CH-19

CH-19

Isabella POV

The message burns on my screen like a brand—unwelcome, scorching, unforgettable.
“Trust no one. Especially not him.”

I don’t breathe. I don’t blink.

Beneath the text is a photo, pixelated but damning.

Dante.
Selene.
Leaning in too close. Whispering.
Smiling like they’ve already won.

For a moment, my brain refuses to compute what I’m seeing. I zoom in, searching for some clue that it’s doctored—some blur, some inconsistency, some lifeline. But it’s perfect. Too perfect.

A sharp ache stabs behind my ribs. My chest tightens, breath hitching as if invisible hands are closing around my throat.

No.
It has to be a trick. A carefully timed deception meant to break me down. Selene excels at psychological warfare. This is her specialty—turning the people I trust into daggers pointed at my back.

And yet...
The seed of doubt has already been planted.
And like poison, it doesn’t need permission to spread.

I don’t respond. I don’t delete it either. I just sit frozen, that image seared into my skull, while my mind replays every second Dante and Selene were ever in the same room.

Every stolen glance. Every cryptic exchange. Every time I brushed it off as nothing.
Was I the fool?
Was I the pawn in a game I never agreed to play?

The air thickens. Somewhere in the hallway, footsteps approach—slow, measured.
Dante.

I school my features, tuck the phone under my thigh like a guilty teenager, and look up just as he enters.

His eyes immediately scan the room. Then lock onto me. Then—onto the phone.

“No signal?”
His voice is casual, too casual.

I answer without thinking. “I got a message.”

He stops short. Still.
His expression doesn’t change, but something in his posture shifts—a tightening of the shoulders, a flicker in his eyes.

He doesn’t ask what it said. And that silence screams louder than any denial.

Rage flares. I want to hurl the phone at his face, demand he explain why he was smiling with the woman who’s trying to dismantle everything I’ve built. Everything my father died for.

But beneath the fury is something darker. Fear.
Fear that the one person I let in might’ve already betrayed me.

We sit across from each other at the table like strangers trying to remember how to speak.

The silence stretches. Unbearable.
Then, quietly, Dante breaks it.

“I didn’t want you to see that.”

The words are a confession and a warning all at once.

My voice is a whisper-shout. “Why not? What is it?”

He looks away, jaw tightening. “Selene and I… we have history. It’s complicated.”

Complicated. The word hits like a slap.

I lean in, voice sharp. “Try me. Because right now? It looks like I’ve been sleeping next to a traitor.”

His gaze hardens. “Selene saved my life. Years ago. On a mission that went sideways in Croatia. I was bleeding out, left for dead. She found me, patched me up, and kept me alive for three days.”

The room spins.

I stare at him. “And you never thought to mention that?”

“I never thought it mattered—until now.”

“Of course it matters!” I snap. “You owe her. You’re in debt to the woman trying to kill me.”

“I’m not loyal to her,” he says, voice cracking. “I’ve been using her—pretending to be useful, staying close to learn what she’s planning.”

I want to believe him.
God, I want to.
But the photo won’t leave my mind. Her smile. His closeness.

My heart twists, every beat a betrayal. “And what exactly is she planning, Dante? Tell me. Or are you still protecting her?”

His jaw clenches. “I’m protecting you. That’s always been the point.”

Later, Luciana pulls me aside in the hallway.
Her face is pale, her tone haunted.

“There’s more to this than you know,” she whispers. “Selene’s web… it stretches far beyond our family. She’s made deals with people in high places. Politicians. Judges. Even our own men.”

My stomach drops. “Are you saying—”

“She has people inside our walls. Watching us. Waiting.”

Paranoia claws at my throat.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think.

Who else have I trusted that doesn’t deserve it?
How deep does Selene’s poison run?

That night, I lie awake, my sheets tangled around me like chains.
Every creak of the floorboards sounds like a betrayal.
Every memory feels like a lie.

Trust no one.
The words flash across my vision like neon in the dark.

Even Dante—his warmth, his loyalty, his love—it all feels like a weapon turned inward now.

The morning light brings no comfort.

Marco bursts in mid-breakfast, pale and breathless.
“Isabella, we’ve got a problem.”

I follow him to the war room, where maps, laptops, and files scatter the table like debris after an explosion.

“Selene moved faster than we thought,” Marco says. “She’s seized control of three eastern territories overnight. We’ve lost contact with six of our men.”

The walls of the house feel like they’re closing in.

My hands clench into fists. “What the hell was our intelligence doing?”

“Sleeping,” he mutters. “Or compromised.”

Dante steps forward. “I might have something.”

He pulls out a black drive and plugs it into the encrypted terminal. The screen lights up with photos, maps, code words.

“This is a list of her allies. Their roles. Their weaknesses.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’ve had this?”

“I got it last night. Risked everything to download it before they noticed.”

The room leans in as one.
A flicker of hope.

But my eyes stray again to my phone.
The message still glows there.
A final warning from someone anonymous—or someone far too close.

As the meeting adjourns, and the others scatter to plan retaliation, I check my phone again.

A new image. No text.

Just a broken mirror.
Shards glinting like ice.

In the reflection—my face. Fractured. Split down the center.
And in the middle, scratched into the glass with something jagged:

LIAR.