Chapter 015 Isabella
I woke up remembering exactly who I was supposed to be: a Moretti spy buried inside the Sokolov compound, not some heartbroken teenager who had once loved a boy who died. The distinction felt sharp enough to cut. I pushed myself out of Viktor’s bed while he was still gone and walked straight to his study.
The door stood unlocked. Arrogant, or simply exhausted—he knew I could pick any lock he owned, so why pretend? The room still carried his scent: cedar, leather, the faint metallic trace of last night’s rage. I inhaled once, let the smell settle, then shoved the reaction aside.
His desk looked like a bomb had gone off across it. Papers scattered, the usual ruthless order destroyed. Perfect. I found the Kuzmins file on top—meeting schedules, shipping manifests annotated in Cyrillic, guard rotations in his precise handwriting, weapons routes that could gut his operation if they fell into the right hands. I photographed everything with the burner Rocco had slipped me weeks ago.
Each flash of the screen felt heavier than the last. Three locations. Times. Numbers of men. One tap and the Morettis would have everything they needed to bleed the Sokolovs dry.
I stared at the send button.
Viktor’s face kept surfacing—eyes red, knuckles raw, unable to meet my gaze after he learned I had loved his brother. The man who had once pressed a blade to my throat couldn’t look at me now.
I dialed Rocco instead of sending.
“Sof?” His voice came alert instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just checking in.”
“That’s twice in two days. Talk.”
The truth jammed behind my teeth. I loved Dimitri. He loved me. He was going to warn me about something the night he died. I collapsed speaking fluent Russian. I’m starting to want the man who’s keeping me prisoner and I don’t know how to stop.
“I have new intel,” I said. My palm sweated against the phone. “Kuzmins meetings, updated security, weapons shipments. Better than the Barone package.”
“Send it.”
My thumb hovered. One motion. One betrayal.
“Sof.” Rocco’s tone hardened. “Send it.”
“I’m still confirming details.”
“You said that last time.” A pause. “Is he hurting you?”
He’s breaking me open, I thought. He’s making me question every oath I ever swore.
“No,” I lied. “I just need another day.”
“Time for what?”
I didn’t answer. There wasn’t one that wouldn’t damn me.
“Isabella.” The gentle register he used when I woke screaming from nightmares. “Whatever it is, tell me.”
The words slipped out before I could cage them. “There’s a connection. To the Russians. To me.”
Silence.
“What connection?”
“Dimitri Sokolov.” My voice sounded thin, foreign. “I knew him, Rocco. Before everything. He wrote about me in his diary—pages and pages about someone he called ‘S.’ It was me.”
A long exhale. “Jesus.”
“I blocked it. All of it. But the nightmares, the Russian I speak in my sleep—it was him teaching me. Always him.”
“Christ, Sof.”
“He was going to tell me something important the night before the massacre. I can’t remember what.”
Rocco’s silence stretched. Then: “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t change what they did. They killed Dad. They killed half our family.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because it sounds like you’re forgetting who the enemy is.”
The accusation struck clean. Was I? When Viktor’s hand brushed my cheek and my entire body leaned into it like a traitor, was that confusion or the clearest thing I’d felt in years?
“I’m not forgetting,” I said. “I just need to understand what I lost. What I promised him.”
“And after that?”
“I come home. With everything.”
The lie tasted like ash.
I ended the call and stared at the gallery of photographs—every secret that could save my family. Three taps and they were gone. Deleted. Irrecoverable.
I hated myself with a precision I usually reserved for enemies.
Back in the bedroom, morning light filtered through bulletproof glass. My body still ached from yesterday’s collapse, muscles stiff and sore. The door opened while I stood there, barefoot on cool hardwood.
Viktor looked like hell. Shirt wrinkled, collar open, stubble dark along his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot, exhaustion or tears—I didn’t want to know which.
He stopped when he saw me awake. Something crossed his face too quickly to name.
“I brought coffee.” He set the mug on the dresser instead of handing it to me, careful not to come too close.
