Chapter 61 -THE RED HANDKERCHIEF
Isabella didn’t notice it at first.
Her room was dim, lit only by the thin slice of moonlight cutting across the floorboards. She closed the door behind her, exhaling the tension of the day — Lorenzo’s simmering rage, the blood still metaphorically smeared across his hands, the way he had never once stopped watching her while killing the Venturi mole.
Her pulse was still not steady.
She kicked off her heels and walked toward the dresser, already tugging at the pins in her hair, when something brushed her foot. Soft. Out of place. She frowned and looked down.
A square of red fabric lay on the floor.
Not just any fabric.
A red handkerchief — deep crimson, folded with a precision she would have recognized anywhere.
Her heart dropped, cold and clean, like falling through ice.
The Venturi mark.
A subtle pattern woven into one corner — two interlocking triangles — the silent signal of allegiance to the Venturi famiglia. The same mark carved into the dead mole’s wrist. The same mark painted onto bombs and coded letters and bodies left as warnings.
“No,” she whispered, crouching slowly.
It wasn’t hers. She had never seen this one before. And it shouldn’t be in her room.
Someone had put it there.
A message. A threat. A trap.
Isabella straightened and scanned the room with sharpened paranoia. Everything looked normal — but that was what scared her most. Whoever planted it had been careful. Deliberate.
Close.
Her throat tightened.
Lorenzo would kill her if he saw this. Maybe not immediately. Maybe not without demanding explanations she didn’t have. But the suspicion would take root, and suspicion inside a man like him grew like rot.
And the timing… the timing was perfect.
He had spent the entire evening watching her, searching her face for reactions, guilt, recognition. Studying her every movement the way predators studied the ground for tracks.
Someone wanted to feed his paranoia.
Someone wanted her dead.
Isabella forced her breathing steady. She picked up the handkerchief, holding the edges so she wouldn’t smudge any prints — if it even mattered. Whoever planted it was smart enough to wear gloves.
She weighed her options.
Burn it? Hide it? Bring it to someone she trusted — except she didn’t trust anyone. Matteo was unpredictable, Niccolò loyal to Lorenzo above all else, and Lorenzo… Lorenzo was behaving like a king who saw ghosts in every shadow.
Keeping it was dangerous. Showing it was suicide.
A knock shattered the silence.
Her spine snapped straight, hand shoving the handkerchief behind the lamp on the nightstand in one swift motion.
“Isabella?”
Lorenzo.
His voice was controlled, but there was something under it — something dark and frayed.
Her pulse hammered.
He never knocked.
Isabella smoothed her expression and opened the door just enough to meet his eyes. They were storm-dark, his jaw tight, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar as if he’d been pacing.
“Lorenzo. It’s late.”
“I know.” His gaze drifted past her shoulder as if scanning the room. “May I come in?”
Panic curled low in her belly, sharp as a blade. He never asked permission, either. If he was asking now, it meant he was giving her a chance to prove something. Or betray something.
“Of course,” she said evenly.
She stepped aside, subtly blocking the nightstand. Lorenzo entered slowly, his attention catching on small details — the open window, the position of the chair, the faint indentation on the rug where her shoes had been.
He was reading the space like a crime scene.
“Did you sleep?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
He nodded, still scanning. Still searching. “There’s a traitor inside my house.”
Her throat constricted.
“I know.”
“No,” he said, turning to her with that lethal, quiet intensity that always made the room feel smaller. “You don’t know the extent of it. Someone helped the mole evade surveillance for weeks. Someone moved through restricted floors. Someone with access.”
Her skin crawled.
Someone with access to her room.
“Lorenzo,” she murmured, not trusting her voice. “I’m sorry. I wish I knew how to help.”
“You can,” he said.
He stepped closer, closing the distance between them with disarming slowness.
“Tell me,” he whispered, “if anyone came here tonight.”
Her stomach dropped hard.
He knew something. Maybe not the handkerchief, but something.
Isabella held her face steady. “No one.”
His eyes flicked over her features, searching for tremors, lies, anything to confirm his growing unease.
He cupped her chin lightly, angling her face toward him. “Your pupils are dilated.”
“It’s late,” she countered softly. “You startled me.”
“Did I?” His thumb brushed her cheek. “You’re trembling.”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re lying.”
Her breath caught.
Not a shout. Not an accusation. A simple observation, delivered with surgical calm.
She met his stare head-on. “If you think I’m lying, then why ask?”
His jaw flexed. “Because I need to know how deep the rot goes.”
The silence stretched, taut as wire. Isabella felt the handkerchief’s presence behind her like a ticking bomb.
“Lorenzo,” she whispered, “you’re scaring me.”
“Good,” he murmured. “Fear sharpens the truth.”
Before she could respond, he leaned in — not a kiss, but a closeness that felt like being pinned.
“There are two kinds of people in my world,” he said quietly. “Those I protect. And those I purge.” He paused. “I haven’t decided which one you are.”
Her heart twisted painfully. “Then why are you here?”
His breath brushed her hair. “Because I need to know whether you’re a danger to me… or a danger to yourself.”
Her fingers curled at her sides. She forced the words out slowly. “I am not your enemy.”
He held her gaze a long, searching moment. Then he stepped back.
“I want to believe you,” he said. “But every time I do…” His eyes hardened. “Something happens.”
The handkerchief seemed to pulse in the corner of her vision. Someone wanted this exact moment. Wanted him doubting her. Wanted her cornered.
Wanted her dead.
He moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the frame.
“Isabella.”
She turned, pulse still racing.
“If you see anything unusual… anything at all… you come to me. Immediately.” His eyes narrowed. “Understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He left without another word.
She closed the door, but didn’t breathe until his footsteps faded down the hall.
Then she collapsed against the dresser.
Her hands shook violently. The red handkerchief glared at her from the shadows.
Someone was playing a brutal, calculated game.
Someone inside the De Luca empire.
And Isabella had just realized something far more chilling:
Whoever planted the handkerchief hadn’t just framed her.
They wanted Lorenzo to find it.
They wanted to watch both of them burn.