The Apartment

The Apartment

Isabella's POV

"That's impossible." I stared at Dante's phone, my mind refusing to accept what my eyes were seeing.

His mother. Alive. Holding a knife to my father's throat.

Dante's face had gone completely white. His hands shook so badly he almost dropped the phone.

"She's dead," he whispered. "I watched them bury her. I put flowers on her grave every year."

"Apparently a lot of people we thought were dead aren't," I said bitterly.

My father was alive. Dante's mother was alive. Nothing made sense anymore.

Dante's phone rang. He answered it and put it on speaker.

"Did you get the photo?" A woman's voice. Soft, musical, with a hint of an Italian accent.

"Mom?" Dante's voice cracked like a little boy's.

"Hello, baby. I've missed you so much." The voice turned cold. "Now bring me the girl and the box, or I'll kill Vincent right in front of you."

The line went dead.

Dante and I stood frozen, staring at each other. Two people whose entire worlds had just shattered into a million pieces.

"We have to go," I finally said.

"It could be a trap."

"It's definitely a trap. But she has my father." I grabbed his arm. "And you need answers about your mother. We have to go."

Dante's jaw tightened. Then he nodded.

"The warehouse is thirty minutes away," he said. "But we need the box first. Whatever's in there, she wants it badly. That gives us leverage."

"My apartment," I said. "The box is hidden in my apartment."

We drove back across the city toward Brooklyn. Every minute felt like an hour. My mind raced with questions I couldn't answer.

Why had my father faked his death? How was Dante's mother still alive? What was in that box that everyone was willing to kill for?

When we finally pulled up to my building, I almost couldn't get out of the car.

"I'll go with you," Dante said.

We entered through the basement, using the secret door my father had shown me years ago. The old passage was dusty and dark, but it led us safely up to my floor.

Standing outside my apartment door, I hesitated. Dante squeezed my hand.

"Whatever's in there, we'll face it together."

I pushed open the door and stepped inside.

My heart shattered.

Everything was destroyed. The couch was slashed open, stuffing scattered everywhere. The television was smashed. Dishes lay broken on the kitchen floor. Books had been torn apart, their pages covering every surface.

I walked through the ruins of my life in a daze. This was my home. The place where I'd lived with Elena, laughed with Elena, dreamed about the future.

Now it looked like a bomb had gone off.

"Izzy." Dante's voice was gentle. "We need to find the box."

I nodded and moved toward my bedroom.

It was even worse there.

My clothes had been pulled from the closet and thrown everywhere. My mattress was cut open. My desk was overturned.

And on the floor, scattered like trash, were my childhood photos.

I fell to my knees and started gathering them with trembling hands. Pictures of me as a baby. Pictures of my mother before she got sick. Pictures of my father holding me at my fifth birthday party.

Some were torn in half. Others had footprints on them.

"They destroyed everything," I sobbed. "These were all I had left of my family."

Dante knelt beside me. He didn't try to stop my crying or tell me everything would be okay. He just stayed there, letting me grieve.

After a few minutes, I wiped my eyes and forced myself to focus. The box. I needed to find the box.

I crawled to my closet and pushed aside the destroyed clothes. In the very back corner, there was a loose floorboard that my father had shown me when we first moved in.

"Our family's secrets go here," he'd told me with a wink. "Anything important that no one else should find."

I pried up the board with shaking fingers.

The wooden box was still there.

I pulled it out and held it against my chest. Such a small thing to cause so much destruction.

"Open it," Dante said.

I set the box on the floor between us and lifted the lid.

Inside were the things I expected: old photos, my parents' wedding rings, some letters. But when I lifted those out, I saw what Luca's mysterious messenger had talked about.

A false bottom.

I pressed the corner of the box and the bottom popped up, revealing a hidden compartment.

Inside was a USB drive. A thick envelope. And something that made both Dante and me gasp.

A photograph.

Five people standing together, smiling at the camera. My father. Dante's mother. And three other people I didn't recognize.

But Dante did.

"That's Don Kozlov," he breathed, pointing to one of the men. "And that's Sophia Chen's father. And that's..." He stopped, his face going pale.

"Who?"

"That's my father. Twenty-five years ago."

I looked closer at the photo. The five of them looked like friends. More than friends—they looked like family.

"They knew each other," I said slowly. "All of them. Our parents, the Kozlovs, everyone."

Dante grabbed the envelope and tore it open. Inside were papers covered in neat handwriting. My father's handwriting.

"It's a confession," Dante said as he scanned the pages. "Your father wrote down everything. How the five families made a pact twenty-five years ago. How they agreed to control the city together. How they..."

He stopped reading. His face went from pale to green.

"What?" I demanded. "What does it say?"

Dante looked at me with horror in his eyes.

"It says they sacrificed children to seal the deal. One child from each family. Killed and buried together as a blood oath."

The room spun around me.

"My mother found out," Dante continued, his voice hollow. "She threatened to expose them. So they faked her death and locked her away for twenty years."

"And my father?"

"Your father was the one who buried the children." Dante's hands were shaking. "He knew where the bodies were hidden. That's why everyone wants him. That's why everyone wants you."

A sound behind us made us both spin around.

Sophia Chen stood in the doorway, a gun aimed at my head.

"Thanks for finding that," she said with a cold smile. "Now I don't have to torture it out of you."

Behind her stood six armed men.

And behind them, walking slowly into the room with tears streaming down her face, was Elena.

"I'm sorry, Izzy," Elena sobbed. "They made me bring them here. They said they'd kill my sister if I didn't."

Sophia pressed her gun against Elena's temple.

"Now hand over the box and everything in it," she said. "Or your best friend's blood will be the next thing decorating this apartment.”