CHAPTER 3: Sleepless Nights

 Isabella

Isabella didn't sleep.

She tried. God knows she tried. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dante Valentino's steel-gray stare and heard his parting words echoing in her skull.

Three days, Isabella. Don't make me come looking for you.

At 6 AM, she gave up on sleep entirely and dragged herself out of bed. Her small apartment above the restaurant felt suffocating, the walls pressing in with the weight of impossible decisions. She made coffee—strong and black, the way her mother used to make it—and sat at her tiny kitchen table with her laptop.

If Dante Valentino wanted to make her a proposal, she needed to know exactly who she was dealing with.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard. "Dante Valentino New York."

The search results loaded, and Isabella's stomach dropped.

Hundreds of articles. Dozens of photos. All painting the same picture of a man who'd built an empire on blood and fear.

The first article was from seven years ago, the headline was stark and brutal: "VALENTINO PATRIARCH FOUND DEAD, SON TAKES CONTROL OF FAMILY BUSINESS."

Isabella clicked it, her coffee forgotten.

"Giovanni Valentino, 58, longtime head of the Valentino crime family, was found dead in his estate early Sunday morning. Sources close to the investigation report the death as a suspected homicide, though no arrests have been made. His son, Dante Alessandro Valentino, 26, has assumed leadership of the organization. When reached for comment, the younger Valentino denied any involvement in his father's death, stating, 'My father's enemies finally caught up with him. I intend to ensure they pay for what they've done.”

But there was a second article from a week later, this one from a crime blog that didn't bother with euphemisms.

"Let's stop pretending we don't all know what happened. Dante Valentino killed his father. Everyone in the underworld knows it. Giovanni was a brutal bastard who ran his family with an iron fist—and apparently, his son got tired of waiting for the throne. The question isn't whether Dante did it. The question is whether anyone will be stupid enough to challenge him now that he's proven what he's capable of."

There was a photo attached. A younger Dante—twenty-six, the article said—leaving what looked like a police station. Even then, he'd been devastatingly handsome, but there was something raw in his expression. Something almost haunted beneath the cold mask.

Isabella's phone buzzed, making her jump. A text from Sofia.

"Morning, Bella! Can we grab breakfast? I need to talk to you about something."

Her heart sank. Sofia never wanted to "talk" unless it was about money. Columbia wasn't cheap, and even with the scholarship their father had supposedly arranged—a scholarship Isabella now knew was just more debt piled onto debt—there were always expenses.

"Sure, sweetheart. Meet me at the restaurant in an hour?"

"Perfect! I'll bring bagels. Your favorite—everything with cream cheese!"

Isabella set down her phone and returned to her research, her anxiety climbing with every click.

More articles. More photos. Dante at charity galas in thousand-dollar suits. Dante leaves courtrooms with lawyers who cost more per hour than Isabella made in a week. Dante standing stone-faced at funerals—so many funerals.

One article featured an interview with a former prosecutor who'd tried and failed to build a case against the Valentino family.

"Dante Valentino is the most dangerous kind of criminal. He's smart. Patient. Absolutely ruthless when crossed, but he never acts out of emotion. Everything is calculated. Everything has a purpose. And he's cleaned up the family business enough that we can't touch him. On paper, he's a legitimate businessman. Hotels, real estate, import-export. But everyone knows what he really is."

Isabella's hands trembled as she scrolled through photo after photo. Dante with beautiful women on his arm at exclusive events. Dante shaking hands with politicians. Dante at the opera, at gallery openings, at boxing matches.

He wasn't just a criminal. He was New York royalty in a blood-stained crown.

And he wanted to make her a proposal.

The knock on her door came exactly an hour later.

 Isabella

Sofia burst in like sunshine, all bright smiles and bouncing energy. At nineteen, she still looked like the baby sister Isabella remembered—lighter brown hair pulled into a messy ponytail, wearing Columbia sweatpants and their mother's locket around her neck. She carried a bag of bagels and two iced coffees, somehow balancing everything while texting on her phone.

