Chapter 31 Isabella
I wait until the door clicks shut behind him before I let my knees wobble.
Then I head straight for the dresser, yank open the top drawer, and pull out one of Nico’s t-shirts. It smells like him, clean and sharp and warm, and I tug it over my head like armor.
Okay. Step one: breathe.
Step two: don’t throw up thinking about the rat.
Step three: work.
If trauma has taught me anything, it’s that doing nothing is my personal hell. I need motion. Purpose. Something to poke at that isn’t the inside of my own skull.
I grab my notebook from the nightstand and settle cross-legged on the bed, spine against the headboard, pen in hand.
The tree lights cast soft colors across the room, blinking gently like the world hasn’t shifted an inch.
Having a Christmas tree in here had been a hard sell, but after the fun we’d with the one in the living room, Nico had agreed and ordered it.
Now it’s giving me comfort when my heart wants to beat out of my chest. Yesterday was perfect, and it feels a million miles away now.
Pushing back my shoulders, I lift my chin and remind myself who I am.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Let’s play.”
I start with the obvious: today.
Just before noon: knock at the door. Three raps. Man’s voice: “Delivery.”
Declined.
Heard him walk away. No other doors, no other knocks.
Texted Nico. He called Rossi. Extra men on floor.
~12 p.m.: fire alarm.
My pen hovers.
I force it down.
Rossi at my door fast. Stairwell. Controlled panic. Lots of residents, no visible smoke, no smell.
Outside ~15–20 minutes. Fire trucks. No flames. No smoke. “False alarm.”
My hand tightens around the pen.
Back up with Rossi and two firefighters. Penthouse unlocked by building manager. Rat on table. Dead. Bleeding. Scrap of my article under its paw.
I pause, then write the word that’s been circling since I saw it.
Not random.
No part of this is random.
I flip to a clean page and start building the bigger picture we’ve been sketching for days, filling in the new piece.
Pattern so far:
Article drops.
Tip came through an encrypted email from someone claiming to be “inside ISM.”
Data checked out. Contracts, companies, whisper trails.
I now know someone else put that package together. Likely Orlov’s people, possibly funneled through the “uncle.”
Use me to destabilize Nico, drag old mud back up, soften him for a hit.
Car “accident” on street.
Goal: scare me off story.
Apartment attack.
Same guy. Orders escalated: “Make it personal.”
Goal: beat me into silence or out of New York completely.
Result: Nico intervenes. Oleg taken, interrogated.
Names dropped: Orlov. “Uncle.”
Nico tells me part of it. Not all. I know that. I let it go, for now.
Thanksgiving peace.
Too calm. The eye of the storm.
Today: “delivery” + false alarm + rat + my own words thrown back at me.
Rat = snitch.
Article quote = debts, interest, money.
They want me to know this is about the past and the piece I wrote.
They want Nico to know they can walk into his home whenever they feel like it.
My stomach flips but my brain feels… clearer.
Fear and anger make a vicious cocktail, but they’re great for focus.
I add another line at the bottom.
Goal: isolate me emotionally.
Make me feel unsafe everywhere.
Make me doubt that staying with the Mancinis is safer than running.
Make me a liability instead of an asset.
“Joke’s on you,” I tell the page. “I’m stubborn.”
There’s a soft knock at the bedroom door.
“It’s me,” Adi calls.
“Come in.”
He opens the door just enough to step through, closing it behind him with that quiet care he always has, like he’s afraid noise might disturb his peace.
He looks more tired than last night. Shirt sleeves rolled, tie gone, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion.
“Rossi said you’re working,” he says, nodding at the notebook.
“Always,” I answer. “I’m drafting the ‘I survived a mob rat’ piece. Working title: ‘Cheese, Trauma, and You’.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Very funny.”
“I have my moments.”
He comes closer, hands in his pockets. “Nico asked me to check on you. And to see if you’re up to going over some things when he’s done with the footage.”
“Translation: are you stable enough to examine your own trauma for clues?” I say dryly.
“Something like that.”
“I’m good.” I pat the bed beside me. “Sit. Help me turn my near-death experiences into data.”
He hesitates only a second, then sits on the edge of the mattress, leaving a respectful amount of space.
I turn the notebook so he can see. “This is everything from today. Plus the overall pattern.” I tap the page. “They’re scaling. First shove, then attack, then fire, now psychological warfare in our own safe place. It’s chess. They’re trying to herd us.”
“Into what?” he asks.
“A mistake,” I say. “Nico rushing Orlov without proof. You cutting off a legit contract that looks dirty but isn’t. Matteo taking something personally at the clubs and getting himself in trouble. Me…” I shrug. “Running. Breaking. Taking myself off the board.”
Adi studies me. “Are you going to?”
“Run?” I ask. “No.”
“Break?”
“Maybe a little in the shower,” I admit. “But not in a way that helps them.”
“Good,” he says simply.
He reaches out then, surprising us both, and squeezes my hand once. It’s quick, awkward, but warm.
“You being here,” he says, “is… good. For him. For all of us, actually. Matty is calmer when you’re around. Letty adores you. Mom would have liked you.”
