CHAPTER 5: Forty-Eight Hours

CHAPTER 5: Forty-Eight Hours

Isabella

The contract sat on Isabella's kitchen table like a coiled snake.

She'd been staring at it for six hours now, ever since she'd stumbled upstairs from the restaurant at dawn. The leather folder was still pristine, Dante's neat handwriting on a sticky note attached to the front: Forty-eight hours. Choose wisely.

As if there was a choice.

Isabella dragged her hands through her hair, wincing when her fingers caught in the tangles. She hadn't showered. Hadn't changed out of yesterday's clothes. The sauce stain on her blouse had dried into a rusty brown patch that looked disturbingly like old blood.

Appropriate, considering she was contemplating selling herself to a man who'd killed his own father.

Her phone buzzed. Another text from Sofia.

"Bella! Stop ignoring me! Are you okay? You're scaring me."

Guilt twisted in Isabella's stomach. She'd been dodging Sofia's calls since their breakfast yesterday, unable to face those innocent brown eyes while carrying the weight of Dante's proposal.

She typed back with shaking fingers.

"I'm fine, sweetheart. Just dealing with some restaurant stuff. Love you."

Another lie. She was becoming so good at lying.

The knock on her door made Isabella jump. She checked the time—barely nine in the morning. Too early for deliveries. Too early for anyone except—

"Bella, I know you're in there. Open up before I use my key."

Maria.

Isabella closed her eyes. Of course. Her mother's best friend had a sixth sense for when Isabella was in crisis. Always had, even when Isabella was a teenager trying to hide her father's gambling problem from the world.

She opened the door to find Maria Castellano standing in the hallway with two coffees and a paper bag that smelled like fresh pastries. At sixty-three, Maria was all soft curves and iron will, with silver-streaked black hair and sharp dark eyes that missed nothing. She'd been the bookkeeper at Bella Notte for thirty years before Isabella's mother died. Now she just stopped by to "check on things"—which really meant checking on Isabella.

"You look like hell," Maria said bluntly, pushing past her into the apartment.

"Good morning to you too."

"Don't 'good morning' me. You haven't answered my calls in two days. Sofia called me worried because you're being weird. And Antonio from the butcher shop said you ordered twice your normal meat delivery without explanation." Maria set the coffees on the table, then froze when she saw the leather folder. "What is that?"

Isabella's throat closed up.

"Bella." Maria's voice dropped to something deadly serious. "What is that?"

"A contract."

"I can see it's a contract. From who?"

Isabella met her eyes—the woman who'd held her when her mother died, who'd helped her navigate the impossible task of raising a teenager while running a failing restaurant, who'd never once judged her for her father's sins.

"Dante Valentino," she whispered.

The color drained from Maria's face. She sank into a chair like her legs had given out.

"Mother of God," she breathed. "He came for the debt."

"Two nights ago."

"And you didn't call me? Bella….."

"What could you have done, Maria? You can't fight the Valentinos any more than I can." Isabella collapsed into the opposite chair, exhaustion crushing her. "He came. He evaluated the situation. And then he came back with... with that."

Maria pulled the folder closer with trembling hands. She read in silence, her expression cycling through shock, horror, and something that looked disturbingly like resignation.

"A marriage contract," she finally said. "He wants to marry you."

"For one year. In exchange for the debt and Sofia's entire education."

"Including medical school."

Maria set down the contract and picked up her coffee, taking a long drink like she needed the caffeine to process what she was seeing. When she spoke again, her voice was carefully controlled.

"This is... this is not what I expected."

"You and me both."

"What are you going to do?"

Isabella laughed, but it came out broken. "What choice do I have? Sign or lose everything. Become his wife or watch Sofia's dreams die. Sell myself or tell my baby sister that our father was a degenerate gambler who got himself killed over debt."

"Don't," Maria said sharply. "Don't do that. Don't make this about pride or shame. This is about survival."

"Is it? Because it feels like I'm choosing between two different kinds of death. Sign this, and I lose myself. Don't sign, and I lose everything else."

Maria reached across the table and grabbed Isabella's scarred hands—hands that looked so much like her mother's, marked by years of kitchen work and sacrifice.

"Listen to me," Maria said fiercely. "I loved your mother like a sister. And she was the strongest woman I've ever known. But you know what she told me the day before she died?"

Isabella shook her head, tears burning in her eyes.

