Chapter 39 -THE VOW
Isabella didn’t remember how she got back to the estate.
One moment she was at the burning dockyard, throat raw from screaming Lorenzo’s name, lungs filled with smoke and terror. The next, she was standing in the grand entry hall of the De Luca mansion, trembling, her hands streaked with soot and someone else’s blood. Voices blurred around her—panicked guards, barking orders, frantic calls to secure the perimeter.
None of it mattered.
She felt nothing.
Nothing except the cold dread hollowing her chest.
“He has to be alive,” she whispered to herself. “He has to be.”
But the blast had been enormous. She’d watched the fire swallow everything, turning steel and concrete into molten ruins. No man should have survived that.
A soft hand touched her shoulder. Niccolò.
“Sit,” he said gently.
She shook her head. “No. I can’t— I don’t know—”
“Sit,” he repeated, firmer this time, guiding her to the edge of a marble stair. “You’re in shock.”
“Where is he?” she croaked. “Do you know anything?”
Niccolò exchanged a look with the guard behind him—a look Isabella recognized.
Pity.
Her stomach twisted violently.
Then the front door burst open.
A gust of cold night air rushed in, carrying with it the scent of smoke, sweat, and blood.
Isabella’s breath stopped.
Lorenzo stepped inside.
Alive.
Barely.
His face was streaked with ash and grime, his shirt torn, his left arm soaked with blood from a deep gash. But he was standing. Breathing. Fury radiated off him like heat from a furnace.
The entire hall froze.
Isabella shot to her feet before her mind caught up with her body.
“Lorenzo—” Her voice cracked.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at her at first. He swept his gaze across the room, counting his men, assessing damage, calculating threats.
“Where are the injured?” he demanded.
“Medical wing,” Niccolò answered. “Two dead. Five wounded.”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened but he didn’t react beyond that. He was a man already planning retribution. Already calculating blood for blood.
Isabella took a shaky step toward him. “I thought—you were in the explosion, I thought—”
This time, he looked at her.
His eyes softened for a fraction of a heartbeat. It was barely there, but she saw it. Felt it. That thin crack in his armor where she lived—where he refused to admit she mattered.
“Isabella.” His voice was roughened from smoke. “You shouldn’t have been there.”
“You would’ve died,” she whispered. “I… I couldn’t just watch.”
A strange emotion flickered across his face—something like gratitude tangled with anger and fear. But before he could answer, one of his lieutenants approached.
“Boss. We found something.”
Lorenzo tore his gaze from her and turned sharply. “What?”
The man held out a small metallic device, burned at the edges, its circuitry exposed.
“It was planted on the north shipping container. Hidden behind the lock.”
Lorenzo snatched it from his hand. The color drained from his face, replaced instantly by cold, murderous focus.
“This was used to trigger the first blast.”
Isabella’s stomach dropped.
It looked familiar. Too familiar.
Her pulse spiked painfully.
“I’ve seen something like that before…” the lieutenant muttered. “Not Venturi tech. Someone else—someone with access.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Access?”
“Someone who knew our movements tonight.”
Ice crawled down Isabella’s spine.
Gianni.
God—she knew it. Every part of her knew it. Gianni’s “intel,” his warnings, his pressure on her. He’d been feeding information to Venturi. But if Lorenzo connected those dots—
He might look at her next.
Lorenzo crushed the device in his fist, metal groaning under the force.
“Someone betrayed us,” he said, voice low, lethal. “Someone inside my walls.”
The room seemed to shrink around her.
Isabella clasped her hands behind her back to keep them from shaking.
Niccolò cleared his throat. “We’ll question the guards. Check communications. Access logs. No one gets in or out without your approval.”
Lorenzo nodded once. “Do it.”
He wiped the blood from his brow and finally turned back to Isabella. She stood rigid, trying to hide the terror pulsing through her.
“Come with me,” he said.
She swallowed. “Where?”
“My office.”
The words struck her like a blow. His office—his study—the room holding the secrets she’d been digging through only days earlier. The room she’d infiltrated. The room she feared he might soon realize had been touched by her.
But she followed him.
She had to.
He closed the door behind them and leaned heavily against the wall, the exhaustion of the night crashing over him now that they were alone.
“You shouldn’t have followed me to the docks,” he said quietly.
“You would’ve been ambushed alone,” she whisper-fired back. “I— I was scared for you.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, just breathing.
Then he crossed the room, lifting her chin gently with his injured hand.
“You were terrified,” he murmured. “I saw your face.”
Her throat tightened. “I thought I lost you.”
Something broke inside him.
He kissed her forehead—a slow, deliberate press of lips against skin, something far more intimate than the storm of desire they usually shared. It felt like a vow. A promise he didn’t yet speak.
When he pulled back, his expression hardened.
“I’m going to find out who betrayed us.”
Her heart stuttered.
He moved to his desk and poured himself a whiskey, his hand trembling ever so slightly.
“Venturi couldn’t have pulled this off alone. He had inside intel. Detailed intel.”
He drained the glass, then slammed it down hard enough the crystal cracked.
“I won’t stop until I destroy the person feeding him.”
Isabella’s blood turned to ice.
He meant it. Every word. This was no idle threat. Lorenzo De Luca was a man who built empires on vengeance, who didn’t tolerate betrayal. If he learned Gianni had leaked information—
And if he connected that leak to her—
She would die.
Or worse, she would watch him break.
He stalked to the window, staring out into the dark estate grounds.
“When I find them,” he said quietly, dangerously, “I’ll make an example so brutal Venturi will think twice before coming for me again.”
Isabella flinched.
Her guilt clawed up her throat, threatening to choke her.
She wanted to confess. Wanted to tell him everything. But she couldn’t. Because losing him now—after everything—felt like stepping off a cliff with no ground below.
“Lorenzo,” she whispered, “you’ll find the truth.”
“Damn right I will.”
She swallowed hard, her pulse pounding in her ears.
“Just… promise me you’ll be careful.”
He turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing. “Why does it sound like you know something I don’t?”
Her breath hitched. “I—what? I don’t—”
A knock cut her off.
Niccolò entered.
“We found something else,” he said.
Lorenzo stiffened. “What?”
Niccolò hesitated—glancing briefly at Isabella.
Isabella felt her ribs tighten around her lungs.
“It’s about the leak,” he said.
Lorenzo’s eyes sharpened to knives. “Speak.”
Niccolò stepped forward, placing a small folder on the desk.
“We traced the intel. The timing. The communications.”
He looked between them again.
“This wasn’t Venturi’s usual pattern. Whoever fed him information… knows us. Knows you. And they’re close.”
Isabella felt her knees weaken.
Lorenzo lifted the folder slowly.
His voice dipped into a deadly whisper.
“Who are you telling me I need to kill?”
Niccolò opened his mouth.
Isabella held her breath.
And then—
A crackle of static erupted from the radio on Lorenzo’s desk.
A distorted voice snarled through the speaker:
“De Luca. You’re too late. We already took what we needed.”
Lorenzo went rigid.
Isabella’s blood froze.
The voice continued, cruel and taunting:
“And tomorrow… the whole city will know your little secret.”
The transmission cut.
Leaving silence.
Lorenzo’s gaze slid to Isabella—
Sharp. Suspicious. Searching.
And in that instant, she felt the world tilt beneath her feet.