Unexpected Kindness

Unexpected Kindness
Marco's POV

I knocked on Isabella's door with the stack of medical textbooks balanced in my arms.

No answer.

"Isabella? I brought you something."

Still nothing. That was strange. She'd been angry earlier, yes, but she always at least told me to go away.

I tried the handle. Locked from the outside.

My blood ran cold. We never locked her door from the outside. That defeated the entire purpose of giving her more freedom.

"Isabella!" I pounded on the door. "Are you okay?"

A muffled sound came from inside. Thumping. Like someone trying to kick the door.

I pulled out my keys and unlocked it, pushing inside.

Isabella was tied to the bed, a gag in her mouth, her eyes wild with fear and fury.

"What the hell?" I dropped the books and rushed to her, pulling the gag free.

"She was here!" Isabella gasped. "The other me! She took everything—the gun, the USB drive, the box!"

"Slow down. What are you talking about?"

"The clone! The copy! Whatever she is!" Isabella struggled against the ropes. "She's been replacing me. She said she's been eating meals with you for three days. She said you couldn't tell the difference!"

My stomach dropped. Three days ago, when "Isabella" had seemed quieter than usual. When she'd smiled differently. When something about her laugh had felt off.

That hadn't been Isabella at all.

I quickly untied her restraints. "We need to tell the others. Now."

"There's no time! She said she's going to kill everyone by dawn. That's only a few hours away!"

I pulled out my phone and called Luca. It went straight to voicemail.

Then Dante's phone. Same thing.

Then Nico's. Nothing.

"Something's wrong," I said. "They're not answering."

Isabella and I ran through the penthouse. The living room was empty. The kitchen was empty. The security monitors showed our guards at their posts outside, but the feeds looked frozen.

"The recordings," Isabella said, pointing at the timestamp. "They've been on a loop for twenty minutes."

We found Dante first, unconscious in his room with a bruise on his head.

Then Nico in the gym, also knocked out.

Luca was in his office, slumped over his desk with a syringe lying next to him.

"She drugged them," I said, checking Luca's pulse. "They're alive but sedated."

"How did she do all this? How did she get past security?"

"She said she was designed for this. Created to be the perfect infiltrator." I looked at Isabella's terrified face. "She's everything you are, but without morality or hesitation."

"We have to stop her before she hurts anyone else."

I pulled out my backup phone and tried to call Agent Chen. The call connected but went to voicemail.

"Agent Chen, this is Marco Romano. We have a situation. There's another Isabella—a clone or copy. She's armed and dangerous and has the evidence you need. She's planning something big. Call me back immediately."

"She won't call back in time," Isabella said. "We have to go after her ourselves."

"We can't. We don't even know where she went."

"Yes, we do." Isabella grabbed my laptop and pulled up the security footage. "If she's been here for days, she left traces. We just need to know what to look for."

She was right. After scrolling through hours of footage, we found it—the other Isabella entering and leaving the penthouse through a vent system we didn't even know existed.

"She mapped out every weakness," I said. "She learned our routines, our blind spots, everything."

"Where does that vent lead?"

I pulled up the building plans. "To the underground garage. Then to the subway tunnel maintenance access."

"The tunnels." Isabella's eyes widened. "That's how she's moving around the city without being seen."

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

Hello, Marco. Sorry about your brothers. They'll wake up in a few hours with terrible headaches. By then, I'll have already finished my work. Give Isabella a message for me: tell her I'm going to kill Vincent Cross first. Then Agent Chen. Then Don Kozlov. Then everyone else who knew about the ritual. I'm erasing the past so I can claim the future. —The Real Isabella

I showed the text to Isabella.

Her face went white. "She's going to kill my father."

"Vincent can take care of himself."

"Can he? Against someone who's his daughter but also trained to kill?" Isabella grabbed my arm. "Marco, we have to warn him. Whatever he did, whatever lies he told, he doesn't deserve to be murdered by a copy of me."

I thought about the stack of medical textbooks I'd dropped at her door. I'd spent hours picking them out, finding the exact ones she'd need for her studies. Because despite everything, despite the kidnapping and the lies and the danger, I wanted her to have her dreams back.

And now I was watching those dreams get crushed by a nightmare version of herself.

"I met your father once," I said suddenly. "Vincent Cross. About five years ago, before everything fell apart."

Isabella looked at me with surprise. "You did?"

"He came to one of our offices to deliver some financial documents. While we were alone, he showed me a photo of you. You were seventeen, wearing your high school graduation gown."

"I remember that photo."

"He talked about you for twenty minutes straight. About how smart you were, how kind, how you wanted to save lives instead of take them." I smiled at the memory. "He said you were the only good thing he'd ever created in his life."

