Chapter 4

I threw my weight against the heavy, carved ballroom doors, slamming them open.

The tremendous crash silenced the symphony inside.

I was soaked to the bone, my hair plastered to my face. Hundreds of pairs of eyes bored into me.

On the stage, Vincenzo was holding the obsidian key that symbolized control over the entire network, about to hand it to a lavishly dressed Amelia.

At the sight of me, looking like a ghost, Vincenzo's hand froze mid-air.

Then, a confident smirk played on his lips.

He thought I'd come back to apologize, that I couldn't survive without his protection and without the support of the intel network, so I had come crawling back.

But this time, he was wrong.

I charged onto the stage, ignoring everyone's scornful glares.

"Amelia! Did you touch my archives?!"

My voice was a raw, broken thing.

The guests began to whisper amongst themselves.

Vincenzo's face darkened. He shot out an arm and clamped his hand around my wrist.

"Isabella, what is this madness? Don't make a scene."

The pain sent me stumbling, and Amelia was instantly there, her hands steadying me with false kindness.

"Donna, what happened to you? Please, don't embarrass the Don."

She leaned in close under the guise of an embrace and whispered in my ear.

"So clever, our Donna. Did you guess it was me who went there?"

"Don't worry, those old paper files take up too much space. I'm helping you clean up, making some room for the family."

In that instant, my sanity snapped.

I tore myself from Vincenzo's grip and lunged at Amelia like a madwoman, my hands closing around her throat.

"That is ten years of my blood and sweat! You dare touch them!!"

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

CRACK!

A sharp, ringing slap landed across my face.

The world went silent.

The force of it snapped my head to the side, and my mouth filled with the taste of blood.

Vincenzo's hand was still trembling. He looked stunned by his own action.

He took an instinctive step toward me, but ultimately chose to shield the violently coughing Amelia.

"Have you had enough of this madness?"

"Isabella! I gave you a chance to keep your dignity! What is this? Jealousy? Are you throwing away your honor as the Donna of the De Luca family?"

My ears rang, but I felt no pain.

My mind was filled only with those top-secret original data files, the evidence I had traded brushes with death to obtain, my final trump card.

I snatched the key representing intelligence power from his hand and, with all my strength, hurled it at Amelia.

"To hell with De Luca! To hell with your power!"

But Vincenzo spun, shielding Amelia with his back.

The sharp edge of the key caught his suit, and the force of it sliced open my palm.

Blood dripped onto the expensive carpet.

Vincenzo let out a muffled grunt, staring at me in disbelief.

"Isabella, you..."

From behind him, Amelia's eyes were filled with triumph. She secretly showed me her phone.

On the screen was a live feed.

The Flower House on the estate's back hill, the secret location of Archive Number One.

Rows of steel shelves filled with confidential documents had been pushed over, creating a chaotic mess.

And at the edge of the frame, several men in black were carrying gasoline cans, pouring the clear, acrid liquid onto those precious manuscripts and hard drives.

"Oh! The Donna is hurt!" Amelia feigned concern, moving toward me and taking my injured hand.

"Three minutes."

She waggled the black remote in her other hand.

"Kneel. Beg me. Or I'll let your professional career turn into a pile of ash."

"They're just expired data anyway, burning them is no big deal, right?"

In that moment, I had no dignity left.

All my pride was worthless in the face of my life's work. Without those, I was as good as dead.

Without a second thought, under the gaze of hundreds of eyes, I dropped to my knees with a thud.

"Please... don't touch them."

Vincenzo, not understanding what was happening, was completely stunned.

He stared in shock at my pathetic form on the floor and reached out to pull me up.

"Bella, what are you doing? Get up! Is it worth this over a few broken files?"

I slapped his hand away, shot up from the floor, and ran out of the ballroom like a woman possessed.

Vincenzo's hand was left hanging in mid-air.

He shouted my name behind me, but I couldn't hear him.

A strange panic seized him. He started after me, but Amelia grabbed his arm. "Vince, the gala is starting. Everyone is waiting for you."

He hesitated for a few seconds, then stopped. "Right."

My world had shrunk to a three-minute countdown.

The back gate of the estate was only five hundred meters away! If I could just run fast enough!

I could already see the archive room, see the dark stains where the gasoline had been poured.

But just as my fingers brushed the door, a voice echoed from the archive's speakers. It was Amelia's light, airy laugh.

"My dear Isabella, you run pretty fast."

"Such a shame, though. Time's up. Game over."

A deafening BOOM ripped through the night.

A massive shockwave, followed by a tower of flame, instantly engulfed me.

The force of the blast was immense. The guests in the ballroom heard the explosion and began to scatter in a panic.

Vincenzo stared, transfixed, at the red glow in the distance, his heart suddenly seizing in his chest.

"Isn't that the direction Isabella ran?"

He took an instinctive step, wanting to charge into the inferno.

"Don! You can't go over there! That's where the high-energy batteries and paper archives are stored, the fire will be intense!"

Several bodyguards grabbed him by the waist, forcibly dragging him back to safety.

Vincenzo's breath hitched, his voice cracking into a raw scream.

"Isabella!"