"Bella!" Sofia kissed her cheek, then frowned. "You look terrible. Did you sleep at all?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Isabella said, accepting the coffee. "Long night at the restaurant."

"You work too hard." Sofia set the bagels on the table and immediately started unpacking them. "You need to hire more staff. Or get a boyfriend who can help. Or both. Speaking of which….."

"Sofia….."

"There's this guy in my organic chemistry class. He's pre-law, really smart, kind of cute if you ignore the fact that he wears Crocs unironically…."

"I'm not interested in dating right now."

"You're never interested in dating. Bella, you're twenty-six, not eighty-six." Sofia handed her a bagel with such an earnest expression that Isabella's heart clenched. "Mama would want you to be happy. To have a life outside this restaurant."

Mama would want me to keep you safe, Isabella thought. To make sure you never know what Papa really was.

"I'm fine," she lied, taking a bite of bagel she didn't taste. "Now what did you want to talk about?"

Sofia's smile dimmed slightly. She twisted their mother's locket a nervous habit she'd had since she was twelve.

"It's about tuition," she said quietly. "The bursar's office sent me an email. The payment for next semester is due in two weeks, and they haven't received anything yet. I thought the scholarship covered everything?"

Isabella's bagel turned to cardboard in her mouth.

"It does," she said, scrambling for an explanation. "There's probably just a processing delay. I'll call them today and sort it out."

"Are you sure? Because if money's tight, I can get a job. I can help…"

"No." The word came out harder than Isabella intended. She softened her tone. "No, Sofia. Your job is to study and become a doctor. That's what Mama wanted. That's what I want. Let me handle the money."

"But Bella….."

"I said I'll handle it." Isabella reached across the table and squeezed her sister's hand. "Trust me, okay? Everything's going to be fine."

Sofia searched her face, those wide brown eyes seeing too much. For a terrible moment, Isabella thought her sister might push. Might ask the questions Isabella couldn't answer.

Instead, Sofia nodded slowly. "Okay. If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

It was the biggest lie Isabella had ever told.

They ate breakfast together, Sofia chattering about her classes and her roommate's terrible taste in boyfriends and some scandal involving the dean of students. Isabella made appropriate responses, laughed at the right moments, and felt like a fraud the entire time.

When Sofia finally left—kissing her cheek and making her promise to get some sleep—Isabella closed the door and leaned against it, breathing hard.

Two weeks until Sofia's tuition was due. $28,500 she didn't have. Three days until Dante Valentino came back with his proposal.

The math was brutal and unavoidable.

Isabella returned to her laptop, pulling up the articles about Dante again. This time, she looked past the headlines to the details. The man who'd killed his own father. The man who controlled an empire built on violence. The man who'd somehow managed to legitimize enough of his business that prosecutors couldn't touch him.

What kind of proposal could a man like that possibly have for someone like her?

She thought about his words in the restaurant. *I need to think about what you're worth to me. What someone like you could offer someone like me.*

There was only one thing men like Dante Valentino wanted from women like her.

Isabella's stomach twisted with dread and something else. Something she refused to examine too closely.

She was still staring at Dante's photo—those cold gray eyes that seemed to see straight through her when her phone rang.

Unknown number.

Her heart hammered as she answered. "Hello?"

"Ms. Romano." The voice was smooth, professional, definitely not Dante. "My name is Marco Valentino. I'm calling on behalf of my cousin, Dante. He'd like to move up your meeting."

"Move it up? But he said three days…."

"He's changed his mind. He'll be at your restaurant tonight at midnight. Please ensure you're alone."

"Wait….I need more time to think….." 

"Mr. Valentino doesn't negotiate on timelines, Ms. Romano. Midnight. Don't be late."

The line went dead.

Isabella stared at her phone, her pulse racing. She had twelve hours. Twelve hours to decide what she'd say when Dante Valentino returned with a proposal that would either save her or destroy her.

She looked back at her laptop screen, at the article about patricide and power and the man who'd built a throne out of his father's bones.

" What kind of monster is coming back?"