Chapter 020 Isabella
The Moretti compound smells of garlic and pesto, thick and comforting, and for one merciless instant I forget what I have become.
Viktor's driver deposited me around the corner exactly as ordered, then vanished into the night without a word. Midnight, Viktor had whispered against my temple in the steam of the shower, his palms still branding my waist. Not a minute later. The promise—part threat, part plea—dogs every step I take up the stone path I have known since childhood.
My heels strike the familiar stones. Past the fountain where Alessandro and I chased fireflies. Through gardens where Rocco taught me to balance a blade on moonlight. Each footfall is a memory, a ghost. I am walking through the museum of the girl I used to be: Isabella Moretti, cherished sister, guarded princess, hidden weapon.
Now I wear a different skin. One that woke tangled in Russian sheets, marked by Russian hands, carrying Russian secrets I will never surrender.
Warm light spills from the windows like melted gold. Through the glass I glimpse movement—my family alive, breathing, unaware that their lost lamb is returning in silk that conceals the enemy’s teeth.
I raise my hand to knock.
The door explodes open.
"SOFIA!"
Alessandro, of course. Always first to laugh, to forgive, to carry the unbearable. He hauls me into his arms, lifts me clean off the ground, spins me once the way he did when we were children. His pomade—special order from Milan—fills my nose, familiar and heartbreaking.
"Jesus Christ, Sof." He sets me down but keeps hold of my shoulders, green eyes sweeping my face for cracks. "I saw you on the cameras and thought I was seeing things. How the hell did you get out? Matteo’s had extraction plans stacked to the ceiling."
The lie slides out smooth as silk. "Found a gap. Third-floor service corridor. I have maybe four hours before they notice I’m gone."
He glances at the gown, the heels. "And you chose evening wear for your daring escape?"
I shrug. "A girl has standards."
"That’s my girl." His smile falters, though. He sees something. "You look…"
"Tired?"
"Different." He decides not to press, not yet. Alessandro has always known which battles to pick. "Come on. Maria’s been stress-cooking since you vanished. She’ll weep when she sees you."
The foyer wraps around me like an embrace I no longer deserve: fresh lilies in crystal, the ghost of Matteo’s afternoon espresso, faint piano notes drifting from upstairs—Enzo, translating grief into music the only way he knows how.
"SOFIA ROSETTI!" Maria’s shout barrels from the kitchen, followed by a torrent of Italian about skinny girls and useless men who can’t feed anyone properly.
My throat closes. This is home. Was home. Now it feels borrowed, like a coat that no longer fits.
Matteo appears at the end of the hall, still as a statue carved from night. Il Silenzio, they called him, long before they learned silence can kill. His dark gaze performs its silent inventory: posture, breathing, the angle of my shoulders. Searching for fractures, for proof of what Viktor Sokolov might have done.
He will find none on the surface. The real wounds are deeper, invisible, permanent.
"Isabella."
Just my name, heavy with relief and rage and questions he banks for later. He opens his arms. I step into them, let the familiar bergamot and cedar and gun-oil scent fold around me. His hands slide over my arms through the silk—subtle, practiced—checking bones, checking bruises.
"I’m okay," I murmur into his shoulder.
He draws back, eyes searching mine. "Are you?"
No. I am galaxies from okay. But I give him the small, steady smile he needs.
The others arrive like summoned shadows.
Enzo emerges from the music room, silent, eyes speaking everything his voice cannot. His hug is careful, deliberate. He smells of cigarettes and the cologne Ana buys him in bulk. When he releases me, his gaze lingers on my throat where concealer hides Viktor’s fingerprints. Enzo always sees too much.
Gianni lounges against the staircase, that crooked smile playing at his mouth. "Little sister. Still breathing, I see."
"Disappointed?"
"Never." He unfolds himself, moves in with loose, lethal grace. His embrace is brief, but his pale eyes—mirror-bright—catalog every shift in me. "You’re different."
"It’s been a long week."
