Chapter 36 Isabella
“I just got a text from one of my old contacts that Domenico was seen going into Club Ruin.”
Adi looks up sharply. “You should go check it out. But only recon. Take Marco with you.”
Matteo looks at me, seeming hesitant. “You sure?”
“Go, we’re fine.”
“Okay, call me if you need me.”
Then there were two. We continue to go through the details, but the energy is off. We both feel jittery, like the sword of Damocles is hanging over our heads. Limbo is the worst place to be; maybe purgatory is a better word for this feeling.
Adriano busies himself, making calls and barking orders, trying to corral order where there is none.
Adi is pacing the living room. One second he’s finished a call with one of their lawyers, the next, his other phone lights up with an incoming call that makes his whole body go rigid.
He keeps a special phone and line for his daughter to contact him so he’s always available.
It’s adorable how much he loves his little girl.
“Sorry, I have to take this,” he says, already moving toward the hall. “It’s Marta.”
“The nanny?” I ask, still perched at the table with my notebook. My hair is frizzy from air drying it after my shower, my skin is almost raw, and I’m pretending that writing everything down is more important than the way my hands keep wanting to shake.
He nods, distracted. “She wouldn’t call during work unless it was serious.”
He disappears into the study and closes the door. I can hear his voice low and urgent through the wall, too muffled to make out the words, just the cadence, question, curse, reassurance. Seconds stretch. A minute. Two.
When he comes back out, his face is paler than usual.
“Everything okay?” I ask, even though it clearly isn’t.
“Marta’s mother collapsed,” he says. “They think it’s her heart.
She’s on her way to the hospital but they don’t know what they’re walking into.
” He’s already grabbing his keys, his coat, the tension in him now not just protective but something rawer.
“She wants to go home to be with her, but she hates leaving Letty so suddenly with just her security. She asked if I’d let her go. ”
“Of course,” I say immediately. “Go. Letty needs you.”
He nods, but he doesn’t relax. “I don’t like leaving you alone, even for an hour. Nico will kill me if anything happens.”
“I’m not alone,” I point out. “There are two of your guys outside the door and four cameras I know of. I have no plans to leave the penthouse. Besides, if I need anything, I can call my terrifying mob boyfriend, and he’ll helicopter in on a dragon or something.”
The corner of his mouth twitches despite everything. “That’s Matteo’s fantasy, not Nico’s.”
“I’ll keep the door locked,” I say. “I’ll stay away from the balcony. I’ll be the best-behaved potential kidnapping victim you’ve ever had.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I know,” I say more gently. “But I mean it. Go be a dad. Let me return the favor of Thanksgiving. I’ll still be here when you get back.”
He hesitates, phone already in his hand. “You sure?” he asks.
“Yes.” I spread my arms slightly. “Do I look like I’m about to go clubbing?”
He scans my face for a second, then nods once, the decision landing. “All right,” he says. “If anything feels off, anything, you call me first, then Nico. And you don’t open that door unless you hear my voice or Matteo’s.”
“Got it.”
He steps in, surprising me with a quick, tight hug. It’s brotherly, a little awkward, but solid.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
“For what?”
“For understanding. For not making this harder.”
I squeeze back. “Go.”
He leaves in a flurry of keys and tension, calling something to the guards in the hallway about staying sharp. The door closes. The lock clicks.
Silence settles, thick and heavy.
I exhale slowly and turn back to my notebook. There are still gaps in the timeline from the last few weeks, places where motivation doesn’t quite match opportunity, and if my brain is busy picking at those, it’s not busy replaying the weight of Rossi’s body sagging under my hands.
I lose track of time. The Christmas tree clicks on its automatic timer, lights warming the corner of the room. The late afternoon light shifts from cold gray to something softer, smearing itself across the glass.
I’m halfway through a sentence about access points, a list of people who could logically know when I leave the building, when I hear the door.
The sound is slight, just the whisper of the latch, but in the quiet, it’s loud enough that my head snaps up.
For a second, I think Adi forgot something. Maybe Letty’s favorite toy, maybe his laptop, maybe his sanity.
“Did you…” I start, pushing back my chair.
Then I stop, because the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Adi has a distinct way of coming into a room, all controlled energy and purpose. He calls out, often too formal, “It’s just me” because he’s a considerate man in a house full of people with hair-trigger reflexes.
The person stepping into the living room now is silent.
