Chapter 7 - The Betrayal We Never Saw Coming
Adrian moved me to a private estate in the mountains.
It was supposed to be temporary.
Instead, it became home.
For three weeks, there were no attacks.
I returned to studying.
Adrian worked remotely.
We ate breakfast together.
Sometimes we argued.
Sometimes we laughed.
It felt almost normal.
Then Grandma called.
Her voice was strangely calm.
“Bella, I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“I knew your mother was alive.”
I dropped my phone.
“What?”
Grandma continued.
“Not now. Years ago.”
Adrian looked up.
I put the call on speaker.
Grandma explained that my mother had contacted her shortly before her death.
She had asked Grandma to keep one final secret.
She told her that Isabella would eventually meet Adrian.
And when she did, everything would change.
Grandma had been waiting twenty years to tell me.
I cried.
Adrian held my hand.
Then Grandma said something else.
“Victor came to me.”
Adrian stood.
“When?”
“Last year.”
“Why?”
“He asked about you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were dead.”
Silence.
Grandma sighed.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
Adrian's face softened.
“You did.”
But one sentence remained.
“He left something.”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“The old Santos house.”
My childhood home.
We returned to Dallas.
The house had been abandoned for years.
Dust covered the furniture.
Photographs were still on the walls.
I walked into my mother's bedroom.
A small music box sat beside the window.
Inside it was another key.
Adrian examined it.
“This opens a safe deposit box.”
We found the bank.
The box contained a letter.
My mother had written it for me.
Isabella,
If you are reading this, then you survived.
That is all I ever wanted.
You must know that Adrian's family is not the enemy.
The enemy is the person who profits when families destroy one another.
Blake is one.
Victor is another.
But there is someone worse.
Someone neither of them trusts.
Someone inside the government.
The name was missing.
The letter had been torn.
Only the first initial remained.
M.
Adrian stared.
“Marcus?”
“Who is Marcus?”
“My father.”
I looked at him.
“You mean your biological father?”
He nodded.
The implication was horrifying.
Adrian's father might have been involved.
We searched.
Adrian's father had died twenty years ago.
But his records showed something strange.
He had made a transfer to my mother two days before her death.
The transfer was for one dollar.
The description read:
FOR THE GIRL.
Adrian was silent.
Then we found a photograph.
His father.
My mother.
Gabriel.
Lucia.
And Blake.
Five people standing together.
A family alliance.
At the center was a child.
Me.
My mother hadn't been trying to escape the criminal world alone.
She had built an alliance to protect me.
Adrian's father had helped.
That meant Adrian had been protecting the daughter of the family his own father had once sworn to protect.
He looked at me.
“I was born into this.”
“So was I.”
“But we can choose what happens next.”
I smiled.
“Yes.”
Then the safe deposit box alarm sounded.
Someone had attempted to open another box in my mother's name.
Security traced the attempt.
Victor.
He had returned.
But he wasn't alone.
He had brought someone Adrian trusted.
Mateo.
Adrian's oldest friend.
Mateo had been feeding Victor information for months.
I couldn't believe it.
Adrian confronted him.
Mateo admitted everything.
“I never wanted Isabella hurt.”
“Then why betray me?”
“Because Victor has my daughter.”
Adrian froze.
“Your daughter?”
“She’s alive.”
Victor had kidnapped Mateo's daughter years earlier and used her as leverage.
Mateo had spent years obeying.
Adrian lowered his weapon.
“Where is she?”
Mateo gave the location.
A private compound.
We rescued the girl that night.
Mateo broke down when he held her.
I understood then.
People weren't always monsters.
Sometimes they were scared people making terrible choices.
Adrian understood too.
He let Mateo live.
But the betrayal changed everything.
The next morning, Adrian proposed.
No audience.
No ring at first.
Just two hands around mine.
“I have spent my entire life trying to control everything.”
“You're not doing a good job.”
He laughed.
“I know.”
Then he said,
“But I know one thing.”
“What?”
“I want every future version of my life to have you in it.”
He placed a ring in my palm.
“I won't tell you that you're mine.”
He smiled.
“I'll ask whether you'll be mine.”
I cried.
“Yes.”
He kissed me.
For the first time, the future felt possible.
Then the phone rang.
May you like
Victor had sent one final message.
THE WEDDING WILL BE YOUR FUNERAL.
