Chapter 4 Isabella
ISABELLA
Two Years Later…
Low moans come from behind the mahogany doors. I glance at the man standing to attention beside the door.
“How long has he been like this?”
The man keeps his gaze straight ahead. “Since before lunch.”
“Figlio de puttana …”
The man doesn’t even flinch at my cuss words. It’s one of my favorite things, swearing in Italian. Papa’s always trying to get me to speak it more, and it’s one of my little rebellions against him. I only ever speak Italian when I’m swearing.
But today is not the day to be at war with my father.
I turn the handle and step into the room. Despite the sunny day, it’s dark and cool inside. The only light comes from a sliver of sunlight pushing between a crack in the thick curtains.
My eyes take a moment to adjust before I make out my father.
He’s slumped in the armchair by the empty grate of the fireplace. An empty bottle of red wine is upturned on the coffee table with a stained wine glass beside it.
I slip into the room and close the door behind me. Papa doesn’t even look up, which frightens me. He’s usually vigilant, on guard at all times, but not today.
There’s a photo album spread out on the coffee table.
It’s open to the page of my christening.
My mother holds me up to the camera while the priest sprinkles holy water on my head.
My chubby baby face is contorted into an intense frown, and my father always brings this moment up, saying that even as a baby I had a mistrust of authority.
The other photos are of my parents, much younger and happier. My father’s face is unlined and wearing a smile that I seldom see these days.
I close the photo album and crouch next to my father. He has his head in his hands, his fingers splayed as he weeps into them.
“Papa?”
I put my hand gently on his shoulder, but he doesn’t stir.
It’s alarming seeing the mighty Carlo Berone like this, and if any of his enemies saw him, they’d know his weakness. But it’s only one day of the year. One day that he allows himself to grieve.
“Papa,” I say again, gently prying his hands from his face. My hair falls onto his arm, and it finally alerts him to my presence.
He lifts his red eyes to mine, and the tear-stained face is so out of character for the father I know that I almost recoil. But I’ve seen him like this before.
Once every year on the anniversary of my mother’s death. It’s an indulgence he allows himself. Because every other time he has to bury his grief, hide it deep inside himself to protect his reputation.
“Piccina.” He calls me by my childhood nickname even though I’m a woman of twenty. I let him have that indulgence once a year too.
His hand lands on my head and a watery smile appears on his features as he strokes my hair.
“You look so much like her, Piccina. So beautiful.”
I’ve heard this before. Apparently I inherited my mother’s beauty and my father’s temper. A lethal combination.
I have none of my mother’s good grace that makes the anniversary of her death into a day of grieving for the entire estate.
Many of the men and women working here still remember my mother.
Some of my father’s younger foot soldiers remember her from their childhoods.
She loved children and had an open door policy.
Any kid on the estate could come into her home and she’d feed them, play with them, laugh with them.
When she took me to the lake to swim or the park to play, she’d gather up whichever children were around and we’d all go.
Everyone loved my mother, but no one more so than my father.
“Have you had anything to eat?”
It’s late afternoon, but if Papa’s been drinking since breakfast, he’ll need a good meal and time to sleep it off.
“So beautiful…” He shakes his head sadly, completely ignoring my question. “That’s why I have to do what I’m doing, Isabella. It’s for your own good.”
I resist the urge to pull away. Today is hard enough on my father. I wanted to get through it without an argument.
“How can it be for my own good when it’s not what I want?”
He shakes his head sadly. “You don’t understand, Piccina. It is the old ways; you are too American.”
I snort, because our family have lived in this country for at least three generations.
We’re all American, it’s just my father who clings onto some out of date Italian ideal.
But I bite my tongue. Not today. I won’t argue with him today.
In a few hours, if all goes according to plan, it will all work out anyway.
“I’ll get you something to eat and ask someone to make the bed up in here.”
I go to stand up, and he clutches my wrist. “Send Niccolo. Only Niccolo.”