He moves with a certain kind of confidence, that unhurried, predatory grace I’ve learned to associate with men who don’t fear consequence.
He’s in a dark, perfectly cut suit, a charcoal overcoat open over it, and a scarf looped once around his neck like an afterthought.
Silver threads through his dark hair at the temples, and his face is lined, not with softness, but with the kind of age you get from staying alive when other people didn’t.
He looks like trouble dressed for a board meeting.
He also looks, unmistakably, like the Mancini brothers.
Same bone structure. Same dark eyes, though his have something oily in them that slithers up my spine. Same charisma, but this one feels like a knife, not a shield.
He smiles when he sees me.
“You must be Isabella,” he says, as if we’re meeting at a charity gala. His voice is smooth, faintly amused, Italian vowels still clinging to the edges. “I’ve been looking forward to finally meeting you face to face.”
I stand slowly, every muscle suddenly very aware of itself. “The door was locked,” I say. It’s not a greeting, but he doesn’t seem offended.
“Locks are for people who respect them,” he replies. “I am not one of those people.” He shrugs out of his overcoat, draping it neatly over the back of a chair like he owns the place. “I’m Domenico. Nico’s uncle.”
The word hits like a physical thing.
Uncle.
“The uncle,” I say quietly.
He inclines his head, mock-pleased. “So, he told you about me.”
“Not by name,” I answer. “Just enough to make you sound like a bad feeling.”
He laughs, a low, genuine sound. “I suppose that’s something. Sit down, Isabella. We should talk.”
Everything in me screams no.
I don’t sit, but I don’t run either. The door is behind him. The balcony is glass. There are probably men in the hallway, but they’re not here, and knowing he got past them, I don’t know what condition they’re in, or whose side they’re on.
He clocks my glance toward the corridor and smiles again, this time with teeth.
“Don’t worry about the men outside,” he says. “They’re sleeping. It was quick. I’m not a monster.”
The cold that slides into my veins at that is almost worse than fear. I can’t tell if he’s lying. I don’t think he is. “How did you get in?” I ask, buying time, because my brain is trying to find anything, a phone on the table, a kitchen knife, a shard of glass, that would give me leverage.
“Carefully,” he says. “And with help. That’s the thing about families, Isabella. There’s always someone who needs something more than loyalty. Someone whose mother is sick. Someone whose job suddenly becomes… negotiable.”
The call from Marta rings in my head. My stomach drops. “What did you do to her?” I whisper.
“Nothing more than was necessary.” He waves a hand, dismissive.
“A staged collapse, a convincing doctor, a threat whispered in the right ear. She’ll be fine as long as she remembers her place.
In the meantime, she did what she had to do.
She called Adriano, he left in a hurry, the guards relaxed, and I walked in when they inhaled the gas I released on this floor. Easy.”
He’s proud of himself. Of the neatness of it. Of the way he exploited the softest part of Adi’s life and turned it into a weakness.
“You bastard,” I breathe.
“Language,” he chides lightly. “I’m trying to make a good impression.”
“Breaking into a man’s home and murdering his staff is a strange way to do that.”
“Is it?” He lifts a brow. “Enzo and I grew up in a different world, tesoro. This is how impressions were made where we’re from.”
“That’s why he spent the last ten years trying to be something else,” I say. “Something better.”
A shadow passes over his face, gone almost before I can catch it.
“Ah, my sainted brother-in-law,” he says. “So noble. So determined to wash the blood off the family name, even if it meant choking the men who built it. Did you know he was my best friend before he married my sister? Then he threw me aside like dross on his shoe.”
There it is. The chip on his shoulder. The grievance polished over decades.
He cocks his head as he walks closer, forcing me to take a step back. “You remind me of your father.”
Air rushes out of my lungs like I’ve been punched. “You knew my father?”
“I did. He was annoying and poked his nose where he shouldn’t until he couldn’t.” He gives a little chuckle. “I’m a poet and didn’t know it.”
I feel sick, bile is crawling up my throat, and I feel lightheaded as the realization hits me. “You killed my father.”
His smile sharpens. “Straight to the point. I see why the Ledger liked you.”
He doesn’t deny it. Oh, God, he didn’t even try to deny it.
“He was nosy,” Domenico continues. “He poked his nose into things that did not concern him. He thought because he had a press badge and a tired woman and a clever little girl at home, that made him untouchable. He learned otherwise.”