Chapter 16
Isabella's POV
The first twenty minutes of our drive feel like pure magic. I watch Long Island scenery flash past the Mercedes windows, each mile carrying me further from Marco's golden cage. The leather seat is soft beneath me, Sigrid's expensive perfume fills the air, and for the first time in three years, I feel genuinely safe.
Free. I'm actually free.
"I still can't believe you found me," I say, turning to smile at my savior. "After all this time, when I'd given up hope that anyone even remembered I existed."
Sigrid's eyes flick to the rearview mirror briefly before returning to the road. "Of course I remembered you, bella. You're my best friend."
The words warm something cold inside my chest. After years of isolation, of being treated like property, hearing someone claim me as a friend feels like salvation.
"Where exactly are we going?" I ask, curiosity finally overcoming my gratitude-drunk haze.
"Somewhere safe," she replies smoothly. "Somewhere not even the FBI could find you if they tried."
The Manhattan skyline gleams in the distance as we head toward Brooklyn. I've made this drive so many times before—to gallery openings, charity galas, shopping trips to trendy neighborhoods. But somehow today it feels different.
"You seem very prepared for this," I observe, trying to keep my tone light. "Like you've planned every detail."
Sigrid's smile is warm and reassuring. "I told you, bella—I've been working on your rescue for months. Of course I'm prepared."
Outside the windows, the neighborhoods begin to change. Expensive residential areas give way to more commercial districts, then industrial zones. The buildings grow larger, grayer, more utilitarian.
"We're going pretty far into Brooklyn," I comment, watching warehouses and shipping facilities appear on the horizon.
"Red Hook," Sigrid says without hesitation. "Industrial district. Perfect for laying low while we arrange your new identity."
The name hits me like a small electric shock.
Red Hook.
A memory flashes—concrete floors, the smell of salt water, distant sounds of shipping containers being moved. My stomach does a small flip, but I force myself to breathe normally.
It's just a name. Just a neighborhood. There are thousands of businesses in Red Hook.
"That area..." I start, then stop. How do I explain the vague sense of dread without sounding paranoid?
"What about it?" Sigrid asks, glancing at me with what seems like genuine concern.
"Nothing. It's just... I think I might have been there before. In a different context."
A much worse context.
"Well, that's perfect then," she says brightly. "You'll know your way around."
As we take the exit toward the waterfront, a familiar smell drifts through the air conditioning vents. Salt air mixed with industrial chemicals and something else—something that makes my stomach tighten involuntarily.
Just the river, I tell myself. Every port area smells like this.
But my hands, which have been relaxed in my lap, start to clench without my permission.
"Isabella?" Sigrid's voice cuts through my growing unease. "You look tense. Everything alright?"
"Fine," I say quickly, forcing my hands to relax. "Just... it's been a long day."
"Almost there," she assures me. "Just a few more minutes and you'll be completely safe."
The Mercedes turns onto a narrow road that runs parallel to the water, and suddenly my breath catches in my throat.
I know this road.
The realization hits like ice water. I've been down this exact street before. Three years ago. In a different car, with different people, heading toward a nightmare I barely survived.
"Sigrid," I say, my voice barely steady, "I think we should consider a different location."
"Why?" She glances at me, and for just a moment, something flickers behind her blue eyes. Something that doesn't match her concerned expression.
"This area just... it brings back bad memories."
"I understand," she says softly. "But sometimes we have to face our fears to overcome them. And this really is the safest option."
Ahead, a collection of warehouses looms beside the East River. Gray concrete buildings with few windows and fewer signs of life. The same buildings that haunt my dreams.
No. No, this can't be happening.
My breathing becomes shallow as recognition crashes over me like a wave. This isn't just similar to where they took me three years ago.
This is exactly where they took me three years ago.
"Sigrid, stop the car," I whisper, panic rising in my throat like bile.
"What?" She sounds surprised, but there's something else in her voice now. Something that makes my blood freeze.
The Mercedes rolls to a stop in front of a warehouse that looks abandoned—rusted metal siding, broken windows covered with plywood, weeds growing through cracks in the concrete.
This is the Benedetti compound. This is where I spent three years in hell.
"How did you know?" I breathe, turning to look at her with dawning horror. "How did you know to bring me here?"
Sigrid's mask finally slips completely. The concerned friend expression vanishes, replaced by something cold and satisfied.
"Know what, bella?"
Car doors slam behind us. Heavy footsteps on concrete. Men's voices speaking in accents that trigger every trauma response in my body.
I turn to see six men in black tactical gear approaching the Mercedes, weapons held with casual familiarity.
Benedetti soldiers.
Understanding crashes over me like a tsunami. This woman I trusted, who I thought was my friend, who promised me freedom—she's delivered me right back into the hands of my torturers.
"You set me up," I whisper, the words tasting like poison in my mouth.
The passenger door opens before I can react. Rough hands grab my arms, hauling me from the leather seat onto concrete that's stained with substances I don't want to identify.
"No!" I scream, the sound tearing from my throat. "Not again! I can't do this again!"
But these men are professionals. They handle my desperate struggling with practiced efficiency, their faces impassive as I fight and claw and beg.
"Sigrid! Why? I trusted you! I thought you were my friend!"
She steps out of the Mercedes, smoothing down her Chanel suit with casual indifference. More armed men emerge from the warehouse—faces I recognize from my worst nightmares.
"You set me up," I say again, louder this time, the betrayal cutting deeper than any physical wound. "Our entire friendship... was it all a lie?"
Sigrid's smile is razor-sharp now, all pretense finally abandoned.
"That's what friends are for, bella."
The warehouse door yawns open, revealing fluorescent lights and concrete floors. Everything exactly as I remember—sterile, clinical, designed for breaking human beings.
As they drag me toward the entrance, one thought echoes through my shattered mind:
I've been completely played by the one person I thought I could trust. And now I'm back in hell.