Chapter 5 #2
"You're alive," I counter. "There's a difference."
Isabella stands abruptly like something has snapped inside her. She paces the room. "This is exactly what I've been trying to escape my entire life! The control, the rules, the constant surveillance.”
I watch her, trying to understand her.
She stops, looks me squarely in the eyes. “I don’t want any of this. I want to live free of all this.”
“Then you shouldn’t have gone to the FBI to ask about your mother and forced La Corona’s hand.”
Her eyes close and she almost looks defeated. I don’t like it. I find myself wanting to ease her burden, if only slightly.
“Look, I understand wanting something different," I say, my voice quieter now. "But running to the FBI was never going to free you. It was only going to get you killed."
She stares at me looking a bit lost.
I nod toward the bed. “Get some rest.”
“What about—”
“Don’t worry about that now. Tomorrow, we’ll figure out how to coexist." I move toward the door. "I have two priorities in this life, Isabella—my work and my daughter. Everything else is negotiable. Remember that, and we might just survive this arrangement."
I exit the room, shutting the door behind me. I head to my office, as I usually do each night. I pour a glass of whisky and replay our conversation.
Isabella's conviction troubles me.
She truly believes the Calabresi family murdered her mother.
While I know it's bullshit, someone's gone to great lengths to make her believe it. And that someone has FBI connections.
I knock back my drink in one burning swallow and pull out my secure phone. Marco answers on the second ring.
"It’s your wedding night—”
“You know this marriage is bullshit.” I sink into my chair behind my desk. "My new bride was on a burner phone with her FBI contact when I caught her."
"Fuck." The single word carries the weight of all the complications this creates.
"There's more." I rub my temple where a headache is forming. "She claims to have proof that we killed her mother."
"What? That's absurd."
"I know. But she believes it. Completely." I take a breath. "Someone's been feeding her information, Marco. Doctored evidence, maybe. Enough to convince her that we're responsible."
"Who would benefit from turning Leonardo against us?"
"That's what I need to figure out." I hesitate to ask my next question, but I need to know. “Look… is there something I don't know? Something that happened with Isabella's mother that never made it to me?"
The silence on the other end of the line stretches long enough that I wonder if we've lost connection.
"Are you asking if I had her killed?" Marco's voice drops dangerously low.
"I'm asking if there's anything I should know before I start digging," I clarify, though I know he sees through my attempt to soften my accusation. "This girl believes with absolute certainty that we're responsible."
"And you think I might have ordered a hit on a Don’s wife without telling my right-hand man?" The edge in his voice could cut glass. "A woman married to a man I've known since childhood?"
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Marco—"
"No, Roman. After everything we've been through, you think I'd keep that from you? Or worse, that I'd be stupid enough to make such a move in the first place?" His voice rises slightly before he gets it under control. "Why would I do anything to Leonardo's wife? What possible reason could I have?"
"I need all the facts if I'm going to handle this."
"The fact is," Marco says coldly, "I had nothing to do with her death. Neither did anyone else in our family. And I don't appreciate the implication that I'd lie to you about it."
My infraction is big enough to warrant a bullet, but I also don’t believe I’ll get one. “I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
After a moment, he says, “You look into this, Roman. If someone is fucking with me or La Corona, I want to know.”
“I will get to the bottom of it.”
I hang up with Marco, the tension of our conversation leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
Twenty-five years of loyalty, and one question threatens to crack the foundation.
I pour another drink and pull out Isabella's burner phone. The passcode screen mocks me, but this isn't my first rodeo. I'll have my tech guy crack it tomorrow.
For now, I focus on what I already know.
Isabella believes we killed her mother.
The FBI is involved.
Those two facts circle each other in my mind.
Which came first? Did Isabella reach out to the Feds with her suspicions, or did they approach her? The distinction matters.
If she sought them out, it means she developed her theory independently.
But if they approached her, that suggests something more calculated, a deliberate attempt to drive a wedge into La Corona.
I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. And why is the FBI suddenly interested in her death?
Unless it was never about her death at all. Unless her death is just convenient leverage.
I pull out a notepad and start jotting down what I know about Isabella's FBI contact.
She has a burner phone and regular contact, suggesting she’s being managed, not assisted.
She clearly doesn’t want to be in our world, which indicates she expected to be protected, maybe even put into witness protection when she tried to run off the other night.
Is that what she was doing tonight?
Trying to get him to extract her from me?
If that’s the case, she’s important to them. She’s not a victim. She's a source of information.
Isabella doesn’t strike me as stupid, but she’s clearly got a blind spot around her mother’s death and someone is taking advantage of that. They’re using it to get information.
But what’s their endgame? Arrest us? Or perhaps turn La Corona against itself?
I'll find the truth.
And if someone is targeting us through Isabella, they've made a critical mistake.
They've brought the fight to my doorstep, and I never lose.