Chapter 42 -ECHOES OF GIANNI
The news spreads through the mansion like smoke — silent, suffocating, unmistakable.
Gianni is dead.
The men don’t say it outright. They speak in half-sentences and careful glances, as if the walls might repeat their words back to the Don. But Isabella hears it anyway. A whisper behind her in the hall. A mutter in the kitchen. A phrase dropped as two enforcers pass her on the stairs.
“—didn’t last long.”
“De Luca’s men… methods…”
“Broke by the third hour.”
The words slam into her chest. The air thickens, her throat dries, and every step becomes heavier, as if she’s walking through invisible mud.
Gianni.
Gone.
Tortured until he said whatever they wanted — maybe more. Her stomach coils. The last conversation she had with him flashes like a blade across her mind: You’re getting too close. You’re slipping. Get out before he finds out what you are.
She hadn’t listened.
Now he was dead for it.
She forces herself to keep walking, maintain the façade, but the hallway tilts slightly. Her vision blurs. She pushes open the nearest door — a guest room, empty — shuts it behind her, and leans her back against the wood.
Her breath breaks.
She presses her hand to her mouth to stifle the sob threatening to claw its way out. But it comes anyway — a quiet, trembling sound that shivers the silence around her.
Gianni had been abrasive, pushy, irritating — yes. But he had also been her anchor to the truth. The only person who knew her real name, her real purpose, her real loyalties. The only one who reminded her who the enemy was supposed to be.
Now he was gone.
Dying with the truth on his tongue.
She slides down the door until she’s sitting on the cold floor, knees pulled to her chest.
This is your fault.
A tear hits her palm. Then another.
She wipes them away, furious at herself. Crying in this house — Lorenzo’s house — is reckless. Dangerous. Insanely stupid.
But grief doesn’t care about survival.
It presses through the cracks she’s been ignoring for too long.
The door handle clicks.
Isabella shoots up, swiping her face with the sleeves of her blouse, trying to erase any sign of emotion.
But she’s too late.
Lorenzo steps inside.
He doesn’t speak at first. He closes the door quietly behind him and studies her with an expression she can’t read. Not suspicion, not yet — something sharper. Something colder. Something calculating.
“You’re crying,” he says softly.
It’s not a question. It’s an accusation.
She swallows. “It’s nothing.”
“Isabella,” he murmurs, taking a slow step toward her, “you don’t cry over nothing.”
Her pulse hammers. Her body screams to run, but her feet don’t move. His presence fills the room, heavy and warm and suffocating. She hates how much comfort it brings.
“What happened?” he asks.
A thousand lies rush to her tongue, all flimsy, all breakable. She reaches for the closest one.
“I just—heard about the ambush at the docks. I didn’t realize how dangerous—”
“Don’t,” he cuts in gently. “Don’t lie. Not right now.”
She clenches her jaw.
His eyes lock onto hers, and something shifts behind them. A realization forming. A puzzle piece sliding into place.
“You didn’t even know the men at the docks,” he says. “But you’re… devastated.”
The word is too precise. Too accurate.
Her stomach twists.
He steps closer.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
She forces a shaky laugh. “You barely know me.”
“Oh, I know you more than you think.” His voice drops. “I know when you’re scared. I know when you’re angry. And I know when you’re lying. And right now, you’re lying.”
Her pulse spikes. She takes a step back, but the wall meets her spine.
He notices.
His expression tightens — not with anger, but with something far more dangerous: curiosity.
“What did you lose today, Isabella?”
His voice isn’t gentle anymore. It’s edged with something sharp. Something that smells like truth.
She tries to breathe, but the room feels too small.
“I-I didn’t lose anything.”
“You’re shaking.” He reaches out and brushes her cheek with his thumb. The gesture is tender — painfully tender—yet his eyes are storm-dark. “Who was he?”
Her heart stutters.
He?
Her grief must have betrayed her more than she realized.
She scrambles to cover. “No one. It was no one.”
“You’re crying like someone died.”
She freezes.
He steps even closer, chest a breath away from hers. “Did someone die, Isabella?”
Her silence is the smallest, most fatal mistake.
He sees it.
His jaw hardens. “Who was he to you?”
Her breath comes in shallow gasps. “Just—someone I knew a long time ago.”
“That’s not the whole truth.”
She swallows. “It’s all I can say.”
“All you can say to me,” he repeats, voice quiet, dangerous. “But not all you know.”
The room vibrates with tension. His face is inches from hers, eyes cold and burning all at once.
“You’re hiding something,” he murmurs. “And it’s tearing you apart.”
For one second, Isabella sees the man behind the Don — broken trust, old wounds, instincts honed by betrayal.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispers before she can stop herself.
His eyes flare — with pain, with rage, with… fear?
“You already are.”
The truth slams into her like a blow.
Then a knock explodes against the door.
Lorenzo doesn’t move, but his attention flicks sharply toward the sound.
“Boss?” Niccolò’s voice. “We’ve got a problem.”
Lorenzo’s posture shifts instantly, the tenderness gone, replaced by the lethal precision of a man who rules an empire in the shadows.
“What problem?” he calls back.
Niccolò hesitates — too long.
Isabella’s chest tightens.
“It’s about Gianni,” he finally answers. “There’s… more.”
Her heart flips.
Lorenzo turns back to her, expression unreadable, burning with questions he’s no longer willing to ignore.
“Stay here,” he orders quietly.
It’s not a request. Not a suggestion. A command.
But Isabella knows — if she stays, she’ll drown.
If she follows, she might die.
And if she runs…
she’ll confirm every suspicion Lorenzo is already starting to form.
Lorenzo reaches for the door handle.
Then stops.
Looks back at her with an intensity that steals her breath.
“When I return,” he says softly, “we’re finishing this conversation.”
The door shuts behind him.
The lock clicks.
Isabella exhales a trembling breath, terror coursing through her veins.
Because she knows — whatever Niccolò is about to reveal about Gianni…
may be the final thread tying her fate to Lorenzo’s wrath.
And she has no idea which side of that door will kill her faster.