"She said, 'Take care of my girls, Maria. Make sure Isabella knows she doesn't have to carry this alone. Make sure she knows it's okay to survive however she needs to.'" Maria's grip tightened. "She didn't want you to martyr yourself, Bella. She wanted you to live."

"This isn't living. This is…."

"This is a chance," Maria interrupted. "A terrible, impossible chance. But it's more than you had three days ago."

 Isabella

Isabella pulled her hands free, standing so fast her chair scraped against the floor. She paced to the window, staring down at Little Italy's morning streets without really seeing them.

"He killed his father, Maria. Shot him or stabbed him or whatever—the articles weren't clear on the details. He's a criminal. A monster. And he wants me to share his bed for a year."

"Did he say he'd force you?"

The question made Isabella pause. She thought about Dante's words in the restaurant. I don't force women, Isabella. If you don't want me to touch you, I won't.

"No," she admitted. "He said it was about appearances. That what happens behind closed doors is between us."

"Then maybe he's not as much of a monster as the newspapers say."

"Or maybe he's just a better liar."

Maria stood, crossing to Isabella with the kind of determination that had helped her survive forty years of marriage to a man who drank too much and died too young.

"Let me tell you what I know about Dante Valentino," she said. "Yes, he killed his father. But his father was a brutal bastard who beat his wife to death and tortured his own children. The neighborhood celebrated when Giovanni died. Dante cleaned up the family business. He pays his people well. He doesn't deal in drugs or trafficking. And he keeps his word always."

"How do you know all this?"

"Because I pay attention. Because I've lived in this neighborhood for sixty years and I know how these families work. Dante Valentino is dangerous, yes. But he's not cruel for the sake of cruelty. And if he's offering you a way out, maybe you should take it."

"You're telling me to marry him."

"I'm telling you to save yourself. Save Sofia. And figure out the rest later." Maria cupped Isabella's face, forcing her to meet those knowing eyes. "Your mother would want you to survive, Bella. Whatever it takes."

Isabella's vision blurred with tears. "I'm scared."

"I know, baby. I know."

"What if I can't do it? What if I sign that contract and I lose myself completely?"

"Then you fight to find yourself again. But at least you'll be alive to fight. At least Sofia will have her future." Maria brushed away Isabella's tears with gentle thumbs. "You're stronger than you think. You've survived three years of hell already. You can survive one year with Dante Valentino."

"You make it sound simple."

"It's not simple. It's impossible. But impossible is what you do, Isabella Maria Romano. You've been doing the impossible since you were twenty-three years old."

Isabella closed her eyes, feeling the weight of the decision pressing down like a physical force. Maria was right. She'd survived her father's death and her mother's heart attack and three years of drowning in debt. She'd kept Sofia safe and innocent and hopeful through all of it.

What was one more impossible thing?

"I don't know if I can share his bed," she whispered. "Even platonically. Even just for show."

"Then you set boundaries. You negotiate. You make it work on your terms." Maria's voice turned fierce. "But you don't give up, Bella. You don't let him break you. You survive the year, you get your sister's future secured, and then you walk away with your head high."

Isabella opened her eyes. "You really think I can do this?"

"I know you can. The question is whether you will."

The words hung between them, heavy with meaning.

Isabella looked back at the contract on the table. At Dante's handwriting. At the terms that would save her or destroy her.

At the choice that wasn't really a choice at all.

"I need to talk to him," she said finally. "I need to negotiate terms. Boundaries. I can't just sign this blind."

"So call him. Tell him you want to meet."

"He said forty-eight hours….."

"And you still have forty-two left. Use them. Make sure you know exactly what you're agreeing to before you put your signature on that paper."

Isabella reached for her phone with shaking hands. She didn't have Dante's number, but she had Marco's from when he'd called to change the meeting.

She dialed before she could lose her nerve.

It rang twice before a warm, friendly voice answered. "Ms. Romano. I was wondering when you'd call."

"I need to speak with Dante."

"About the contract?"

"About the terms. I have questions. Concerns. I'm not signing anything until I get answers."

There was a pause, then what sounded like approval in Marco's voice. "Good. You shouldn't sign blind. I'll set up a meeting for this afternoon. Where?"

"The restaurant. Two o'clock."

"He'll be there." Marco hesitated. "For what it's worth, Ms. Romano? I think you're making the right choice by asking questions. Dante respects people who push back."

The line went dead.

Isabella set down her phone and looked at Maria, who was watching her with something like pride in her dark eyes.

"There's my girl," Maria said softly. "Now let's figure out what questions you need answered before you sell your soul to the devil.”