"Bored without you," he says. "Matteo won’t let me burn the Sokolov compound down. I had pyrotechnics planned."
"I’m sure it would have been spectacular."
"Art," he corrects, pouting theatrically. Then he leans close, inhales. "You smell different."
My pulse stutters. "What?"
"Different soap. Different…" He sniffs again, theatrical. "Man."
Ice floods my veins.
"I’ve been living in his house, Gianni. Of course I smell different."
"Mm." He produces a knife from nowhere, spins it lazily between his fingers. "Be careful, little sister. Enemies have a way of crawling under the skin. And then—" He draws the blade across his own throat in a playful arc. "Messy."
"Is that advice or a threat?"
"Yes." He grins, all teeth, and saunters off.
Then Rocco.
He stays in the dining-room doorway, arms folded, hazel eyes reading me like an after-action report. He does not rush forward. He simply watches, measures, mourns.
"Rocco," I say, and my voice cracks on the single word.
Only then does he cross the distance. No hug. He cups my face in callused hands—gun calluses, knife calluses, the careful violence he taught me—and forces me to meet his gaze.
"You’re lying about something."
My heart stops. Nine years of absolute truth have made him fluent in every flicker of my expression.
"Rocco—"
"Later," he says quietly. The promise in it twists my stomach. "Eat first. Maria will murder us if the food gets cold."
The dining room is chaos and warmth and everything I am about to betray.
Ana bounces four-month-old Antonia on her lap; the baby grabs fistfuls of her mother’s dark hair with solemn concentration. Faith sits heavy with pregnancy—eight months, perhaps more—Gianni’s hand resting lightly on her shoulder to keep her seated. The casual protectiveness pierces me. Even my most broken brother has found something tender to guard.
Emma rises despite Alessandro’s protest, moving with the careful determination of someone recently healed from a bullet meant for me. Guilt slams through me.
"I’m so glad you’re safe," she whispers, arms around me. I want to confess everything, to warn her I am the opposite of safe.
"How’s the wound?" I manage.
"Better. Driving Alex insane." She pulls back, studies me with eyes that survived captivity long before I ever tasted it. "Sit beside me."
I obey. Bad choice. Emma has always seen too clearly.
"You don’t have to pretend with me," she murmurs beneath the roar of voices. "I know what it’s like to be torn between worlds."
My fingers freeze around the water glass Alessandro presses into my hand. "I don’t know what you mean."
"I was a servant who fell for a Moretti." Her voice stays soft. "Everyone said it was wrong. That I was betraying everything. Sometimes the heart refuses sides."
"Emma—"
"I’m not asking for confession." She meets my eyes. "I’m only saying you’re not alone. And you’re not as good a liar as you believe."
Maria sweeps in with platters that smell like every celebration of my life: ragu rich enough to coat the soul, bread still steaming, lemon-caper pasta reserved for victories and homecomings.
"Too skinny!" she declares, heaping my plate. "What do those Russians feed you? Air and misery?"
If only she knew. This afternoon Viktor fed me strawberries in bed, one by one, watching my lips close around each berry. Juice ran down my chin; he licked it away slowly, deliberately, until I was gasping his name against his mouth, thighs trembling, begging for more than fruit.
"The food is adequate," I say, forcing a bite past the knot in my throat.
"Bah. Adequate is for enemies. You need soul food." She pinches my cheek as though I am still five. "Tiramisu later. Your favorite."
The ordinary kindness nearly undoes me. Here is my family—whole, loud, loving—while I sit among them having already chosen their enemy twice over. I deleted intelligence that could have fortified our empire. I carry his marks beneath silk. I will walk out that door at midnight and return to him.
I pray for the strength to let the clock strike twelve and stay. I already know I lack it.
Matteo’s voice cuts through the chatter, calm and absolute. "Tell us about the compound."
Silence falls, even Antonia seeming to sense the shift. Every gaze turns to me—brothers who trust me, wives who love me, a table I am about to lie across.
