🥂 YOU'RE MINE NOW

Chapter 03 - The Night of the Crash

Isabella did not remember stepping backward.

She remembered the wall meeting her shoulder.

She remembered Alessandro reaching out, then stopping before he touched her.

"You were there?"

"Yes."

"At the accident?"

"Before it."

"How long before it?"

He glanced down the hallway.

"Come downstairs."

"No."

"Isabella."

"You don't get to relocate every conversation you don't like."

His gaze returned to hers.

For the first time since the gala, he looked tired.

"I was twenty-four," he said. "Your father requested a meeting with mine."

"Why?"

"He was an accountant for a shipping company my father controlled."

"My father sold insurance."

"He sold insurance after he left the company."

Isabella shook her head.

"No."

"He found something in the books. Payments routed through charities. Port fees attached to containers that never appeared on legitimate manifests."

"Weapons."

"Some. Cash. Other things."

The way Alessandro said other things made her not want clarification.

"Did your father kill him?"

A muscle moved in Alessandro's cheek.

"My father ordered men to retrieve the records."

"That isn't what I asked."

"No."

"Then answer."

"I don't know who caused the crash."

"That's not good enough."

"I know."

She laughed once, without humor.

"You were there and you expect me to trust you?"

"No."

That answer surprised her.

Alessandro folded his arms.

"I expect you to stay alive long enough to decide whether you should."

Before Isabella could reply, an alarm chirped downstairs.

Not loud.

A discreet electronic pulse.

Alessandro's entire posture changed.

Marco appeared at the far end of the corridor.

"South perimeter."

"How many?"

"Three heat signatures. Maybe four."

Alessandro looked at Isabella.

"Inside. Lock the door."

She stared at him.

"No."

"This isn't a discussion."

"It became one when someone started climbing your fence."

His eyes sharpened.

"Isabella."

"What if it's Thomas?"

That stopped him.

Marco swore under his breath.

Alessandro took a phone from his pocket.

"Camera twelve."

The screen filled with a black-and-white security image.

Trees.

Rain.

A stone wall.

Then movement.

A man stepped into frame wearing a hooded jacket.

Even blurred, Isabella knew the walk.

Her stomach clenched.

"Thomas."

She grabbed the phone.

The figure looked directly toward the camera.

Then raised one hand.

For half a second, his face was visible.

It was her uncle.

Alive.

A red dot appeared on his chest.

Alessandro knocked the phone from Isabella's hand and shoved her behind the wall.

Glass shattered somewhere downstairs.

A gunshot followed.

"Stay here."

"Thomas is outside."

"I know."

"I'm coming."

"No."

She grabbed Alessandro's sleeve.

"You said I get to decide whether I trust you. Start giving me reasons."

He looked at her hand on his arm.

Then at her face.

"Fine."

He pulled a compact bulletproof vest from a hallway cabinet.

"Put this on."

Five minutes later, Isabella was crouched behind a stone balustrade overlooking the south lawn, wondering when exactly her life had stopped being recognizable.

Rain blew under the covered terrace.

Alessandro stood beside her with a handgun held low against his thigh. Marco was farther left, speaking quietly into an earpiece.

No one fired again.

"Thomas!" Isabella shouted.

Alessandro turned sharply.

"What are you doing?"

"If he's alive, he came here for a reason."

"Or to bring someone to you."

"Thomas!"

Movement near the trees.

Her uncle stepped out.

He looked thinner than she remembered. Older. A bruise covered one side of his face.

"Bell."

She nearly ran toward him.

Alessandro caught her around the waist.

"Wait."

Thomas raised both hands.

"I'm alone."

"Then why did someone shoot at you?" Alessandro called.

Thomas laughed bitterly.

"You tell me, Romano."

A second red dot appeared.

This one on Isabella's vest.

Alessandro saw it.

He pulled her down as a bullet chipped stone above them.

Chaos erupted.

Marco's men returned fire toward the trees.

Thomas dove behind a garden wall.

Alessandro covered Isabella with his own body until the gunfire stopped.

She could feel his heart against her shoulder.

Fast.

Much faster than his face ever allowed.

"You're frightened," she whispered.

He looked down at her.

"Yes."

It was the first completely unguarded thing he had said.

They found Thomas ten minutes later behind the wall, bleeding from a shallow wound near his ribs.

Rosa was called.

For several seconds, Isabella could only stare at him. This was the man who had packed her lunches, threatened boys who made her cry, forgotten every permission slip until the last possible morning, and somehow learned to braid hair badly when she was nine.

Seeing blood on his shirt did not erase what he had hidden.

But it reminded her that betrayal was harder when love had been real too.

Isabella knelt beside the man who had raised her.

"Why did you fake your death?"

Thomas looked toward Alessandro.

"Because men in his family needed you to believe I was gone."

Alessandro's eyes narrowed.

"Which men?"

Thomas laughed weakly.

"You really don't know."

"Know what?"

Thomas reached inside his jacket.