Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The walls are closing in.
I've been staring at the same four walls of my bedroom for three days and I can feel them getting smaller with each passing hour, pressing in from all sides until there's barely enough air to breathe.
I'm pacing again, the same path I've worn into the carpet over the last seventy-two hours, back and forth from the window to the door, door to window, my hands opening and closing at my sides because I need to do something with them and there's nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing except this room and these walls and the counting down of hours until I marry someone I don't love.
I make another circuit of the room and my breathing is coming too fast, shallow gasps that don't quite fill my lungs, and I know this feeling, recognize the edge of it, the way panic starts creeping in at the periphery before it takes over completely.
The door opens and Alessia slips inside, closing it quietly behind her.
She takes one look at me and her face does something complicated.
"Come sit down," she says gently.
"I can't sit down." My voice comes out sharper than I intend. "If I sit down I'm going to start screaming and I don't think I'll be able to stop."
"Isabella—"
"I need to leave this house." I stop pacing and look at her directly. "I need to go somewhere, anywhere, I don't care where. I just need to not be inside these walls for a few hours or I'm going to lose my mind."
She crosses to me and takes my hands, holding them firmly when I try to pull away.
"Breathe with me," she says. "In for four, hold for four, out for four."
"That's not going to help."
"Try it anyway."
I try it because she's looking at me with such concern that I can't refuse, and we breathe together for a minute, maybe two, and the panic pulls back slightly but doesn't disappear.
"Better?" she asks.
"No." I shake my head. "I appreciate what you're trying to do but breathing exercises aren't going to fix this. I need to move. I need space. I need—" My voice cracks. "I need to not be trapped in here counting down the hours until my life becomes something I don't recognize."
She looks at me for a long moment, searching my face, and then she nods once, decisive.
"I'll talk to Matteo."
"He won't let me leave."
"He will if I explain it properly." She squeezes my hands once more before letting go. "Just wait here. Don't do anything drastic."
She leaves and I go back to pacing because sitting still remains impossible, and I count the minutes until she comes back, and when she doesn't come back after ten minutes I start counting the seconds.
Fifteen minutes later the door opens again.
Matteo.
He stands in the doorway and looks at me and I watch him take in my face, my posture, the way my hands are shaking slightly at my sides, and his expression shifts into something I haven't seen from him in years.
Worry.
"Alessia said you're not doing well," he says quietly.
The understatement is so absurd I almost laugh. "I've been better."
He comes inside and closes the door and we stand there looking at each other, and I see him choosing his words carefully, weighing what to say.
"I'm sorry," he says finally. "For all of this. For the position you're in. For—" He stops. "I'm sorry, Isabella."
Something in my chest cracks.
"It's not your fault."
"It is, though. I'm the one who arranged this marriage. I'm the one who—"
"You're the one keeping this family alive." I cut him off gently. "You're doing what has to be done. We both know that."
He looks at me and his jaw tightens. "I wish there was another way."
"So do I." The words come out barely a whisper. "But there isn't. So, I need you to let me leave this house for a few hours before I run completely mad. Please, Matteo. I'm asking you as your sister, not as a Romano. Just a few hours."
He's quiet for a long moment, and I watch him war with himself, watch him weigh my safety against my sanity, watch him make a decision.
"The mall," he says finally. "Our mall. I'll close it to the public for the morning. You go with Enzo. You stay where he can see you at all times. You don't leave his sight for any reason. And you're back before noon."
Relief floods through me so fast I almost cry. "Thank you."
"Isabella." He stops me before I can move toward the door. "Are you sure you're okay? Really okay?"
I look at my brother and I think about lying, about giving him the easy answer that won't make him worry.
"No," I say honestly. "But I will be. I just need to breathe for a while."
He nods and pulls me into a hug, quick and tight, and then lets me go.
"Go. Before I change my mind."
Alessia finds me pulling clothes out of my closet ten minutes later.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"Trying to find something that makes me look like someone else."
She looks at the pile of generic clothes on my bed and wrinkles her nose. "Those are terrible. You'll look like you're actively trying to hide, which defeats the purpose."
"That is literally the purpose."
"No." She pushes me aside and starts pulling things from my closet with purpose. "The purpose is to make you unrecognizable while still looking good. There's a difference."