Tears filled Isabella's eyes. "He said that?"

"He loved you more than anything. More than money, more than safety, more than his own life." I took her hand. "That's why he did terrible things. Not because he was evil, but because he loved you too much."

Isabella wiped her eyes. "That doesn't make it right."

"No. But it makes it human."

We heard groaning from Luca's office. He was starting to wake up.

"We need to move fast," I said. "Before the others wake up and try to stop us."

"Stop us from what?"

"From finding the other Isabella and ending this." I grabbed my gun from my desk drawer. "I'm going with you."

"This isn't your fight."

"Yes, it is. Because somewhere along the way, you stopped being just a captive. You became family." I loaded my weapon. "And I protect family."

Isabella nodded. Together we headed for the underground garage.

We'd almost reached the vent entrance when my phone rang. Agent Chen.

"Marco, I got your message. Where are you right now?"

"At the penthouse, about to go after the clone."

"Don't. Stand down immediately. We already have her in custody."

"What? How?"

"She walked right into our field office twenty minutes ago. Handed over the USB drive, the box, everything. She's cooperating fully. Says she wants to testify against everyone involved in the ritual."

I looked at Isabella with confusion. "That doesn't make sense. She told Isabella she was going to kill everyone."

"Who told Isabella?" Agent Chen asked. "I thought Isabella was with you."

My blood turned to ice.

I turned slowly to look at the girl standing next to me. The girl I'd just poured my heart out to. The girl I'd called family.

She smiled at me. Not Isabella's smile. Something colder.

"Oops," she said. "I guess I'm a really good actress."

Then she pressed a gun against my ribs.

"Drop your weapon, Marco. And call Agent Chen back. Tell her you made a mistake. Tell her Isabella is fine and you were confused."

"You're her," I said. "You're the clone."

"Wrong. I'm the original. The real Isabella is the one at the FBI office right now, trying to convince them she's me." Her smile grew wider. "I told you I was designed to be perfect. That includes being a perfect liar."

She pressed the gun harder against my ribs.

"Now make that call. Or I shoot you and go upstairs to finish what I started with your brothers."

My finger hovered over Agent Chen's number.

But before I could dial, the real Isabella's voice came from behind us.

"Marco, don't move."

I turned my head carefully. Isabella—the real Isabella—stood in the doorway, holding Nico's gun with steady hands.

"Step away from him," she told her copy.

The clone laughed. "You won't shoot me. We have the same face. If you kill me, you'll see your own death every time you close your eyes."

"Try me," Isabella said. But I could see her hands shaking.

The clone saw it too. "You're weak. That's why Vincent chose to save you instead of me. He thought you'd be easier to control. More grateful. More human."

"He saved me because I was innocent."

"We were both innocent! I just hadn't been born yet!" The clone's voice cracked with real emotion. "You got twenty-five years of life. I got twenty-five years of nothing. You got a father who loved you. I got scientists who measured me like a lab experiment. You got to be real. I got to be a backup plan!"

For just a second, I saw real pain in the clone's eyes. She wasn't just evil. She was hurt. Broken. Jealous of a life she'd never been allowed to have.

"It's not too late," Isabella said softly. "We could both walk away. Both start over. I'll help you. I'll—"

"Liar!" The clone swung her gun toward Isabella.

Three shots rang out.

But none of them came from either Isabella.

The clone stumbled backward, red spreading across her chest. She looked down in shock.

Behind her stood Don Alessandro Romano, smoking gun in hand.

"No one threatens my family," he said coldly.

The clone collapsed to the floor, gasping for air.

Isabella rushed forward and dropped to her knees beside her dying copy. "No, no, no! Don't die! Please!"

"Why?" the clone gasped. "Why do you care?"

"Because you deserved better. We both did."

The clone's eyes started to close. With her last breath, she whispered: "The USB drive... fake... trap... they're coming..."

Then she was gone.

Don Alessandro holstered his weapon. "We need to evacuate. Now."

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"That USB drive she gave the FBI wasn't evidence. It was a virus. One that would wipe their entire database and release the names of every confidential informant in the country."

"Who would do that?"

"Someone who wants chaos. Someone who wants all five families to go to war with law enforcement." Don Alessandro looked at Isabella. "Your father, Vincent Cross. This was his endgame all along."

Before anyone could respond, every phone in the building started buzzing.

News alerts. Emergency broadcasts. Social media exploding.

The USB drive hadn't just wiped the FBI database. It had uploaded everything to the internet.

Every crime. Every name. Every secret from twenty-five years of criminal activity.

All of it, now public.

And at the center of every file was one name: Isabella Cross.

The girl who'd supposedly orchestrated everything.

"He framed you," Don Alessandro said quietly. "Vincent just made you the most wanted person in America.”