock her in the fortress where she's safe, where nothing can touch her. But that's the old me—the Beast who thought protection meant control.
"Together," I finally say. "But you stay behind me. And if things go sideways—"
"I run. I know." She kisses me. "But I won't have to. Because you'll handle it."
"I'll handle it."
The meeting place is a restaurant in Milan—neutral territory, owned by neither family. Luciano chose it deliberately. Public enough that violence would be noticed, private enough for honest conversation.
He's already there when we arrive, seated at a corner table with two bodyguards flanking him. He looks older than I remember—thinner, grayer, the loss of his empire written in the lines of his face. But his eyes are still sharp. Still calculating.
"Antonio." His gaze slides to Isabella, and something complicated moves across his features. "Daughter."
"Luciano." I don't sit. Neither does Isabella.
"You look well," he tells her. "Marriage agrees with you."
"Survival agrees with me. Despite your best efforts."
He has the decency to flinch. "I never intended—"
"You sold me at auction." Isabella's voice is flat. "You wanted Henrik to win. You orchestrated a massacre at my wedding. Don't tell me what you intended."
Silence. Luciano's bodyguards shift uncomfortably. Even they seem unsure how to handle a daughter who refuses to be cowed.
"I came to offer terms," Luciano finally says. "A truce. Division of territories. Formal acknowledgment that the Moretti and The Beast’s families are no longer at war."
"You came because you have nothing left to offer except your life.
" I step closer, and his guards tense. "Your French alliance fell through when Mrs. Lefevre learned what you did to your own daughter.
She took lying and rigging the auction and…
your cruelty as a personal insult. Your supply lines are gone.
Half your men defected months ago. The other half are feeding information to Luca. "
"All the more reason to negotiate."
"I'm not here to negotiate." I pull out a chair and sit across from him, forcing him to meet my eyes.
"I'm here to tell you how this ends. You're going to give me every name, every route, every location.
The girls you trafficked through Naples, through Athens, through every rat hole you've ever used.
You're going to tell me where they went and who bought them. "
Luciano's jaw tightens. "And if I refuse?"
"Then you die tonight, and I find the information another way. It'll take longer. Some of those women might not survive the wait." I lean back. "But I'll manage."
"You need me alive."
"I need what's in your head. There's a difference." I let that settle. "You're breathing because you're useful, Luciano. The moment you stop being useful, you stop breathing. It's that simple."
Something shifts in his face—the realization that this isn't a negotiation. It's a dismantling. Piece by piece, I've taken everything from him. His empire. His alliances. His dignity. And now I'm taking the only leverage he has left.
"You've gone soft," he tries. "Saving fallen women. Playing hero."
"I'm not a hero." I take Isabella's hand. "But I'm not you either. And that's what terrifies you, isn't it? That your own daughter chose the Beast you created over the man who made him."
"I did what was necessary for the family—"
"You did what was necessary for yourself." Isabella's voice breaks, just slightly. "You were so afraid of losing control that you tried to control everything. Me, Antonio, even the man I was supposed to marry. And now you've lost it all anyway."
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a folder. Thick, heavy with documents. She drops it on the table in front of him.
"Shipping manifests from 2019 through 2023.
We've already traced forty-seven women from these routes.
Eighteen are dead. Twenty-two are in rehabilitation.
Seven are still missing." Her voice is steady now, cold.
"You're going to help us find the seven.
And then you're going to help us find the ones who aren't in these files. The ones you kept off the books."
Luciano stares at the folder. At his daughter. At the man he burned half a lifetime ago.
"And if I cooperate fully?"
"Then you get to live." I straighten. "Somewhere far away. Quiet. No men, no operations, no power. You'll be watched every day for the rest of your life. One wrong move and Luca puts a bullet in your head. No warnings. No second chances."
"That's not a life. That's a prison."
"It's more than you gave those girls." Isabella stands. "It's more than you deserve."
Luciano looks at her for a long moment. Whatever he sees in her face, it's enough.
"There's a warehouse in Thessaloniki," he says quietly. "And a farm outside Lyon. I'll give you the coordinates."
"You'll give us everything."
He nods. Just once. The surrender of a man who finally understands he has nothing left to bargain with. I'm not stupid. I know he's going to try to rise again, and we'll stop him. But first, we're going to ensure everyone is free.
The restaurant disappears behind us. Isabella stares out the window, her reflection ghostly against the passing streetlights.
I don't push. I've learned that about her—she needs time to find the words for things that matter.
Three blocks. Five. We're almost to the highway when she speaks.
"I used to dream about that." Her voice is distant, like she's talking to herself as much as to me. "Confronting him. Telling him everything he took from me. Making him understand."
"And?"
"And it wasn't what I expected." She turns from the window, finally meeting my eyes. "He's just... small. Smaller than I remembered. Smaller than the monster I built in my head."
"He's still dangerous."
"I know. But he's not my father anymore." She takes my hand. "He's just a man who made terrible choices and has to live with what they cost him. I almost feel sorry for him."
"Don't."
A ghost of a smile. "I said almost And then, she adds, "Thank you. For making it about them. The women. Not about me."
"It was always about them." I take her hand. "Keeping him alive so you didn't have to carry a dead father—that was just a side benefit."
She laughs, soft and tired. "Liar."
"Maybe." I press a kiss to her knuckles. "But it's working. Naomi called yesterday—the coordinates from his first confession led us to three women in Romania. They're in rehabilitation now."
"Because of you."
"Because of us." I think about the rescue network we've built—the safe houses, the medical care, the new identities for women who need to disappear. It started as a way to use the darkness in me for something good. Now it's become something bigger than either of us.
"He'll try to escape eventually," Isabella says. "Or send word to someone."
"Probably. And we'll handle it." I look at her, and her eyes are clear. "Together."
Together. That's the difference between us and them. Luciano only ever knew how to work alone, treating everyone—even family—as pawns to be sacrificed.
We're building something else. Something stronger.
The Beast and the Ballerina, writing their own ending.