Chapter 11 Chapter 11
At first, I thought it was a test.
I waited for him the way I’d once waited for permission to eat. For someone to decide I was worth acknowledging. Every sound outside my door made my muscles tense. Every alert made my heart jump. Then weeks passed.
Then months and the waiting curdled into something else.
Anger, maybe. Or pride. Or the sharp realization that I was nothing to him; I meant nothing at all to him.
I train twice a day now. Sometimes three. The instructors rotated, but the ground never changed. My studies improved; I had learned French and was well onto Italian.
ONE YEAR
Three hundred and sixty-five days.
That’s how long it’s been since the car door slammed, the gravel crunched under Nikolai’s boots, and he left me at the gate of the Academy. He didn't look back then, and apparently, he hasn't looked back ever since. No phone calls. No "how are you" texts. Not even a single cryptic message passed through the director to let me know I’m still on his radar. If it wasn’t for the fact that my tuition was clearly being paid and the guards still treat me like I’m made of glass and TNT, I’d think he’d forgotten I exist.
I stood in the middle of the training yard at 5:00 AM, the air so cold it felt like breathing in needles. A year ago, I would’ve been huddled in a jacket, shivering and wishing for the basement. Now? I was in a thin tank top and leggings, my skin steaming in the morning mist, and I didn't feel a thing. My body had changed. The soft, starved girl who walked in here was gone. In her place was something corded with muscle, someone who knew exactly how much damage her own hands could do.
"Again, Isla," Oris said, his voice echoing off the steel walls.
Oris didn't treat me like a student anymore. He treated me like a problem he couldn't solve. He wasn't just my trainer now; he was the bar I had to clear. We’d been going for two hours, and I hadn't hit the deck once.
I reset my stance. My feet gripped the tarmac like they belonged there. When he lunged, I didn't see a giant man who could crush me; I saw a series of joints and openings. He threw a heavy right, and I didn't just dodge it; I flowed around it. I caught his arm, used his momentum to pull him off balance, and drove my elbow toward his ribs. He blocked it, but the impact made him grunt.
A year ago, he would’ve laid me out in ten seconds. Now, we were dancing.
"You’re thinking about the numbers again," Oris grunted, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"I'm thinking about how to bankrupt you," I replied, my voice coming out cool and steady.
He wasn't wrong, though. My head was a mess of two different worlds. Half of it was full of the business and etiquette classes I’d been crushing during the day. I’d finished my degree in record time. I could read a corporate contract and find the hidden loophole in five minutes flat. I knew how to navigate a room full of sharks without ever letting them see me sweat. Mrs. Gomes, the etiquette teacher, had actually stopped yelling at me three months ago. She said my "presence" was now exactly what Mr. Ferro expected.
But the other half of my head was full of Nikolai.
Every night, after I’d finished my classes and my training, I’d go back to my room and stare at the wall. I’d put on the noise-cancelling headphones he’d left me on that first day. They were the only thing I had of his. No letters, no photos. Just the silence he’d bought for me.
At first, the silence was a relief. Then it became a cage. Now, it was a challenge.
I’d spend hours on the laptop, scouring the news for any mention of the Ferro name. Nothing. It was like he’d vanished off the face of the earth.
A year of complete radio silence. That was doing something to my head. It made me feel like I was a car he’d bought, parked in a garage, and just left to collect dust while he went on with his life.
"Class starts in twenty minutes," Oris said, breaking my train of thought. "Go get cleaned up. You have your final presentation with Rodney today, don't you?" he said.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. My final presentation. The end of the "business" side of my education. I’d spent the last year learning how to run an empire, how to hide money, and how to ruin people through a computer screen. I’d even done a deep dive into the Rhode’s business dealings. I knew where every cent of their debt was hidden. I knew they were drowning, and I knew exactly which plug to pull to finish the job.
I walked back to my room, my heart a steady, slow thrum. The other girls in the hall stepped aside to let me pass. They didn't talk to me much. They were here to be trophy wives, learning how to look pretty and say the right things at dinner. They didn't go behind the steel wall at night. They didn't have bruised knuckles hidden under expensive lace. To them, I was the "weird" one. To me, they were just shadows.
I stepped into the shower, letting the hot water hit my sore muscles. I looked at the moon-shaped mark on my shoulder. It looked different now. It didn't look like a target anymore; it looked like a brand.
I got dressed in the suit Mrs. Gomes had picked out for me. It was charcoal grey, tailored so perfectly it felt like a second skin. I looked in the mirror and didn't see Isla, the victim. I saw a woman who could hold her own in a boardroom or a back alley. I looked expensive, dangerous, and completely composed.
"Where are you, Nikolai?" I whispered to the reflection.
The anger was there, bubbling under the surface, but I kept it locked down. That was the biggest lesson I’d learned in a year. Emotion is a liability. Logic is an asset.
I spent the afternoon in Mr. Rodney's office, delivering a presentation on hostile takeovers that made him actually sit back and whistle.
"Director Kasim was right about you," he said, closing the folder. "You have a mind for the kill, Isla. Most people get bogged down in the ethics. You just look for the jugular."
"Ethics don't pay the bills, Sir," I said, my voice as cold as a winter morning.
When I left his office, the sun was starting to set. Another day down. Another day of silence. I walked toward the cafeteria, but I wasn't hungry. I wanted to go back to the training ground. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to feel the physical pain because it was easier to deal with than the hollow feeling in my chest.