Emotion hits like a punch and I swallow hard around it. “I like being here,” I say. “Rat décor excluded.”
He huffs a soft laugh.
“And I know you’re all trying to protect me,” I add, “and I appreciate it. But I need you to understand I’m not just… cargo. I can help. I want to help. If they’re using my work and my name and my face as a weapon, I get a say in where it points next.”
“We know,” he says. “Nico knows. That’s why he keeps giving you pieces instead of locking you in a tower.”
“Rapunzel would have cut a bitch,” I say.
“Exactly.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a moment, both looking at the scribbles in my notebook.
“Question,” I say.
“Mm?”
“When you pulled me off the Ledger, when Patrick agreed to shelve me, did you expect it would look like this?”
Adi’s mouth tilts. “We expected you’d hate it.”
“I do,” I say. “But it also… opened space. For this.” I gesture between us, around us, to everything. “I’m not sure I would have let myself see who Nico really is if I were still chasing bylines and pretending I didn’t care.”
“Do you regret it?” he asks quietly.
“No,” I say, surprised at how fast the word comes. “Not the article. I regret how it happened, how I spun it so you were the bad guys, but I don’t regret the truth we pulled out of it. And not this.” I look at him. “Do you?”
He shakes his head once. “My brother is… different with you. Lighter. More focused, in a strange way. He’s always been good at carrying weight, but you make him put some of it down.
We need that if we’re going to get through this without becoming the men our father was trying to keep us from.
We would have also been in the dark about the threats coming at us.
It happened all wrong, but at least we can fight what we can see. ”
Warmth spreads under my ribs, soft and aching.
My throat tightens. I look down at my notes so I don’t do something ridiculous like cry.
“Okay,” I say, clearing my throat. “So. Step one: I refine this timeline. Step two: you and Nico cross-check it against contracts and old debts. Step three: you let me help interview whoever you’re pulling from the clubs, even if it’s behind a glass wall like a true crime documentary. ”
Adi gives me a look. “We’ll see about step three.”
“Compromise,” I say. “Let me listen. You and Rossi do the scary questions. I can hear lies. It’s a journalist thing. And if you insist I stay here, then, for God’s sake, let me harass people on the phone at least.”
“We can do that,” he says. “Phone calls. No in-person meetings without us. As long as Nico agrees.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
The front door opens and closes, the sound faint through the walls, followed by the rumble of a familiar voice. Nico.
Adi stands. “He’ll want to see your notes.”
“He can have them,” I say. “After I get a kiss.”
Adi makes a face. “On that note, I’m going back to my contracts. They’re less disgusting.”
“Liar.”
He actually smiles as he heads for the door.
When he’s gone, I set the notebook aside and slide off the bed, suddenly hyper-aware that I’m in Nico’s t-shirt again. My hair is a mess. My heart is a war drum.
He appears in the doorway like I conjured him.
Eyes first, dark, sharp, scanning. Then shoulders tight but not as rigid as when he left. His tie is gone entirely now, his shirt open at the throat.
He looks at me, and some of the tension in his face eases.
“How bad?” I ask.
“We got a little more height and gait off the footage,” he says. “Rossi thinks he recognizes the way the guy moves. Might be one of Orlov’s younger runners. We’ll know more when we’ve cross-checked with what Matteo hears tonight.”
“So the board gets another pin,” I say.
“Yeah.”
He steps closer, hand lifting to tuck hair behind my ear. “You okay?” he asks.
It’s not a formality. It’s a real question.
“I will be,” I say honestly. “Right now, I’m in that fun place between terrified and furious.”
“That’s my favorite of your moods,” he says.
I snort. “You’re sick.”
“And you’re beautiful.”
Heat rushes to my face. “You’re biased.”
“I am,” he agrees.
His fingers trail down my jaw, along the line of my neck, resting over my pulse. It’s embarrassingly fast.
“You wrote?” he asks, glancing toward the notebook on the bed.
“Yes. Timeline. Patterns. Pet theories. A few insults.”
“For me or them?”
“Both,” I admit.
He smiles, small, real. “Good. We’ll go over it after dinner.”
“Are we eating dinner?” I ask. “Or just consuming vengeance and caffeine?”
“We’re eating,” he says firmly. “I’m not planning revenge on an empty stomach.”
Something about the way he says “revenge” sends a chill down my spine and a warmth through my chest at the same time.
Because here’s the truth I didn’t expect when I first wrote that damn article: I’m not afraid of Nico’s darkness anymore.
I’m afraid of what the world looks like without it on my side.
He leans down, lips brushing mine. “Thank you,” he murmurs.
“For what?” I whisper against his mouth.
“For not running. For not falling apart. For turning a dead rat into data instead of trauma.”
“That’s… both creepy and romantic,” I say.
“It’s us,” he replies.
Then he kisses me properly and for a little while the rat, the alarms, Orlov, whoever the hell is pulling these strings, fade to black.
It’s just me and him, and the steady, stubborn knowledge that I’m not going anywhere.
They walked into my life again today.
They bled on my table.
They tried to make me into a warning.
They forgot something important:
I don’t just write stories.
I finish them.