Chapter 29 Isabella
The day after Thanksgiving feels like the morning after a really good dream.
I wake in Nico’s bed. Warm sheets. Heavy quilt.
Fairy lights I’d strung around his dressing room casting a soft, golden glow through the crack in the door.
My body aches in all the best ways, a deep, satisfied hum beneath my skin.
My ribs twinge if I move too fast, but compared to the rest of me, they’re background noise.
The other side of the bed is empty but not cold. His scent clings to the pillow, that blend of cedar and something darker, like smoked wood and winter air. My fingers curl there for a second, right where his head was.
You’re gone but you were here. With me.
Last night feels like a movie, Christmas lights, turkey coma, my mother calmly bossing mobsters around in the kitchen, Letty falling asleep on my mandated couch cushions, Nico’s hand on my knee under the table, his thumb tracing lazy circles against my skin.
Then the quiet after, music low, my mom leaving with Rossi, Nico’s mouth on mine on the couch, his palm spread between my shoulder blades like he was holding me in place.
Then later, under the tree. I’m beginning to think he likes that tree more than I do. Or at least fucking me under it.
Yeah. That happened—again.
Heat floods my cheeks and I bury my face in the pillow, grinning like an idiot.
I’m so screwed.
The bedroom door opens. “You’re awake.”
I push myself up on my elbows and try not to look like someone who was just replaying his mouth between my legs in hi-def.
He steps in wearing dark slacks and a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, tie hanging undone around his neck. Completely put-together and a little wrecked at the same time. There’s faint stubble on his jaw, like he chose sleep, or maybe me, over shaving.
His eyes sweep over me in his bed, his t-shirt swallowing my body, hair a complete disaster. Something sparks there, hot and proprietary, before he reins it in.
“Hey,” I say, suddenly shy and absolutely hating that.
“Morning, Belle.” His voice softens. “How are you feeling?”
I stretch carefully. My thighs complain in a way that has everything to do with him and absolutely nothing to do with the fire or the attack. “Sore,” I admit. “In… a variety of places.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Good sore?”
“Very good sore.” My cheeks heat. “And my ribs are okay. Promise.”
He crosses to the bed, perches on the edge, and brushes his fingers over my hairline, tucking a strand behind my ear. The gentleness of it hits harder than the sex did, which feels unfair.
“I have to go into the office,” he says. “A few hours. Adriano wants to go over some contracts in person, and I need eyes on a couple of things.”
“It’s the holidays.”
Nico purses his lips. “Not for the boss it isn’t, and I won’t be long.”
My stomach dips stupidly. “Okay.”
“You’ll be here,” he says, like it’s a condition, not a suggestion. “Rossi’s downstairs. Two men in the lobby, two on this floor. You don’t open the door for anyone who isn’t me, Rossi, or one of my brothers. You need anything, you call me. You even think something is off, you call me.”
I snort lightly. “You forgot the part where I’m not to set anything on fire.”
“Don’t set anything on fire,” he agrees, deadpan.
“Or go on solo investigative missions?”
His eyes narrow the tiniest bit. “You’re mocking me.”
“A little. With love.”
He leans down and kisses me, slow and warm, the kind of kiss that steals my breath and rearranges my insides.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine for a beat. “I’ll be back this afternoon,” he murmurs. “We’ll pick up where we left off.”
Heat curls low in my belly. “Looking forward to it.”
He straightens, finishes knotting his tie, and when he glances back at me from the doorway, I feel it again, that stupid, dangerous tug in my chest. “Lock the bedroom door if you nap,” he says.
“Yes, Dad.”
His eyes darken with something that is absolutely not paternal. “Don’t call me that.”
I laugh. “Okay, sir.”
His hand flexes on the doorframe. “Careful, Belle. I still owe you a punishment.”
Then he’s gone.
Leaving me alone in his bed with warm sheets, a racing pulse, and the distinct thought that I’m in far, far too deep.
By late morning, the penthouse is quiet in that peaceful, holiday way. The tree glows in the corner. The wreath, my enormous, “fire hazard” wreath, is hanging triumphantly on the front door. It makes me inappropriately happy.
I make coffee. Work a little, laptop open at the island as I cross-reference old notes with the breadcrumbs Nico and Adi gave me.
Half the time, my mind drifts back to last night, to the way Nico looked standing in the kitchen with my mom, sleeves rolled up, doing exactly what she told him to, like some kind of grumpy, tattooed sous-chef.
My phone buzzes with a message from Casey in LA, Thanksgiving selfies, turkey disasters, her girlfriend in a burnt-pie crime scene. I send back a photo of the tree (carefully angled to avoid any incriminating mobster décor) and a vague “staying with a friend, long story” text.