I nod in understanding. My father doesn’t want his men seeing him like this. Niccolo is his most trusted lieutenant.
I set the empty wine bottle upright as I stand up.
My father reaches for the photo album and flicks it back open. “She was so beautiful.”
He shakes his head sadly, and I wonder if he’ll ever forgive himself for my mother’s death. It wasn’t his fault, but he doesn’t see it that way. It’s also why I have a security detail that follows me everywhere.
“Goodbye Papa.”
I kiss his forehead and am overcome with a wave of affection for the man who practically keeps me locked up, who has a security detail follow me everywhere, who insisted I study at home rather than risk being out on campus.
But he’s still my father, and I don’t know if he’ll ever speak to me again after what I’m about to do.
I leave him to his memories and slip out the door.
The guard stands up taller when he sees me.
“Don’t let anyone in here apart from Niccolo.”
“Yes, signorina.”
I stride down the corridor, my heels clacking on the marble floor. Security headquarters is at the end of the corridor, and when I stride in the men stand up.
I pull my shoulders up tall. My father has taught me how to command men. He might be the boss, but they respect me.
“Niccolo.” My eyes find the middle-aged man, with dark hair like my father’s but less silver in it. He eyes me expectantly as if he’s been waiting to be summoned. “I need a word.”
We go into the private room next door, and I explain the situation. “My father needs food, something with a lot of carbs, and plenty of water. And make up the bed in the study. You’ll have to do it yourself. No one sees him like this, you understand?”
“Of course.” He looks wounded as if I’m questioning his loyalty. “It’s the same every year, Isabella.”
It is, but he also knows how important it is that we keep up the facade, that no one sees how deep his grief cuts.
“Don’t worry, Isabella. I’ll look after your father.”
I nod quickly, suddenly overwhelmed by the tears that sting my eyes. I resist the urge to give Niccolo a hug because I haven’t given him a hug since I was a little girl, and he’s too smart. He’d get suspicious.
“Thank you.”
I march out of there as if I own the place, which I kind of do. My father never remarried, and he keeps telling me how all this will be mine one day. I’m just not sure I want it.
At the end of the corridor, my personal guards Chiara and Alessia fall into step behind me. I’m so used to their constant presence that I hardly notice.
Since my escape two years ago, I have two guards shadowing me everywhere I go. And they’ve been instructed never to accept food or drink from me.
I’ve been a good little princess for the past few months, lulling them into a false sense of security.
I feel bad that they’ll get in trouble for what I’m about to do. But they won’t be harmed. I asked for female guards to make me feel more comfortable, and my father complied. He won’t harm a woman, I tell myself as I head toward the back door.
I stop at the door to change my shoes, as I always do going into the garden, or at least as I have for the past five months. Ever since my father told me about his harebrained scheme and I knew I had to get out.
I slip my heels off and put my sneakers on. My guards think it’s so the heels don’t sink into the grass. They don’t realize it’s so I can run faster.
I saunter through the renaissance garden, resisting the urge to wipe my sweaty palms on my silk trousers. I stop at the flower garden to pick a bunch of gardenias. They were my mother’s favorite.
The small, whitewashed chapel is at the edge of the property. Thick woodlands surround it on three sides where the brambles have gotten overgrown and thick. My mother rests in the chapel, and it’s the one area of the estate where my father never ventures.
What only myself and Niccolo know is that it’s also a blind spot. My father wanted no CCTV on the place where his late wife rests. Another old-fashioned superstition that would be worth something to his enemies if it ever got out.
They’ll all know soon enough, and I’m sorry for that. But there’s nothing else I can do if I want my freedom.
I pause at the door of the chapel and take a deep breath. The emotion I feel is real, and I have to work to keep my shoulders from shuddering. I was six when my mother passed. Old enough to remember her and grieve what I’ve missed all these years.
Our bond was close, made more so because there were complications with the birth and she wasn’t able to conceive again after I was born.
