🥂 YOU'RE MINE NOW

Chapter 08 - No More Cages

They searched everything Isabella owned.

Clothes.

Books.

Jewelry.

The battered recipe box that had belonged to Elena.

Even Pepper's carrier.

Nothing looked important enough to start a war.

By midnight, Isabella had had enough.

"Stop."

Alessandro was standing beside a table covered with the pieces of her life.

"Marco isn't finished."

"I am."

"Isabella."

"No."

She took the key from the table and put it around her neck on a thin chain.

"You keep treating me like a package you can move from one secure room to another."

"I'm trying to keep you alive."

"I know."

That surprised him.

She stepped closer.

"But if the only way I stay alive is by never making another decision, then Petrov isn't the only person taking my life away."

His face tightened.

"That isn't fair."

"No."

Her voice softened.

"It isn't."

The anger went out of him.

"Tell me what you want."

It was the first time he had asked.

Isabella took a breath.

"I want my mother moved somewhere she chooses. Not somewhere your family pays for."

"Done."

"I want Thomas protected, but I don't want him deciding anything for me."

Thomas, across the room, looked down.

"Done."

"I want to go back to school."

"No."

She stared.

Alessandro sighed.

"Negotiate something possible."

"Fine. I want access to my coursework, my professors, and my clinical coordinator. I will not disappear without explanation."

"Agreed."

"And I want to help."

"Absolutely not."

"Alessandro."

"You are a nursing student."

"And you're looking for something hidden in my life. I know my life better than you."

Bianca smiled from the sofa.

"She has you there."

"No one asked you."

"That's rarely stopped me."

Isabella continued.

"My father used medical charities to hide financial records, right?"

Alessandro nodded slowly.

"The charity at the gala."

"What about it?"

She remembered the terrace conversation.

Warehouse seventeen.

Weapons.

Payment on verification.

Then she remembered the logo printed on the staff schedule.

A blue cross inside a white circle.

"Horizon Relief."

Marco looked up.

"What?"

"The gala beneficiary. Horizon Relief."

She crossed to the laptop.

"We were told the money was for emergency medical shipments overseas."

Bianca sat forward.

"Medical containers."

Isabella nodded.

"Things customs is less likely to delay during disaster response."

Alessandro was already typing.

Within minutes, Marco had shipping records on-screen.

Horizon Relief had containers arriving at Port Newark Thursday night.

Destination: Warehouse 17.

Alessandro looked at Isabella.

"You just found Petrov's shipment."

"No."

She pointed to an itemized manifest.

"I found what he's hiding it inside."

Portable ultrasound units.

Trauma kits.

Anesthesia machines.

All equipment large enough to conceal weapons or cash.

One line bothered her.

Forty pediatric ventilators.

"That's wrong."

"Why?"

"There are only six hospitals listed as recipients. None of them have pediatric ICUs large enough to use this many."

Marco leaned closer.

"How sure are you?"

"Sure enough that somebody copied a legitimate aid list without understanding medicine."

Alessandro's expression changed.

Approval.

It warmed her more than she wanted.

"So what now?" she asked.

"We intercept the shipment."

"With guns?"

"Preferably before guns."

"Comforting."

His eyes held hers.

"I heard you."

"What?"

"No cages."

He paused.

"But you stay away from the port."

She considered arguing.

Then nodded.

"Fine."

It was progress.

At two in the morning, Isabella found him alone in the kitchen.

Not the grand formal kitchen.

A smaller one at the back of the house.

He was making coffee.

Badly.

"You own a mansion and can't operate a coffee maker?"

"I employ people."

"Tragic."

She took the filter from him.

Their hands brushed.

Neither moved immediately.

The air changed.

It was ridiculous.

Men were trying to kill them. Her mother had returned from the dead. Her uncle had admitted seven years of lies.

And somehow Isabella was aware of Alessandro's hand against hers.

He stepped back first.

"Thank you."

"For coffee?"

"For tonight."

She looked at him.

"You don't like being wrong."

"No."

"You really don't like a woman telling you you're wrong."

"That is untrue."

"Bianca."

"Bianca enjoys telling me I'm wrong recreationally."

Isabella smiled.

Then his expression became serious.

"I meant what I said at the gala as protection."

"You're mine now."

He looked almost embarrassed.

"I could have phrased it better."

"You think?"

"I had approximately three seconds."

"And that's what you came up with?"

"It worked."

She poured water into the machine.

"Protection isn't ownership."

"I know."

"Do you?"

He held her gaze.

"I'm learning."

The coffee began dripping.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Marco entered.

His face ended whatever had been happening between them.

"We intercepted a call."

Alessandro straightened.

"Petrov?"

"Matteo."

"Where?"

"Unknown."

Marco looked at Isabella.

"He was speaking to someone at Columbia."

Her stomach tightened.

"Who?"

Marco hesitated.

"My clinical instructor?"

"No."

"My dean?"

"No."

He handed her the transcript.

The name at the top was MAYA CHEN.

Isabella's closest friend in nursing school.

Her roommate for two years.

The person who had held her hand at her father's graveside every October even when Isabella said she did not need anyone.

"What did Matteo say to her?"

Marco's jaw set.

"We only caught the last sentence."

Isabella read it.

Maya had been the first person at Columbia to learn Isabella kept crackers in her locker because stress made her forget meals. She had slept on Isabella's floor after Thomas's worst gambling relapse and never once asked why Isabella could not simply cut him off. Maya was not family by blood. That made the thought of losing her no less unbearable.

TELL ISABELLA TO BRING THE KEY TO WAREHOUSE 17, OR MAYA DOESN'T LEAVE THE HOSPITAL.

Her fingers went cold.

Alessandro reached for the paper.

Isabella pulled it away.

"No."

His eyes met hers.

"No more cages," she said.