I deliver the rehearsed lines: guard rotations already obsolete, protocols Viktor altered the moment I left, east-side cameras with a lag he mentioned upgrading tomorrow. Bones without meat. Useless gifts.
"The compound is a fortress," I say, cutting pasta I do not taste. "Three separate security perimeters. Electronic locks on every interior door."
"Weaknesses?" Rocco asks. His eyes track the faint tremor in my fingers around the fork.
"East side has older cameras. Slight delay in coverage."
A truth that will be false by morning.
"And Sokolov himself?" Matteo’s tone remains neutral, but his gaze is surgical. "His state of mind?"
Obsessed. Possessive. In love with me, though he has not said it aloud.
"Controlled," I answer. "Strategic. Still grieving his brother. It drives every decision."
"Is he…" Alessandro hesitates—an uncharacteristic pause. "Is he hurting you?"
The question hangs like a guillotine.
Ana’s hand stills on Antonia’s back. Faith’s fingers tighten around Gianni’s. Emma watches me with gentle pity.
"No," I say, and the lie emerges steady. "He needs me alive. Leverage."
But leverage is no longer the reason. He needs me breathing because without me he no longer wishes to breathe.
"There’s more you’re not telling us," Matteo observes, setting down his wine.
"There’s always more." I take another bite I do not taste. "I’m still gathering."
Alessandro jumps in, bless him. "Speaking of gathering—did I tell you about Detroit?"
"The shipping container?" Gianni leans forward, manic light igniting.
"Better." Alessandro grins. "There was a goat."
Eleanor laughs. "There was not a goat."
"There was absolutely a goat." Alessandro’s eyes sparkle. "Supplier claims delay due to ‘livestock complications.’ I’m thinking port authority dogs. Nope. Literal goat. In the container. With our weapons."
"You’re lying," Eleanor insists, already smiling.
"Gianni was there."
Gianni nods solemnly. "Magnificent creature. Ate through three crates. I wanted to adopt it."
"We are not keeping a goat," Matteo says, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
"You never let me have pets," Gianni complains.
"You have seventeen knives," Enzo signs.
"Knives aren’t cuddly."
"Neither are goats."
Laughter erupts, bright and uncomplicated, and for one fragile moment I am simply their sister again, not the traitor wearing her skin.
But Rocco watches. He notes that I push food around more than I eat. He clocks the way my free hand drifts to my throat, tracing invisible fingerprints. He sees everything.
"I need air," I say abruptly, chair scraping.
"I’ll come," Rocco says at once.
Matteo glances between us, reads the tension, nods. "Ten minutes."
The terrace doors close, muffling the warmth. Chicago night presses close, humid and electric with coming storm. I grip the stone railing until it bites my palms—small pain to anchor me against the larger one.
"You’ve lied to me twice," Rocco says behind me. No preamble. Straight to the artery. "On the phone. And tonight at that table."
I cannot face him. "Rocco—"
"Nine years, Sof. Nine years of nothing but truth between us." His voice carries every dawn run, every shared silence, every night he held me together after nightmares of blood and Russian commands. "Why are you breaking it now?"
The words land like blows.
"I can’t," I whisper.
"You mean you won’t."
"I mean I can’t." My voice splinters. "Because telling you would change everything."
"Something already has." He steps beside me. In the glass I see his reflection—tired, grieving. "I can’t lose you. Not to him."
"You won’t lose me." I turn, try for lightness. "I’m still the girl who can’t whistle and does terrible bird calls."
He almost smiles. Almost.
"If he hurts you—"
"You’ll storm the compound with Gianni and his goat. I know."
"I’m serious, Isabella."
"So am I." I take his hand, squeeze. "I have to go back tonight. And you have to let me. I’ve escaped before. I can do it again if I must."
Another lie, smooth as the last.
"Will you at least tell me if you’re in real danger?"
"Yes." This promise I can keep. "That one I’ll keep."
He pulls me into a hug—tight, fierce, desperate.
"I love you, little bird."
"I love you too."
And I am so sorry for every way I am about to shatter your heart.