She pulls out a leather jacket I forgot I owned, a crop top that shows more skin than I usually prefer, jeans that sit low on my hips, and boots with a heel that makes my legs look longer.
"This is your disguise?" I look at the outfit skeptically. "I look like I'm going to a club, not a mall."
"Exactly. No one is looking for Isabella Romano to show up dressed like she's hunting for men. They're looking for the proper mafia princess in tasteful clothing." She grins. "This is perfect. Trust me."
"Alessia—"
"Put it on."
I put it on and when I look in the mirror I barely recognize myself. The clothes change my silhouette completely, make me look older and sharper and nothing like the version of me that appears in family photos.
Alessia hands me sunglasses and a baseball cap. "Hair down and messy. Not your usual style."
I pull my hair down and mess it up with my fingers until it looks deliberately careless, and when I'm done, even I have to admit she's right.
I don't look like me.
She steps back and assesses me with satisfaction. "Perfect. Now go have fun and try not to get caught having sex in a dressing room."
My face goes hot. "I'm not going to—"
"Please. You've been looking at Enzo like you want to devour him for days. I have eyes." She grins. "Just be careful. And maybe choose a dressing room without security cameras."
I leave before she can make it worse.
Enzo is waiting by the car and he does a double-take when he sees me.
"What are you wearing?" he asks.
"A disguise."
"You look like—" He stops.
"Like what?"
"Like trouble." His eyes move over me slowly, taking in the leather jacket and the exposed skin and the boots. "Like someone I shouldn't be alone with."
"Good thing we're going somewhere public then." I grin and get in the car before he can respond, watching him stand there for a moment with his jaw tight before he gets in the driver's side.
We drive in silence for the first ten minutes.
Then he says: "That outfit is dangerous."
"It's just clothes, Enzo."
"Nothing you wear is just clothes." He keeps his eyes on the road. "And that specifically is designed to make men stupid."
"Is it working?"
He glances at me briefly. "What do you think?"
The air in the car gets heavier.
The mall is empty when we arrive, all the lights on but silent, just us and the security guards stationed at the entrances who nod at Enzo as we pass.
I step out of the car and the space opens up around me, vast and quiet and temporarily mine, and I feel something in my chest loosen for the first time in days.
"Thank you," I say.
"For what?"
"For not making this difficult. For just bringing me here."
"I know how tough this is." His voice is quiet. "I know what that feels like."
We walk inside and I just breathe for a moment, taking in the open space, the emptiness, the freedom of movement after days of being contained.
Then I start walking.
Not toward anything specific, just moving through the space, and it feels like permission to exist outside the walls of that house, outside the countdown, outside everything except this moment.
I drift into a bookstore and spend twenty minutes just browsing, pulling books off shelves, reading back covers, putting them back. Enzo follows at a distance and doesn't rush me.
In a cosmetics store I test lipsticks on my wrist, bright colors I never wear, and when I find one that's almost obscenely red, I turn to him.
"What do you think of this one?"
He looks at my wrist, then at my mouth. "I think you'd look good in it."
"Should I buy it?"
"Are you going to wear it?"
"Probably not."
"Then no."
I laugh and it feels strange and wonderful, the sound echoing in the empty store. "You're very practical."
"One of us has to be."
We wander through a home goods store and I pick up ridiculous things, a throw pillow shaped like a cactus, a mug that says "I'm silently correcting your grammar," a set of coasters that look like miniature pizzas.
"You're not buying any of this," Enzo observes.
"I don't want to buy it. I just want to look at it and remember that the world has ridiculous objects in it." I pick up the cactus pillow again. "Although this is kind of charming."
"It's a cactus."
"It's a pillow cactus. There's a difference."
"Is there though."
"You have no sense of whimsy."
"I have plenty of whimsy. I just direct it toward useful things."
"Like what?"
"Like making sure you don't buy a pillow shaped like a plant."
I laugh again and he smiles, small and genuine, and we keep walking.
In a clothing store I find a section of scarves and I'm running my fingers over the silk when he stops beside me.
"That one," he says, pointing to a dark, emerald green.
"Why that one?"
"It matches your eyes."
I pick it up and hold it against my skin and he's right, it does.
"You're observant."