🥂 YOU'RE MINE NOW
Chapter 01 - 🥂 YOU'RE MINE NOW
## chapter 01 - The Man Everyone Feared
By eleven-thirty, Isabella Santos had stopped noticing the ache in her feet.
The Grande Hotel ballroom glittered around her as if Manhattan had dressed itself in diamonds. Crystal chandeliers warmed the white roses and mirrored walls while Isabella moved between guests in a fitted black waitress uniform, balancing champagne and reminding herself that rent was due Monday.
At twenty-four, she worked three jobs while finishing nursing school. She had learned how to disappear around wealthy people.
Smile. Refill. Step back.
And never listen.
That was the rule she broke.
Near the terrace doors, two men had separated themselves from the crowd. Isabella was close enough to hear only pieces at first—Thursday, payment, Port Authority—until one phrase came clearly.
"Warehouse seventeen."
The second man lowered his voice. "Petrov won't pay until he sees the weapons."
Isabella's fingers went numb around the tray.
She should have walked away.
Instead, she looked up.
One of the men turned.
Two champagne flutes struck each other with a bright chime. Isabella pivoted too quickly, caught a brass planter with her elbow, and sent crystal across the marble floor.
Conversation died.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, crouching.
A shard cut her palm.
She barely felt it.
The men at the terrace were staring at her.
Then the room changed.
A senator's wife stopped speaking. A hotel executive lowered his glass. Guests moved aside without being asked.
A man was crossing the ballroom.
Alessandro Romano wore a black tailored suit and a black shirt beneath it. He was tall, dark-haired, and composed in a way that made every other powerful man in the room look as though he were trying too hard.
Someone whispered his name.
Isabella knew it.
Everyone in New York knew the Romano name. Newspapers called the family shipping magnates. People from Isabella's neighborhood used quieter words.
Dangerous.
Alessandro stopped in front of her.
His gaze moved from her face to the terrace, then back.
That small movement told Isabella everything.
He knew she had heard.
"Miss Santos."
Her heart stumbled.
"I don't think we've met."
"No."
"Then how do you know my name?"
He did not answer.
Instead, he raised one tattooed hand and touched two fingers beneath her chin. The gesture was slow, almost courteous, but every muscle in her body tightened.
He lifted her face just enough to force eye contact.
The ballroom went silent.
"You're mine now."
Isabella forgot how to breathe.
His hand dropped immediately.
"What?"
"I don't understand."
"You will."
Her eyes flicked toward the terrace.
Alessandro noticed.
"I didn't hear anything," she whispered.
Something changed around his eyes.
Concern.
"They know you heard them."
One champagne flute trembled on her tray.
"I can go home."
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
Across the ballroom, one of the terrace men started toward them.
Alessandro did not turn.
He stepped between Isabella and the approaching man.
"Stay beside me if you want to leave alive."
For one wild second, she considered running.
Then she saw the stranger put a hand inside his jacket.
"Now, Isabella."
She stepped beside Alessandro.
That was how her old life ended.
Not with a gunshot.
With one step.
He guided her through a private corridor while two security men followed. He never grabbed her or hurried her. Somehow, his certainty was more frightening than force.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere safe."
"I have an apartment."
"Not anymore."
She stopped.
"I have clinicals tomorrow. I have a cat who needs to be fed."
"Your cat will be collected."
Isabella stared at him.
"That is not the point."
"I know."
"Then let me go."
The ballroom doors opened behind them.
Alessandro's expression hardened.
"Walk."
A black sedan waited beneath the hotel's awning. Rain silvered the roof.
A broad-shouldered man with gray at his temples opened the rear door.
"Marco," Alessandro said. "Her apartment."
Marco nodded. "Already moving."
Isabella got into the car because she had just watched a stranger reach inside his coat while staring directly at her.
Alessandro slid in beside her.
The doors locked.
Manhattan blurred beyond rain-streaked glass.
"Who were those men?"
"Victor Petrov's."
"Who's Victor Petrov?"
"A man you were safer not knowing existed."
"Helpful."
Alessandro glanced at her.
"You use sarcasm when you're afraid."
"I use sarcasm when rich men kidnap me from work."
"If I were kidnapping you, you wouldn't be arguing."
"That is not reassuring."
"No," he said. "I suppose it isn't."
They drove north.
The Romano estate rose behind iron gates in Westchester, all dark stone and lit windows against the rain.
Inside, Isabella was brought to a library where a fire burned behind a brass screen.
Marco placed a thick folder on the table.
Alessandro opened it.
Isabella saw photographs of herself.
Leaving Columbia.
Working at a diner.
Carrying groceries into her Queens building.
Her stomach turned.
"You've been following me?"
"Three weeks."
"Why?"
"Your uncle."
"Thomas?"
"Thomas Santos owes money to men connected to Petrov."
"My uncle gambles. He doesn't know arms smugglers."
"He borrowed from people who do."
Alessandro slid a document toward her.
Her name appeared beside a number.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
"What is that?"
"Collateral."
She read the page twice.
"No."
"He gave them your address, your schedule, the places you work."
"No."
She pushed away from the table.
"I want to call him."
Silence.
Marco looked down.
Isabella noticed.
"What happened?"
Alessandro closed the folder.
"Thomas was found dead in his apartment this afternoon."
The room seemed to move.
"That's not possible. I talked to him yesterday."
"I know."
"Petrov?"
"Most likely."
"Most likely?"
Alessandro's voice softened.
"His death was made to look like a robbery."
Isabella stared at him until his face blurred.
A phone buzzed on the table.
Marco picked it up.
His expression changed.
"What?" Alessandro asked.
Marco handed him the screen.
For the first time that night, Alessandro looked shocked.
Isabella wiped at her eyes.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
"Don't do that."
She stepped closer.
"Don't tell me my uncle is dead and then decide what I'm allowed to know."
After a moment, Alessandro turned the phone around.
A voicemail transcription had arrived from Thomas's number.
Time-stamped three minutes ago.
Nine words.
ISABELLA, IF ROMANO HAS YOU, DO NOT TRUST HIM.
She read it again.
Her uncle was supposed to be dead.
May you like
Yet somewhere outside the guarded estate, his phone had just warned her about the man standing beside her.
And downstairs, deep inside Alessandro Romano's house, a door slammed shut.