My father’s older relatives told him to put her aside, that a wife who couldn’t bear sons was no wife at all.
It’s the one thing from the old-fashioned ways that my father refused to do. He loved her too much, sons or not.
I take a deep breath and step forward. Chiara and Alessia step with me, and I pause and turn around. This is the moment I’ve been practicing in front of my mirror. The moment that my entire plan depends on.
I take a shuddering breath and let a single tear escape my eye. I silently offer a prayer to my mother to forgive me for using her memory to orchestrate my escape. I hope she’d understand.
“I want a few moments alone with my mother.”
I don’t plead. I would never do that, but I allow the grief to wash over me. For them to see the emotion on my face.
The guards look to each other, uncertain. Chiara is the most senior, and she gives me a hard look. No doubt trying to read any lie beneath my words. I’m a good liar, and she doesn’t detect any.
I also know she lost her mother when she was twelve. It’s why I asked if she could be my head guard.
“Of course, signorina.” She nods her head and takes a step back. “We’ll be right outside. You have your privacy.”
I bow my head in thanks so she doesn’t see the relief that floods me. The hardest part of my plan was getting past the guards. And I’ve done it without raising suspicion.
I will myself to slow down as I cross the threshold and enter the cool chapel.
My mother’s grave is to the left of the apse in pride of place. I walk slowly in case the guards change their mind and decide to come in after me.
When I reach her shrine, I lay the flowers and say a quick prayer.
“I’m sorry, Mamma. I hope you understand that I can’t live like this.”
I cross myself and say the Hail Mary.
My hand goes to my pocket, and I pull out the well-worn coaster that the Prez of a motorcycle club gave me two years ago. My thumb runs over the number, almost faded now but committed to memory.
There’s been many times over the past two years that I longed to call Raiden just to hear his voice. He’s the first person I thought of when my father told me my fate.
But why drag him into it? It would only end badly for him. If he helped me escape, my father would show him no mercy.
Besides, while I thought we were flirting in the club that night two years ago, it’s obvious he knew who I was all along.
He was only speaking to me to keep me there.
Whether he knew my father’s men were coming or whether he wanted to keep me safe, probably to earn favor with my father, he had his reasons, and it wasn’t because he was interested in me.
I’ve since learned he has a daughter the same age as me. He was behaving like a protective father. That’s why he gave me his number to use if I ever really needed help. If I texted him for a chat, he’d think I was nuts.
I pocket the coaster quickly. I’ll never use the number, but I like having it with me. I can’t explain why, but it makes me feel safe, like maybe if everything went bad, I’d still have an eject button.
A glance at the door tells me the guards are still outside in the afternoon sun. Moving quickly, I retrieve the backpack that I stashed under the front pew two days ago.
On silent feet, I move to the back room of the chapel and the window where I’ve been unscrewing the latch one turn at a time.
The room is full of dried flowers, a hobby I took up a few months back.
Usually Chiara is in here with me, and I work on the window, one turn of the screw at a time, when her back is turned.
Today, I turn the screw a few times and the latch clicks open. I wince at the noise the window makes, the hinges creaky with rust.
It’s hard to hear over the hammering of my heart, but I don’t hear any footsteps. If one of the guards came in now, I could explain this away. I could say I needed fresh air, that I left the bag the last time I was here, which is true.
It’s my final chance to stay. I don’t take it.
I throw my bag through the window and climb out.
The branches are thick, but by swinging my weight I make it to the back wall of the estate.
Cassie happened to take up indoor rock climbing a few months ago, and I begged my father to let me do it with her.
She thought the idea was her own and not one I’d planted in her mind with suggestive techniques.
I feel bad manipulating my friend that way, and I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for it.
I’m sure she’ll understand when she finds out my reasons.
The wall is worn back here where old brambles have pressed into it over decades. I launch my bag over the wall, and there are enough holds to scramble up. Then I’m over the wall and dropping down the other side to freedom.