“Thank you.”
He retreated a step. “How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“You collapsed—”
“I’m fine.”
Silence thickened between us.
“I have meetings,” he said, voice flat. “Stay here.”
“Viktor—”
“We’ll talk tonight.”
He left without looking at me again. The lock clicked.
I threw the mug against the wall. Ceramic exploded, coffee streaking down paint like dried blood. A shard skittered across the floor and stopped against my bare toes.
The day dragged. I showered, letting his soap sink into my skin until I smelled like him. The rough cotton dresses hung in the wardrobe like punishment. I ignored them. Found another of his shirts—white, soft from countless washes—and pulled it on. It fell to mid-thigh. I rolled the sleeves, buttoned it with shaking fingers.
The bonsai on his dresser drooped. I filled a glass with lukewarm water and poured slowly, watching the soil darken, the tiny leaves lift. Years of careful cuts to force beauty into someone else’s shape. I understood the tree more than I wanted to.
Evening light slanted gold across the room when the lock turned again.
Viktor stepped in and froze.
I sat cross-legged on his bed, bare legs gleaming, shirt riding high enough to promise everything and reveal nothing. My hair caught the light like a spill of gold.
His gaze traveled down, lingered, dragged back up. He swallowed hard.
“That’s my shirt.”
“I was tired of feeling like a prisoner.”
“You are a prisoner.”
“Not tonight.”
The air shifted, charged. He stayed by the door, shoulders rigid.
“We need to talk,” he said, voice rough.
“I know.”
“About Dimitri. About what you remembered.”
“I know.”
“Isabella—”
“I’ve thought about it all day.” I stood, walked toward him slowly. “About your brother. About what I forgot. About us.”
He didn’t move. I stopped close enough to smell smoke and city on his skin.
“And I still don’t have answers,” I said. “I don’t know what I promised him. I don’t know why I erased him. But I know one thing.”
“What?”
I met his eyes. “I’m tired of being the one on my knees.”
His breath caught.
“Come here.”
He hesitated, jaw muscle jumping. Every line of him vibrated with the need to refuse, to reassert control. But he didn’t.
“That wasn’t a request.”
I stepped forward. He flinched—as if expecting pain instead of what I intended. I pressed my palm to his chest and pushed. He yielded, letting me guide him backward until his knees hit the chair.
“Sit.”
He sat.
I straddled him in one motion, thighs clamping his hips, shirt riding higher. His hands flew to my waist, fingers digging in like he’d drown without the anchor.
I caught his wrists and pinned them to the armrests. He could have broken the hold in a heartbeat. He didn’t.
“No,” I said. “You don’t touch.”
His throat worked. Pupils swallowed the pale irises.
“Isabella…”
I leaned in, lips brushing his ear. “You’ve had me on my knees. You’ve made me bleed. You’ve taken everything you wanted.” I nipped his earlobe, felt him shudder. “Tonight I take something from you.”
He groaned, low and desperate. I felt him harden beneath me, unmistakable through fabric.
“Please,” he rasped. “Let me touch you.”
“Not yet.”
I rolled my hips slowly, savoring the way his control frayed. His head fell back, throat exposed, pulse hammering.
“You watched me for years,” I whispered. “All those photographs. All those nights outside my door. Did you touch yourself thinking about me?”
“Yes.” The confession tore out of him.
“Did you imagine this?”
“Everything.” His voice cracked. “Killing you. Fucking you. You saving me.”
The words hung raw between us.
I held his gaze. “You’re not the only one who can hurt, Viktor.”
I reached between us, opened his belt, freed him. He was hot and hard in my hand, skin velvet over steel. He gasped, hips jerking.
I stroked once, slow, merciless. “Do you know how many times I thought about this? In the basement. Eating from your hand. During that damned shoe fitting.”
“You thought about my cock while I made you bleed?”
I laughed, soft and cruel. “I thought about making you beg.”
His eyes went black with need. “Then make me.”