Chapter 9 #3
“I don’t believe you, Bella,” I say. “I’m your husband.
The man you share a bed with. The man whose house you live in.
The man whose cock splits you open every night.
And you expect me to believe you sat across from your father and played dumb?
That you told him you don’t know what I am doing when you have been in my office going through my shit? ”
“Yes. I’ve already said I told him nothing.”
I observe her face. The shape of her mouth. A slight tilt of her chin. How her shoulders are pushed back, spine straight. Even now, she appears defiant. But there’s something in her eyes. Something that whispers the truth, even as my paranoia screams betrayal.
“I know you’ve been going through my things, Bella. My files. My desk. Reading about shipments, territories, and deals. Learning exactly what I’m doing to find Matteo. So don’t stand here and tell me you told your father nothing when you had everything he needed right at your fucking fingertips.”
For a moment, she says nothing. Then her expression hardens, the softness in her eyes replaced by fire and anger. “If you knew I was in your office, then why didn’t you say anything? Why did you let me keep going in there if you were so fucking worried I was spying for him?”
The question catches me off guard. It turns the tables. Puts me on the defensive when I should be the one interrogating her.
Smart girl.
“Would it have made a difference?” I ask. “If I had called you out, would you have stopped?”
“No,” she finally says. “I would not have.”
“Exactly. So tell me what you gave him.”
“Nothing.” Her voice rises. “Fuck you, Lorenzo. I gave him nothing.”
There it is. The part of her that refuses to bend even when she should, even when it would be safer for her to do so.
It makes something hot and savage coil in my gut, making my cock hard.
It makes me want to grab her by the throat and kiss her until she can’t breathe, until she submits and remembers who the fuck she belongs to.
“Why did you go?” I ask again.
“Because he will not stop.” Her hands curl into fists at her sides, and her knuckles turn white. “He will keep pressuring me until I give in. He will call, demand, threaten, and manipulate until I break.”
“And did you… break?”
“No. I would never give him the satisfaction.”
I want to believe her so badly it aches in my chest. But I don’t give trust easily. Not in this world where betrayal is currency and loyalty is bought and sold.
“Then why do I not believe you?”
“Because you don’t trust anyone. Because you think everyone is playing you. I didn’t tell you I was leaving because I knew you’d react exactly the way you are now.” She throws her hands up. “I knew you would think I betrayed you. That you would look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”
“And how am I looking at you?”
“As if you want to strangle me and fuck me at the same time.”
She isn’t wrong.
“Did he threaten you?” I ask.
She blinks, surprised by the shift and the concern hidden beneath the anger. “What?”
“Your father. Did he threaten you?”
“He doesn’t need to threaten me. He just needs to exist.”
“That’s not an answer, Bella. Now tell me what he said.”
“Why? So you can add it to your list of reasons not to trust me?”
“Isabella.”
“He said what he always says.” Her voice drops, the fight draining out of her just slightly. “That family is everything. That blood is thicker than water. That loyalty to him comes before loyalty to anyone else. Including you.”
There is a heavy pause, loaded with something darker than anger.
“I hate him.” The words come out quiet and broken.
“Every time I sit across from him I want to put a knife in his throat and watch him bleed out on his expensive fucking carpet. Watch the life drain from his eyes the same way I watched it drain from…” She pauses and curls her hands into fists.
“He is a fucking monster. And one day, I am going to make him pay for killing the only person who ever loved me for me. Not for my name. Not for what I could give him. Just me.”
The words fall into the space between us. A confession and a curse all at once.
I stare at her and notice how her face has changed.
There is sadness in her eyes now. The kind that seeps into the bones and never truly heals.
It just becomes scar tissue and stays there, aching, for the rest of your life.
A wound that never closes. Just scabs over and bleeds again every time you think about it.
I have never seen that in her before. Never seen her look so… broken. My wife, who stands tall, proud, and defiant, now appears different. She, who usually meets my anger with fire, looks like a scared, damaged girl who’s seen too much and lost too much.
“Who?” The question comes out more abruptly than I intended. “Who did he take from you?”
She hesitates. Her teeth bite her bottom lip and her eyes flick away from mine, before meeting them again. As if she’s weighing whether to let me into this part of her—this broken, bleeding part she’s kept locked away.
“Isabella,” I say quietly. “Tell me.”
She draws a shaky breath.
“His name was Ethan.” Her voice is distant and hollow, as if she’s back in a memory she has tried to bury. “I was eighteen. He was nineteen. We were going to run away together and leave this life. You know, start over somewhere no one knew our names. Somewhere we could be normal. Free.”
My thoughts immediately turn to Matteo. He prioritized Emery over power, legacy, and the family name.
He left bodies behind and scorched the earth, all just to have what most take for granted—a life where he could love someone without it being a death sentence.
Where he could wake up next to the woman he loved without wondering if today would be the day someone put a bullet in her head to get to him.
