Isabella #2
Someone will soon discover the guard struggling on the floor and call for backup if they haven’t already.
I guide us to a recessed doorway nearly hidden around the next corner and press him flat against the wall behind me just as two enforcers pass the hallway junction carrying heavy wooden crates in their arms.
Matteo makes a tiny sound, barely perceptible, and presses into my back, his entire body shaking.
The men continue past us, their boots heavy against the floor as the crates creak in their arms. I hold perfectly still, every muscle locked as their retreating footsteps fade.
One of them laughs at something under his breath.
It is such an ordinary sound, so careless and human that rage flashes white behind my eyes.
When they disappear around the next corner, I count three silent beats.
Then I tug Matteo with me again and turn toward what I pray is a storage exit or a garage access to the outside.
There has to be one. Safehouses like this are built for discretion to keep things moving where police or enemies are least likely to see.
I find a door at the end of the next hallway and reach for the door handle, surprised to find it already unlocked. For one wild, blinding second, hope rises so quickly in my chest that I nearly choke on it. As I pull the door open, the last thing I’m expecting to see is a room encased in plastic.
For a moment, all I can do is blink at the bizarre display.
Milky sheets hang from the ceiling and walls, taped down in overlapping layers that ripple faintly from the movement of the door opening.
The floor is covered too, plastic stretched beneath dark smears that immortalize the boot prints that walked through it.
A single overhead light glows from the corner, turning the entire room into something out of a movie.
Through the milky film, I can see what looks like a figure hunched over. My stomach turns so violently, I have to tighten my grip on Matteo’s hand to keep from stumbling back. The figure inside the plastic-covered room moves suddenly, one twitch of a shoulder that freezes me in place.
The plastic distorts him, blurring the lines of his body and face from view, but something about the shape of him sends a cold chill sliding down my spine. My mind rejects it before I know what I am seeing.
No, no, no.
I take one step closer while letting go of Matteo’s hand, peeling back the first layer of plastic despite every survival instinct screaming at me to turn around and keep running in the opposite direction. The room seems to tilt as the figure finally comes into view.
He lifts his face slowly, the light catching the harsh lines of his bloodied and broken face. It’s a face I remember from my childhood, from family dinners and my father’s funeral, those last few days before he helped me flee Italy and I became nothing more than a memory.
“Uncle Giovano?” I choke out.
His head turns slowly toward the sound of my voice.
Suddenly, I am not in a safehouse anymore.
I am eight years younger, standing in my father’s study as rain patters against the windows outside.
Giovano is in front of me, one hand steady on my shoulder, his face pale but composed as he gives me a fake passport and visa and tells me I need to be careful.
That is the last time I ever saw and spoke to him.
And now I’m here again inside this safehouse, standing in front of him bound to a chair in a room lined with plastic sheets. A sound tears out of me, but I swallow the rest before it becomes a scream.
From behind me, Matteo says, “Mom?”
“Stay there,” I tell him, my voice harsh enough to keep him from coming over here. “Close your eyes. Don’t look.”
I move toward Giovano, each step torturously slow. His wrists are bound to the arms of the chair. His shirt is torn open at the collar and stained in dark streaks. Bruises mark his face and the floor beneath him is spotted with blood, some fresh and some dried into ugly brown smears.
My vision pulses red.
Alessio.
It has to be.
There is cruelty in Elio, I know that better than anyone now, but this room feels like Alessio’s mind made tangible. He has always had a strange signature when it comes to his torture methods—methodical and detailed in a way that I have found always borders on obsessive.
Giovano’s one good eye fixes on me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
A laugh breaks from me, ragged sounding. Of all the things to say, of course that is what he chooses. “I could say the same thing about you.”
His gaze shifts toward the hallway beyond the plastic. Even half-conscious and beaten, he looks terrified. “You need to go. Now, before they come back.”
That old familiar ache crashes through me so hard, I almost cannot breathe. I reach for his restraints, my fingers shaking despite my effort to steady them. “You’re coming with us.”
“No.” The word is weak, but firm.
My head snaps up. “Don’t start.”
His mouth twitches faintly, grotesque looking from being split and healing badly. But then his expression hardens. “Go, Isabella. They won’t be gone for long.”
