🥂 YOU'RE MINE NOW

Chapter 02 - The Dead Man's Voice

Isabella read the message three times.

The letters did not change.

Her uncle was supposed to be dead.

Yet his phone had just sent a warning from somewhere outside the Romano estate.

Alessandro took the device from Marco and called the number. It rang once, then disconnected.

"Trace it," he said.

Marco was already moving.

Isabella stepped in front of Alessandro.

"You knew."

"No."

"You knew he might be alive."

"I did not."

"Then why don't you look surprised enough?"

His jaw shifted.

It was the first crack she had seen in his control.

"Because surprise gets people killed."

"That sounds very convenient."

"It is also true."

Isabella's hands had stopped shaking. Anger was doing what fear could not.

It made her steady.

"Who told you Thomas was dead?"

"A source inside the police department."

"Did you see the body?"

"No."

"Did anyone I know identify him?"

"No."

She let out one sharp breath.

"So you brought me here, told me my uncle was murdered, and you didn't even know it was him."

"The body had his wallet, his watch, his dental records—"

"Dental records?"

Alessandro stopped.

So did Marco.

Isabella knew that silence.

It was the silence doctors used when a detail suddenly did not fit.

She looked between them.

"What?"

Marco spoke carefully. "Dental records don't become available that quickly unless someone already had them prepared."

Alessandro's eyes hardened.

"Someone wanted the body identified before questions were asked."

The fire cracked behind them.

Isabella hugged her arms around herself.

"Then Thomas staged his death."

"Maybe."

"Or someone staged it for him."

"Maybe."

"You're getting less useful by the minute."

To her surprise, Alessandro almost smiled.

It disappeared quickly.

"Marco will take you upstairs."

"No."

"Isabella."

"I want my phone."

"It's being checked."

"For what?"

"Tracking software."

"It's an iPhone, not a nuclear submarine."

"You'd be surprised what frightened men can do with ordinary things."

"And what powerful men can do?"

The question landed.

Alessandro looked at her for a long moment.

"Much worse."

That answer should not have made her trust him even slightly.

It did.

Marco escorted her to a second-floor guest suite large enough to swallow her Queens apartment. A blue velvet chair sat beside French windows. Fresh clothes waited on the bed, tags still attached.

Isabella touched none of them.

A woman in her sixties arrived ten minutes later carrying a first-aid kit.

"My name is Rosa."

Her accent was warm and unmistakably Bronx.

"I've been patching up Romanos since before Alessandro learned to lie convincingly."

Despite herself, Isabella laughed.

It came out uneven.

Rosa cleaned the cuts on her palm.

"You knew his father?" Isabella asked.

Rosa's hands paused.

"Everyone knew his father."

"That wasn't what I asked."

"No."

Rosa taped gauze over Isabella's palm.

"Alessandro is not his father."

"People keep saying things like that as if they're supposed to comfort me."

"They're not."

Rosa packed the kit.

"They're supposed to warn you not to confuse the sins of a family with the soul of one man."

Before Isabella could ask what that meant, someone knocked.

A younger man entered without waiting.

He was around Alessandro's age, handsome in a brighter, easier way. Navy suit. No tie. A smile that looked natural enough to be dangerous.

"Matteo Romano."

He held out a hand.

"Cousin, lawyer, occasional cleaner of Alessandro's messes."

Isabella did not take it.

"Which kind of cleaner?"

Matteo laughed.

"I like you."

"That makes one of us."

"Definitely like you."

He leaned against the dresser.

"Alessandro told me what happened at the gala."

"Did he tell you he announced ownership of me in front of two hundred people?"

"Yes."

"And?"

Matteo shrugged.

"It was crude, but effective."

"Effective at what?"

"Making every criminal in that room believe touching you would be a declaration of war."

That stopped her.

Matteo's expression softened.

"Petrov's men were watching. Alessandro couldn't pull you quietly without confirming you mattered. So he did the opposite. He made you matter so publicly that killing you became expensive."

Isabella looked toward the windows.

"That's insane."

"Absolutely."

"Does he always behave like that?"

"Only when frightened."

She turned.

"Alessandro wasn't frightened."

Matteo's smile faded.

"You don't know him yet."

Yet.

The word bothered her.

After Matteo left, Isabella finally showered.

The hot water brought the evening back in fragments—the terrace, breaking glass, Alessandro's fingers beneath her chin, Thomas's impossible message.

She dressed in black leggings and a cream sweater from the clothes on the bed.

When she opened the bathroom door, her phone was waiting on the nightstand.

No guard.

No note.

She picked it up.

A new voicemail icon glowed.

Unknown number.

Her pulse jumped.

She pressed play.

Static filled the room.

Then Thomas's voice.

"Bell, if you're hearing this, I don't have much time."

Isabella sat on the edge of the bed.

Bell.

No one had called her that since she was twelve.

"Do not leave the Romano house alone. I know what I said in the text. I needed them to think I was warning you away."

She closed her eyes.

"Thomas, what did you do?"

As if answering, the recording continued.

"Your parents didn't die because of a drunk driver. They died because your father kept records he was never supposed to keep."

Isabella stopped breathing.

"Records on Petrov?"

A long pause came through the speaker.

"No."

Thomas's voice lowered.

"On the Romanos."

A floorboard creaked in the hall.

Isabella looked toward the door.

The voicemail kept playing.

"If Alessandro tells you his family had nothing to do with the crash, he's lying. Ask him about October twelfth. Ask him where he was."

The recording clicked off.

Someone knocked.

Isabella stood slowly.

"Who is it?"

"Alessandro."

She stared at the phone in her hand.

"Open the door."

She did.

He was no longer wearing his jacket. The sleeves of his black shirt were rolled to his forearms, exposing a faint line of tattoos near his wrist.

His eyes went directly to the phone.

"You heard something."

Not a question.

Isabella stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her.

"What happened on October twelfth?"

Alessandro went completely still.

There it was.

Not confusion.

Recognition.

She felt something inside her drop.

Sixteen years of grief rearranged itself in a single second. She remembered school counselors telling her accidents had no reason, adults saying sometimes terrible things simply happened, Thomas insisting there was no one to blame. That story had been painful, but simple.

This one had people inside it.

People who made choices.

People who kept living after her parents did not.

"Where were you?" she asked.

He looked past her once, toward the empty hall.

Then back at her.

"How did Thomas know to tell you that?"

"Answer me."

Alessandro rubbed a hand over his jaw.

"October twelfth was the night your parents died."

"I know that."

"No."