Semua Bab The Don's Ruthless Empire: Bab 61 - Bab 70

Point of view: Isabella"I need the truth, all of it, right now," I said, standing in the middle of Matteo's study with my arms crossed tight against my chest, the green silk of my gown suddenly feeling like a costume from someone else's life.We had left the gala in silence, the car ride back to the compound stretching longer than the drive to my mother's house had the night before, though this time the danger sat between us instead of ahead of us. Matteo had not touched me once since the ballroom, and the absence of his hand felt like its own kind of confession, as if some part of him already knew what his answer would cost.I had spent the entire drive replaying every kindness he had shown me since the night he walked into my mother's kitchen, wondering how many of those moments I could still trust once I knew the full truth of what his father had done to mine. It was an unfair thing to do to him, perhaps, weighing a man against his father's sins, but grief rarely bothered itself w

Point of view: Isabella"The Marchetti family is prepared to stand with the Rossaro name," the woman across the table said, "but only if certain conditions are met first, conditions I suspect neither of you will find easy to accept."Enzo had arranged the meeting himself, insisting his aunt Camilla Marchetti still commanded enough respect among the old harbor families to matter, even decades after her own house had quietly withdrawn from the daily business of running Marabella's docks. I sat beside Matteo at the small private table, the distance between us still not fully closed since the gala, though we had at least agreed to present a united front until Dante's threat had been fully answered.Camilla's presence filled the room in a way that had nothing to do with volume, a stillness in the way she held herself that reminded me faintly of my own mother before grief had worn her down, the posture of a woman who had spent her whole life learning exactly how much space she was allowed t

Point of view: Isabella"Costa is Dante's family name, before his grandfather changed it," Salvatore said, and the floor seemed to tilt beneath me, twenty years of Conti grief suddenly wearing a face I had been standing across from at galas for weeks.I sat down hard in the nearest chair, my mind racing backward through every interaction with Dante Vitale since the night Matteo first walked into my mother's kitchen, searching for signs of this truth I had somehow never seen. "He has known this entire time," I said slowly. "Every threat, every folder, every carefully staged confrontation. He was not simply attacking the Rossaro name. He was protecting a secret that belonged to his own family long before it ever touched either of ours."I thought of the warehouse, of the phone call about my mother, of the folder Dante had opened so casually in front of half of Marabella, and felt every one of those moments rearrange themselves into a single, deliberate pattern, a man protecting his own

Point of view: Isabella"Someone has been inside this office," I said, staring at the dust that should have covered every surface but did not. "Someone has been inside a room that has been sealed for eleven years."Matteo stood beside me in the doorway of the Conti and Rossaro joint office, his flashlight cutting a pale line through the dark. The seal on the door had been broken cleanly, not forced, which meant whoever had done it owned a key or knew exactly how to make one. I stepped inside first, my heart pounding against my ribs, half expecting to find Costa's ghost sitting behind the old desk waiting for us."The lock was not damaged," Matteo said quietly, running his fingers along the frame. "Whoever came in here did not break in. They walked in like they belonged."Salvatore hung back near the entrance, his face unreadable in the low light, and something about his stillness made the hair rise on the back of my neck. He had told us where to look. He had known this room existed be

Point of view: Isabella"You cannot keep walking between two families that are both bleeding, Isabella. Eventually one of them is going to need all of you, and you will have to choose."My mother's words followed me through the small kitchen where I had grown up, a room so much smaller now than it had felt as a child, every corner suddenly crowded with the weight of everything I had not told her since moving into the Rossaro compound. Rosa stood at the stove out of habit more than hunger, stirring a pot that had long since stopped needing attention, her hands seeking work the way they always did whenever her heart had nowhere else to put its fear."I am not choosing between you and Matteo," I said gently, though the words felt thinner than I wanted them to be. "I am trying to end a war that has already cost us more than either family should have had to survive.""A war that burned down a warehouse an hour after your future husband's uncle spoke about it," Rosa said, turning to face me