“I’m not leaving you.” My fingers search the bindings, finding metal cuffs and not the zip ties like I’m expecting. I yank at them anyway, rage making me stupid for one second before discipline slams back into place.
The metal in my sleeve.
I pull it free and wedge the jagged edge into the cuff’s small locking seam. It is a terrible tool for this, too wide and blunt at the wrong point. My hands slip once and the serrated edge slices my thumb open. Blood wells instantly.
Giovano watches me with growing alarm. “Isabella.”
“Stop,” I grit through my teeth.
He shakes his head at me, the motion strained. “Climb out the window. There’s one just beyond the plastic there.” He gestures with his chin toward the wall on his left. “Go before they catch you and your boy.”
The metal slips in my hand again and clatters to the floor. My breath comes out too fast now, causing my pulse to stutter violently in my chest.
Giovano leans as close as the restraints allow. “Take him and go. Now.”
Tears well up in my eyes. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
His expression twists, and for one unbearable moment, I see my father in him. Not his face, exactly, but that old Russo authority that I’ve missed so desperately. It’s a ruthless love that expects obedience, demands it, because survival matters more than sentiment.
It always has in the eyes of my family.
Just as it does now.
“You are a mother before you are a niece,” he rasps. “Act like it.”
The words hit me like a slap to the face. Pain blooms in my chest, bright and savage, as I stare up at him through the tears threatening to fall.
He is right.
I know he is, and I hate him for it.
I want to save him because he is the only piece of my father that I have left. I want to tear these cuffs apart with my teeth and drag him out with us and make every Conti in this safehouse choke on the fact that they failed to finish what they started.
But my first duty is standing twenty feet away with his eyes squeezed shut because I told him not to look.
Giovano’s face softens the moment he sees me understand. “Your father would be proud of you.”
Tears slip down my cheeks. “Don’t you dare make this sound like a goodbye.”
He gives me a look so full of grief, I know before he speaks what he is about to say. “Everything in our world is goodbye eventually.”
A sound outside the room snaps both our heads toward the door.
Footsteps.
I turn quickly and shove the metal piece into his hand. I don’t know if there is any point in arming him to defend himself, but I can’t stand the idea of leaving him completely defenseless. I lean in close to wrap my arms around him quickly, hugging him.
For eight years I have trained myself not to mourn what I could not afford to carry. I buried Isabella Russo beneath Marina Hayes along with the memories of my father because every one of them came with teeth. Giovano leaning against me makes all of it rise to the surface once again.
I am not the woman standing in front of him, but rather, the little girl who used to sit by my father’s desk while he and Giovano argued strategy over maps and documents.
The teenager who pretended not to eavesdrop while they discussed alliances and betrayals.
The daughter standing beside her father’s grave with Giovano’s hand heavy on her shoulder, the only thing keeping me upright when grief tried to pull me under.
He is not supposed to be here like this, broken in a plastic-lined room still trying to save me.
His bound shoulder shifts hard against mine, shoving me back with what little strength he has left. “Go, Isabella. Out the window.”
I want to say I will come back for him. I want to believe there is a version of this escape plan where I get my son out of this place and still drag my uncle out of this slaughter room alive. But I am my father’s daughter. I know when a checkmate is about to be called.
My throat tightens until it feels impossible to swallow.
I step through the plastic again and grab Matteo’s hand. He stumbles when I yank him against me, my hand coming up to curl around the back of his head to press his face against my body before he can open his eyes too fully and see the full extent of Giovano's injuries.
Plastic crackles beneath our feet as we move carefully through the room to the other side of it.
The sound is too loud, but then again, everything is now.
My breathing, Matteo’s, Giovano’s ragged inhale behind us, the distant movement of men in the hallway outside, all of it grows closer with each passing second.
I feel my uncle’s eyes bore into us from behind.
I shove the last sheet of plastic aside when I reach the other side, and sure enough, there is a window.
Its warped wooden frame is chipped in places, the window dulled by dust, creating a frosted glass effect.
I let go of Matteo long enough to test it.
The frame groans but does not move. Panic crawls up my throat.