Semua Bab TIED TO MY FATHER'S MURDERER: Bab 31 - Bab 40

“Isabella stared at the necklace in Victor’s outstretched hand, the silver chain glinting under the dim light of the vault. Thirteen years. Thirteen years, every single morning, she’d clasped it at her throat without a second thought. It was the last thing her father ever gave her. She wasn’t going to take it off. Her mind drifted back, a blurry photograph of a twelve-year-old girl, her small hands fumbling with the clasp. Her mother was too lost in her own grief to notice her carefully packing it, a tiny, precious secret. She carried it across an ocean, from the ancient cobblestones of Rome to the sprawl of Los Angeles, and it hadn’t left her neck since. Not once.It was her father who put it there. He encoded something into it, something vital, and then he placed it around his twelve-year-old daughter’s neck. He sent her away knowing it would keep her connected to whatever he was desperately trying to protect. And he must have known, too, that connection could get her killed if the

The sticky note felt thin, almost transparent, in Victor’s hand. Isabella’s neat handwriting, a stark contrast to Kevin’s blunt messages, pulled him in. He read the words once, then again. “He said you were a good employer. He also told me to take care of myself.”To most, they were polite pleasantries. Generic, even. But his gut twisted. He knew the language Kevin spoke. “A good employer.” It was never a compliment, not from someone like him. It was a probe, a test. Kevin had been watching Isabella, seeing how naturally she’d defended Victor, judging her loyalty. He’d been calculating, always calculating.And then, “take care of myself.” That one hit harder. In their world, those words weren't a kind farewell. They were an omen. A warning. It meant danger brewed, and Kevin knew more than he let on. It meant he was positioning himself, planting a seed of possibility in Isabella’s mind, making her aware of him, making her wonder if he might be a useful ally down the road. Kevin was

The dead line hummed in Victor’s ear, a stark reminder of Cora’s words. Thirty seconds. He held the phone to his ear, listening to nothing, absorbing the silence that now filled the space where her frantic voice had been. Kevin was coming. Kevin knew about the necklace. He had killed someone for it. Victor lowered the receiver slowly, the plastic cool against his palm.“Seth!” he bellowed, his voice rougher than he intended.A moment later, crisp knocks sounded on his door, and then Seth entered, closing it softly behind him. He looked at Victor, a question in his eyes. Seth was good at picking up on shifts in Victor’s mood, always had been. Today, the shift was a seismic event.“Cora called,” Victor began, the words tumbling out, almost tripping over each other. He told him everything. Her terror, the hurried warning, the name: Kevin Moretti. He described the necklace, the specific way she’d spoken about it, connecting it unequivocally to Felix. And then, the chilling detail—the woma

The words were stuck in Victor’s throat, thick and heavy like old oil. He hated this. He hated the way his stomach twisted, a familiar cold knot forming low in his gut. Protecting Isabella felt like a constant battle against forces he couldn’t always see, and now, calming her was no longer part of that equation. Keeping her calm was the opposite of what he had to do. This was going to break that fragile peace they’d somehow cultivated. But she needed to know. She deserved to know.Victor pulled out his phone, the screen felt hot in his hand, and turned it around without a word. The image filled the small space between them, stark and intrusive. Isabella, standing by the sandwich cart, her dark hair catching the light, a small, unconscious smile on her lips. A moment of normal, weaponized.Her eyes, usually so expressive, widened just a fraction. It was fleeting, a ripple across a perfectly still pond. Then, the stillness settled in, cold and sharp, like winter ice. Victor recognized i

Victor admitted it to himself first. The thought was bitter. “It’s possible, isn’t it? The message… it could be from the same person. The one who set up Rome.”Isabella moved to the window. Her back was to him. City lights reflected in the glass. She was thinking. He could almost hear it. She was going over everything she learned since coming back. She was more like Felix than she knew. A planner. A fighter.“How many knew your exact moves that night?” Her voice was low. Careful.Victor paused. He counted in his head. The inner circle. The ones who handled the most secret info. “Four. Me included. My security chief, Vincenzo. My consigliere, Marcello. And Seth.”“Four.” She turned. Her eyes narrowed. “Three others.”“Three others,” he confirmed.“And how many of those three are still… active?” She hesitated on the last word.“Two,” Victor said. The old suspicion weighed on him. “Vincenzo is gone. Died a few years back. Natural causes.”“Leaving Marcello and Seth,” she said, her ga