Chapter 7 - The Price of Truth
The room was filled with the heavy,
suffocating scent of jasmine and the salt of her tears.
Aleandro sat down on the edge of the bed,
not close enough to touch her,
but close enough to feel the heat radiating from her trembling body.
He looked at his hands,
the hands that had built an empire of blood and shadow,
and wondered if they were capable of holding anything without breaking it.
"You think I'm a monster,
don't you?"
he asked,
not looking at her,
his voice a low,
melancholy sound that surprised even him.
Isabella didn't answer at first,
her breath coming in ragged,
shuddering gasps that tore at the silence of the room.
"I think you're the man I love,"
she finally whispered,
the words sounding like a confession under torture.
"But I also think you're a man who doesn't know how to forgive,
and I was so afraid that if I told you,
you'd look at me exactly the way you're looking at me now."
"And how is that,
Isabella?"
he asked,
finally turning to meet her eyes,
his gaze a mixture of ice and fire.
"Like I'm a business transaction that went wrong,"
she said,
her voice regaining some of its strength,
her chin tilting up in a gesture of defiance.
"Like I'm a liability that needs to be liquidated."
Aleandro felt a jolt of recognition;
she was right,
that had been his first instinct,
to remove the problem,
to erase the mistake.
But as he looked at her,
at the way the moonlight caught the tears on her cheeks,
he realized he couldn't do it.
He couldn't treat her like a rival or a traitor,
because despite everything,
she was still the only thing in his life that felt real.
"The Vanes are bringing your brother to the gate,"
he said,
his voice turning back to the cold,
hard tone of the boss.
"But after that,
Isabella,
we are finished."
The words felt like a death sentence,
chilling the air in the room until it was hard to breathe.
She closed her eyes,
a single tear escaping and rolling down her nose,
dropping onto the white silk of her dress.
"I know,"
she whispered,
the sound of a heart finally breaking.
"I just want him to be safe."
Aleandro stood up,
feeling a thousand years old,
the weight of his sister’s death and Isabella’s betrayal pressing down on his soul.
"Stay here until I call for you,"
he commanded,
walking toward the door without looking back.
He went down to the grand foyer,
where Marco and a dozen armed men were waiting in the shadows,
their weapons glinting in the dim light.
The minutes ticked by,
each second feeling like a heartbeat in a dying man’s chest.
Exactly one hour after the phone call,
the heavy iron gates at the end of the driveway creaked open.
A car,
black and nondescript,
pulled up to the entrance,
its headlights cutting through the darkness like two searching eyes.
The door opened,
and a young man was shoved out onto the gravel,
stumbling and falling to his knees.
He was bruised,
his clothes torn,
but he was alive.
Marco’s men moved in instantly,
shielding the boy and checking the car for explosives as it sped away into the night.
"He's clear,
sir,"
Marco called out,
his voice echoing in the empty courtyard.
Aleandro watched as they brought the boy inside,
noting the family resemblance in the eyes,
the same wide,
fearful gaze he had seen in Isabella’s office.
He felt a strange,
unfamiliar sense of relief,
a small victory in a night of devastating losses.
"Take him to his sister,"
Aleandro ordered,
turning his back on the scene.
"And then,
Marco,
prepare the cars."
"Where are we going,
sir?"
Marco asked,
his brow furrowed in confusion.
"To the Vanes,"
Aleandro replied,
his voice a low,
deadly promise.
"They think they can use my family against me and survive the night."
May you like
"They are about to learn that the Moretti family doesn't just listen."
"We respond."
