Isabella #4
I’ve done it before, I can do it again. But now I have a seven-year-old who is too curious for his own good and will be asking me questions. The first time I ran, I had been terrified, of course.
I had vanished because I had to, and necessity had made anything possible.
This time, though, there is a boy with soccer practice and a teacher who sends home gold stars on his spelling quizzes. One who believes this home is permanent because I made it look that way.
Uprooting him now will not just mean fleeing. It will mean breaking something in him I have spent seven years trying to protect.
But… broken trust is better than spilled blood.
Davide visiting my home has opened some can of worms I still cannot fully wrap my head around. That much is obvious now. His presence alone was a signal, a stone thrown into still water.
Tracking me down has stirred attention in my direction from someone clearly involved with him.
Maybe the family moving in on his territory has been sifting through old alliances to find a pressure point and mine surfaced the second Davide knocked on my door looking for help.
Perhaps whoever is outside thinks they can scare me into not taking Davide up on his offer despite already refusing it to begin with.
That would fit the logic of the world I came from.
A first no is rarely treated as a final answer by men raised on never accepting no, especially not when they believe the person saying it still has value.
Any syndicate worth their salt knows threats are the only true way to get people to comply.
I cross the kitchen and head for the living room, the folding chair heavy against my shoulder. I slip it down my arm and settle it next to the dining table, my thoughts moving too fast to settle anywhere for more than a second at a time.
Cash. Our documents. Matteo’s school things. His stuffed shark. I’ll have to get in touch with my old contact about getting new papers. Leave before dark or after? Call my contact before or after we settle? Avoid the highway. Keep the route irregular. Stop for gas now or farther north?
It is a grave mistake not to notice the sudden silence that has fallen over my house.
An even graver one to forget, even for one distracted heartbeat, the sound of my son racing down the hallway toward his room.
The familiar thud-thud-thud of him yanking open his dresser too hard and the running commentary he usually provides to himself when he is in a hurry.
I have listened to those sounds so many times, they should be stitched into my entire nervous system.
It is not until I reach the threshold of the living room that my eyes finally lift from the floor.
Within one single moment, my entire world shifts on its axis. Because sitting on the couch, with men surrounding him on all sides, is a man I never, ever thought I would see again.
For a second, my body completely freezes. Every organ, nerve, even the beat of my own heart has been violently interrupted by the sight of him in my home, in my life, in the place I built specifically to keep him and his world out.
He sits in my home like he has always belonged here—one ankle resting over the opposite knee, broad shoulders relaxed beneath a dark coat, one hand draped loosely along the back of the couch as if this is a social visit and not an invasion.
The room bends around him as if the center of gravity has no choice but to shift wherever he decides to place himself.
Those dark eyes pin me in place.
They move over me slowly.
Assessing.
It is so familiar, it hurts.
It sweeps over my face, my clothes, the keys still clutched in my hand, the tension bracing every line of my body. It feels like he is reading me down to my very bones, stripping away the years one quiet observation at a time.
When his lips finally part, the voice that comes out is the same timbre I remember falling in love with more than eight years ago.
“Hello, Isabella.”
This is not possible.
Not here.
Not after all these years.
Not after everything.
My eyes tear away from him and latch onto the figure standing nearest the couch, and the world suddenly shifts into a whole other nightmare.
One of the men has a hand gripped tightly on Matteo’s shoulder, pinning him in place beside the armchair.
His face is turned toward me, his honey-gold eyes wide and wild with confusion and fear, his chest rising too fast. His gaze darts around the room as he tries to understand why half a dozen strangers are in his house and why one of them just called his mother by a name he has never heard before.
Instinct surges through me like lightning. I lunge forward so fast, my vision narrows to that single point. “Get away from him!”
I do not think.
I move.
The first man reaches for me and I drive my elbow hard into his stomach with all the force I can gather, the keys in my hand stinging against my skin.
The impact jars up my arm with a brutal, satisfying thud, and he folds enough for me to break past him. A second body comes at my side and I throw my keys at his face before slamming my knee upward blindly, catching him hard enough that he curses and doubles over.
Someone grabs at my wrist, but I rip free and claw at the next one in my path.
A lifetime of training buried under years of civilian life comes roaring back to life within seconds. My father’s voice cuts through the chaos in my head, crisp as broken glass dragging against freshly exposed skin.
Never go quietly, Isabella. Make them bleed before they take you.
So I do.
I fight like a cornered animal.
But unfortunately, as I’ve come to learn time and time again, brute force overwhelms strategy as it does too often.