Chapter 1

Isabella's POV]

They said the contract was about money but the moment I walked into that mansion, I knew I would just become a pawn in a war I didn't even know existed.

The pen felt heavier than it should have. Gold-plated, engraved with the letter V which I learnt stand for Valenti. I turned it over in my sweaty palm, watching the light dance across its surface. Twelve carats of debt-settling metal.

"Sign it, Miss Rossi." Dante Valenti's voice cut through the silence like a blade. He hadn't moved from his high-backed leather chair since I'd entered the study, but his presence filled every corner of the room. 

I looked at the contract again. Three pages of legal jargon I couldn't process, all culminating in one simple truth of my signature, and I belonged to them. It's even more crazy to know it isn't forever but until they decided I'd repaid my father's debt in full.

"How do I know you won't hurt my family?" I asked, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be.

Dante's lips didn't curve. His expression remained stone. "You don't but you also don't have a choice."

Beside him, his younger brother leaned against the bookshelf, his arms crossed, watching me with wolfish interest. His name is Luca Valenti, the second born. Possessive and territorial, the file had said. I'd seen the way his eyes tracked my every movement, cataloging me like I was merchandise he'd already purchased.

"She's scared, Dante," Luca said, pushing off the shelf and taking a step toward me. "Let me calm her down."

"Stay where you are," Dante ordered, and Luca froze instantly. The hierarchy was clear. Dante ruled and the others obeyed.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and pressed the pen to the final page. My father's face flashed in my mind, bloodshot eyes, slurred apologies, the way he'd grabbed my shoulders and begged me to just meet them, just talk to them, just do this one thing for the family.

He never told me I'd be signing my life away.

"Isabella." A new voice, warm and honey-smooth, came from the doorway. The third brother leaned against the frame, a lazy smile playing on his lips. His name I learnt is Matteo and surprisingly, he has the charming one. Handsome in a way that made women forget their own names, and dangerous in a way that made them forget their own safety.

"You're trembling," Matteo noted, stepping inside. "Don't worry, sweetheart. We don't bite. Well…" he glanced at Luca, "...not all of us."

Luca shot him a dark look. "Shut your mouth, Matteo."

"Enough." Dante's voice cracked like a whip, and both brothers fell silent. His cold gaze returned to me. "Sign. Now!!!"

Maybe the universe will be disappointed, but sad to say that I SIGNED.

The ink was still wet when the fourth brother appeared from the shadows near the fireplace. I hadn't even noticed him there, whose name is Enzo Valenti, the youngest. The one everyone warned me about. His eyes were darker than his brothers', darker than normal, more like saying; obsessive, hungry, and fixed entirely on me.

"She's prettier than the pictures," Enzo said softly, almost to himself. He walked toward me, circling the desk like a predator sizing up wounded prey. "I knew she would be."

My skin crawled. I gripped the edges of my chair, knuckles white. "What pictures?"

Enzo smiled. "Your father sent us photos three weeks ago before he asked for the loan." He leaned down, his face inches from mine, and I could smell expensive whiskey on his breath. "He was shopping you around, Isabella. You just didn't know it."

The floor tilted beneath me.

My father, the man who'd wiped my tears after scraping knees and walked me down the aisle of my first school play had been pimping me out to settle his gambling debts?

"Enzo, back off," Dante commanded, and for the first time, I heard a flicker of warning in his tone.

Enzo straightened, but his eyes never left me. "She needs to understand the truth, brother. She's not here by accident, she's here because she's the only leverage we have against the man who killed our father."

I blinked, my brain struggling to process his words. "Killed your father? What does that have to do with me?"

Dante rose from his chair, slow and deliberate, and walked around the desk to stand in front of me. He was taller up close. Broader. The kind of man who didn't need to raise his voice to make you feel small.

"Your father didn't just owe us money, Isabella." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a photograph, sliding it across the desk toward me. "He owed us the truth and the truth is that he was the one who gave our enemy the information that got our father murdered."

I looked at the photograph. A man in his sixties, handsome, and lying in a pool of blood. The face of Victor Valenti. The patriarch.

My hand shook as I pushed the photo back. "My father wouldn't…he's a coward. He couldn't even kill a spider."

"Cowards are the easiest to use," Luca interjected, his voice dripping with contempt. "Your father was a desperate, broke idiot who sold information to the wrong people. The same people who've been hunting us for two years."

I looked between the four of them, my mind racing. "Then why do you need me? If my father betrayed you, why not just kill him?"

Dante leaned down, his face inches from mine, his cold eyes boring into my soul. "Because the enemy isn't just hunting us anymore," he said. "They're looking for you and we need to know why before they find you first."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "I don't know anything. I've never even met your enemy."

"Exactly." Dante straightened. "That's what makes you dangerous."

Before I could ask what that meant, Matteo's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, and the lazy smile on his face vanished completely.

"We have a problem," Matteo said, his voice stripped of all charm.

Dante's jaw tightened. "What?"

Matteo turned the phone toward us. A live security feed showed the mansion's front gate and a black SUV ramming through it, metal screaming against metal.

"We weren't supposed to get company until tomorrow," Luca muttered, already reaching for the gun holstered beneath his jacket.

Dante grabbed my arm, yanking me out of the chair so hard I stumbled against his chest. "She's not staying here."

"Where are you taking me?" I gasped.

Dante's cold eyes met mine, and for the first time, I saw something flicker beneath the ice—fear.

"Somewhere they won't find you," he said.