Isabella pursued the same goal. That same dream. That freedom. But she didn’t make it out.
She stops and swallows hard. I watch her throat move and see her blink rapidly, as if she’s fighting back tears she won’t allow herself to shed. As if showing that weakness would break her completely.
“We ran away together because I knew my father would never let me leave. I knew he would kill Ethan if he knew I loved him. So we ran, in the middle of the night, taking nothing but the clothes on our backs and the money Ethan had saved. We thought we could disappear. That we could outrun him.”
She laughs, but it’s bitter and hollow.
“We made it two days. Two fucking days before his men tracked us down and dragged us back, and threw us in the basement of my father’s estate.”
She goes quiet. A single tear slowly slides down her cheek. She doesn’t attempt to wipe it away; just lets it fall as if she doesn’t have the strength to stop it.
“What did he do, Bella?” I ask, even though I already know where this is heading.
“He killed him.” Her eyes meet mine and the pain in them is so raw and visceral that it makes my chest tighten.
“Right in front of me. He pulled me up by my hair and made me watch them beat Ethan. I begged for them to stop. Ethan pleaded for my life. Not his own life but mine. He begged my father to let me go. To spare me. Said he would do anything. He would take any punishment if he let me live.”
Her voice cracks and breaks apart.
“And my father. He just laughed and told Ethan that I was never in any danger. That I was his property. His blood and that my punishment was watching the boy I loved die and seeing his brains splatter across the concrete floor.”
Rage floods through me so quickly I can barely breathe. The image of her—eighteen years old, hair clenched in that monster’s hand—forced to watch the boy she loved beg, bleed, and die. All because she wanted what every person deserves: freedom, love, and a choice.
I want to kill him, not for strategy, power, or any of the reasons I have killed before, but for what he did to her—for the girl she was and the broken woman she stands as now.
I will gladly shoot Arturo Serrano in the head and make sure he understands why before he dies.
Another tear falls down her cheek. Then another.
“Then he pressed the gun to my temple and said that if I ever did anything he didn’t approve of again, he would do the same to me. That he would dump my body where no one would ever find it. That I belonged to him and I was to obey him for the rest of my life, or I would die.”
Fuck.
I know what that pain feels like to lose someone you love. Someone you need.
“Isabella.” Her name emerges softer than I have ever said it before. The anger has vanished, replaced by something that dangerously borders on tenderness.
“So no, Lorenzo,” she continues, her voice stronger now, steadier, but still tinged with that pain. “I did not give my father anything. I will never give him anything, because every time I look at him, all I see is the man who destroyed the only good thing I ever had.”
She takes a deep breath and steadies herself. Her hands tremble slightly.
“I went because he won’t stop calling and demanding that I go to him.
If I don’t show up, he’ll come here, and I don’t want him in this house.
In our space. So I went, stood across from him, and lied through my fucking teeth.
I told him I was a good little wife who doesn’t ask questions, then I got up and came home.
I never told him anything, Lorenzo. I swear to you.
I swear on Ethan’s grave.” She pauses. Her voice drops to something barely above a whisper.
“He doesn’t even have one. I have no idea where they put his body.
But I swear on whatever is left of him. On everything I have lost, I did not give my father a single thing. ”
My anger is still burning beneath my skin, but it’s not directed at Isabella. It’s for him, the monster who held a gun to his own daughter’s head. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her close to my chest and holding her there.
“You don’t ever have to go back there,” I say into her hair. “But next time, you need to tell me you are leaving.”
My hand comes up, still bloody, and I cup her face. My thumb brushes across her cheekbone, leaving a smear of red on her skin.
“I believe you,” I say quietly.
Relief washes over her face.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I lean down and press my forehead against hers. We stand here for a moment breathing in the same air. Her hands come to rest against my chest.
Mine. The word echoes through my head like a drumbeat. She is mine.
I have never loved any woman like this before. Never wanted to because love makes men weak. It makes them hesitate, second-guess themselves, or become vulnerable in ways that can get them killed in this world.
But I love her, fiercely and possessively, in a way that feels like madness and clarity all at once, as if I’m drowning and breathing for the first time.
I understand how fragile this is—how easily it can be torn apart, how quickly blood can spill, bodies can fall, and the things you cherish most can turn to ash in your hands.
I’ve seen it happen. Hell, I’ve caused it to happen to others by knowing how to destroy someone by taking away what they love most.
But she belongs to me now. She just proved it by showing me the scars she hides from everyone else.
And I will protect them with my life. I will eliminate anyone who tries to take her from me.
Her father. His soldiers. Anyone who even considers putting their hands on what belongs to me.
I will hunt them down one by one and make them suffer, beg and make them understand exactly what it costs to touch something that’s mine.
I will paint the streets red before I let them touch her.
I will stack bodies so high they block out the sun.
Because she is mine, and I protect what belongs to me. Always.