chapter 2: Punishment and Flight

Punishment in the Mafia world knew no mercy. There were no second chances, no do-overs, only judgement.

Don Antonio Lorenzo, once a powerful lion in their brutal mafia jungle, now stood at the gallows like an expired good waiting to be discarded. His bloody face still carried his proud and defiant look, unaware that his legacy had been wiped out the night before. He caught Isabella's eyes in the crowd, weeping heavily, surrounded by her in-laws the Morettis… the same bloodsuckers who had betrayed him and condemned him to this fate.

Isabella squeezed her purse tighter, clenching her teeth until her jaw hurt. The tears were flowing freely, and her body was quaking vigorously as the executioner placed the noose around her father's neck. Behind them were the council elders of the Internal Mafia Council… silent and grim, obviously not enjoying the morbid spectacle before then. She knew what they were thinking… it could easily be any one of them in that condition, that was the harsh reality of their dark world.

Only one man seemed to be enjoying the show. Don Nico Moretti’s lips had a satisfied smile playing on them, his gloved hands clasped behind his back like a man enjoying triumph at last after a long hunt. Rage and hatred burned in Isabella as she saw the pleasure in his eyes, a pleasure he made no attempt to mask.

She looked at Luca, standing beside his father. He looked indifferent, numb. Just stood there watching everything in complete silence… not moving, or blinking… Not even as the executioner pulled the lever, not even as her father shouted her name one last time… raw, desperate, echoing.

Not even when the floor dropped.

Her scream had shattered the silence, before it was swallowed up again by it. And when she managed to look up at her husband through teary eyes again, her heart nearly stopped.

Because Luca still hadn’t moved.

…

The car ride back home was filled with complete silence. Isabella sat beside Luca, but her soul was nowhere near there. She was lost in her thoughts… the thoughts that she had lost everything that ever mattered to her… her father, her family, and possibly her freedom. Outside the car, Manhattan night life flew by like a bad dream… Inside, Luca was as cold and distant as ever. She couldn’t take it anymore.

“Say something,” she finally whispered in a trembling voice.

Luca ignored her and kept staring ahead. 

“Was it true?” she pressed on. “Did your family provide all the eevidence to destroy us?

“Don't do this now,” he grumbled, placing his hands over his face like he was stressed.

She couldn't hold her anger back anymore. “They just killed him Luca! They just hanged my father in front of the entire Mafia council!”

She was so overwhelmed that she didn't noticed the car had come to a stop. Luca was saved when his father opened the door, the disgusting look of pleasure still dancing in his eyes.

“You'll both be needed at the council again tomorrow,” he informed Luca, ignoring Isabella as usual. “There'll be formalities and clean-ups to follow through.” 

Isabella couldn’t hold back her grief. “You knew this would happen,” she accused him, coming out of the car in a fit of rage. “You planned it, didn’t you?”

Don Nico looked at her and chuckled like a devil. “I know you're a bit upset signora, and I completely understand. But your father was a traitor, and the council made a unanimous.”

“That's enough papa,” Luca said cut in coldly.  “Isabella needs to rest, she's had a long day.”

Don Nico stepped back apologetically, but the smirk never left his face.

….

As Isabella sat on the edge of her bed that night, there was only one thought running through her mind… flight.

Her family was gone, and this marriage that was supposed to protect her family was now almost as good as dead. There was no guarantee that she was safe, and it could only be a matter of time until she ends up like the rest of her family.

In her hand was a phone… a old encrypted phone given to her by her father on the day she got married, to be used in case of an emergency. She scrolled through the contacts until she found who she was looking for… an old family friend that was loyal to her father.

“Hello?” the voice answered after one ring.

“Marco, it’s me.”

A brief pause followed, and then a gasp of surprise from the receiver. “Isabella? Where the hell have you…”

“There’s no time to talk now Marco,” she interrupted. “I need a flight to Rome tomorrow morning, with a new passport and new documents. I'll send details tonight.”

“You in trouble?”

“I’m about to be.”

She ended the call.

….

Later that night, she snuck into Luca’s room when he went out to make a call. In her hand was a small vial that contained a colourless and odorless substance, which she emptied into his bottle of wine, ignoring the one in the glass.

When he came back inside, he was surprised to see her seated on his table, waiting for him.

“You should be resting,” he said without emotion, lifting his glass of wine and looking at it doubtfully.

She stared at him, without a word, while her heart pounded inside her.

“Look Isabella,” he said, emptying the wine in the glass inside a flower pot and pouring himself another one from the bottle. “I have nothing to say concerning what has happened, and I'll appreciate it if you left me alone.”

She watched him take a healthy gulp from the freshly poured wine, then she curtsied and left without a word. When she returned a few minutes later, she held a small pile of paper in her hand… Divorce papers.

Luca was slumped on the bed, barely conscious. She forced him to sit up, gave him a pen, and told him to sign. He muttered a bunch of gibberish, scrawling his signature roughly on the papers then falling back on the bed. Isabella looked at the signature, decided it would do, signed, took a photo and left the papers under him…Then she grabbed her bag and slipped out into the night.

Don Nico had come to speak with his son, only to find him passed out and the divorce papers on the bed. His scream of rage echoed all over the mansion.

“She’s fleeing! Bring her back. I want her dead or alive!”

…

Isabella ran through the night like a ghost, weaving through alleyways and dodging under parked trucks. Her heart pounded with every step she took, and exhaustion threatened to overcome her as her lungs burned. Behind her were Moretti men in hot pursuit, and she knew capture meant death.

She finally managed to escape into an underground tunnel, narrowly missed by a bullet fired by her pursuers. When she emerged from the other side, she was barely standing. She managed to get a taxi to Marco's place.

When the flight from New York to Rome took off the next morning, she wasn’t Isabella Lorenzo anymore… she was now Elena Romano.

And her story had just begun.