A knock sounds at the door around noon. Three firm, evenly spaced raps.
“Who is it?” I call because I’m learning.
“Delivery. There’s a guy here that says he needs a signature from you.”
The voice is male. One of Nico’s men, the youngest member of the security team, who’s probably only nineteen or twenty.
Every instinct whispers no. This is wrong.
I step closer, keeping the door shut. “I didn’t order anything.”
“Complimentary gift from the building management,” a new voice replies. “Holiday gesture.”
Sure. And I’m the Queen of England. My heart rate spikes. “I’m good, thanks. Just send it back.”
Silence.
Then, a muttered curse and the sound of footsteps moving away down the hall. Where the hell is Rossi?
I back up, throat tight. After a second, I grab my phone with shaking fingers and hit Nico’s contact.
He answers on the second ring. “Belle?”
“There was someone at the door,” I blurt.
Instant tension wires into his voice. “Who?”
“He said he was from building management. I didn’t open it. He left.”
“Good.” There’s movement, a muffled voice in the background. “I’m calling Rossi. He’ll check the cameras and the floor. You did right. Do not open that door for anyone. I mean it.”
“I won’t,” I say. My palm is sweaty against the phone. “Nico?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m okay. Just… rattled.”
His voice gentles. “I know. Breathe. I’ll call you back in five.”
He hangs up before I can cling.
I set the phone down and take a breath. Then another. Then a third.
“It’s fine,” I tell myself. “Could’ve been nothing. Could’ve been a confused delivery guy. You’re safe. There are men in the hall, cameras everywhere. This isn’t your old building. This is different.”
My ribs twinge like they disagree.
I make tea. Because that’s what you do when your amygdala is screaming and you’re trying to be civilized about it.
Ten minutes later, Nico calls back. “Security saw a man on our floor, no uniform, carrying a box, talking to Simon, the new kid,” he says without preamble. “He never went near another floor. Only yours. By the time Rossi got to the exit, he was gone.”
Cold trickles down my spine. “Okay,” I whisper.
“There are more men outside now. They’re checking the stairwells and maintenance access. You stay inside. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
He exhales slowly, the sound of it rough in my ear. “I’m coming home.”
“No, don’t you dare. I know this meeting is important.”
“Not more important than you, Bella.”
I smile to myself. “That’s sweet, but I’m fine and if I think my being here is going to mess with your work, I’ll go and stay with my mother.”
“Over my dead body.”
“I mean it, Nico, take your meeting.”
I hear another deep sigh and can picture his frown. “Fine, but after this meeting, I’m coming home. Couple of hours, tops.”
“You don’t have t—”
“I want to.”
That should not make my eyes sting. And yet it does. “Okay,” I say softly. “I’ll be here.”
We hang up.
The rest of the afternoon passes in a haze of pretending I’m fine. I answer some emails, jot down notes, organize the ornaments we didn’t get to last night. I put on a movie in the background for noise.
By three, I’ve almost convinced myself it was a weird blip in an otherwise safe day.
That’s when the fire alarm goes off.
The shriek of it is instant and absolute, splitting the quiet in two. Red strobes flash along the ceiling, and a recorded voice kicks in over the speakers: “Attention. Attention. Please proceed to the nearest exit.”
My body reacts before my brain does.
One second, I’m standing in the living room, the next my heart is in my throat, my chest squeezed tight.
“Not again,” I whisper. “Please not again.”
The alarm keeps howling.
I grab my phone, shove my feet into the nearest shoes, and wrench the door open.
Rossi is already there, striding toward me from the far end, expression carved from stone. “Stairwell,” he says, taking my elbow, not roughly but firmly. “We’re going down. Now.”
“Nico…”
“Already knows,” he answers. “Elevators are locked in an alarm. We walk.”
The stairwell is chaos. Controlled chaos, but chaos all the same. Residents file down, some calm, some not. The wail of the alarms bounces off the concrete walls. My ribs clamp with every sharp breath.
Halfway down, the scent hits me.
That phantom smoke.
It’s not real. It’s in my head. I know it’s in my head.
My knees go weak anyway.
Rossi notices. Of course he does. He shifts, putting his broad body between me and the press of people behind us, taking some of the crush.
“Breathe, Isabella,” he says. His voice is steady, grounding. “In. Out. You’re all right. We’re just being cautious.”
“I know,” I rasp. “I know, I just…”
“You’re not alone. I’ll keep you safe.”
That almost breaks me.
We reach the lobby. Staff are herding people outside into the cold, clustering them behind the building while fire trucks pull up at the curb, lights flashing.