Chapter 4

The uproar over the christening had not even settled before Isabella filed a formal application with the family Council to review the classified file on her parents' fatal car accident.

The move hit Bianca exactly where it hurt. To keep Isabella away from the old case, Bianca quickly handed the family Elders a piece of surveillance footage.

The footage showed Isabella apparently out of control in an examination room. Wild-eyed, she fought the doctor for a sedative syringe and even shoved a nurse hard to the floor.

"Members of the Council," the family doctor said with a regretful sigh, "Miss Isabella suffered severe, irreversible trauma during her three years in captivity. She is now highly aggressive and psychologically unstable. She is clearly no longer fit to retain her claim to the Moretti inheritance."

Isabella sat at the far end of the long table and watched the clumsy performance with cold eyes.

The video had been cut. They had deliberately removed the part where the nurses held her down and injected her with an unidentified drug, and cut out Bianca standing off to the side, provoking her on purpose!

"That clip is only one minute long." Isabella stood and slammed a thick file onto the table. "This is my complete treatment timeline and the nurses' shift roster from that day. I demand a review of the clinic's full, unedited surveillance footage!"

The Elders exchanged looks and finally turned toward Matteo in the seat at the head of the table.

Once the room was cleared, only the two of them were left.

"There are gaps in the video. I know." Matteo rubbed his brow, his voice tired and faintly disgusted. "But Bella, the Council convenes any day now. I can't have the De Luca family blow up in a scandal at this exact moment. For the family's sake, sign this first and go into isolation for a few days of observation. Once it dies down, I'll make it up to you."

Make it up to her? Trade her innocence and authority for a lifetime just so Bianca could rest easy?!

Isabella stared into Matteo's eyes until her own began to sting. She drew a breath and, in the empty conference room, looked at the man she had once loved and said a single word, quietly but with absolute clarity:

"Lighthouse."

It was the last line they had left. She believed that when she spoke the safe word, he would at least hesitate. Just once, as he had before, he would stand beside her without flinching.

Matteo went still. His fingers tightened slightly around the pen as conflict flickered across his face.

But after a brief silence, he lowered his head and signed his name without hesitation on the document declaring her psychologically unstable.

"Guards," Matteo said coldly, looking away, his voice perfectly flat. "Take Miss Moretti's phone and pass. Then take her to the clinic for isolation."

In that moment, Isabella heard her heart shatter for good. She did not scream or shed a tear. She simply looked at Matteo with perfect calm, as if he were a stranger.

She did not offer another word, and she let the bodyguards come and take her things.

But as they escorted her out, she used a blind spot to slip a spare key into the hand of Luca Romano, a veteran guard loyal to her. She silently mouthed, "Go to the abandoned warehouse where my parents crashed."

Two hours later, in the sealed compartment of the van taking her to the isolation clinic, the miniature backup transmitter strapped to the inside of Isabella's thigh vibrated.

It was a brief encrypted message from Luca, but what it said froze every drop of blood in her body:

"Miss Isabella, the old Don and Donna did not die in an accident. They were silenced because they tried to save you."

The transmitter emitted a piercing dead tone. The signal cut out completely.

Isabella clenched her fists until her nails broke the skin, yet she felt nothing. Her parents, the people she had loved most in the world, had been murdered for trying to find her!