CH-25

CH-25
Isabella POV

“Choose,Your lover… or your sister.”

My breath sticks in my throat. Dante’s blood is still warm on my skin. Aria’s blood is still fresh on my hands. I can’t—
The screen blacks out.
Not paused. Killed.
Every light in the safehouse gutters, then dies. A heartbeat of total darkness.
Then the air changes—wrong, ionized, humming. The windows rattle. A low thrum rolls overhead.
Marco’s already moving, gun raised. “EMP,” he snaps. “Everyone down.”
Before we can, smoke pours under the doors, cold and white. My vision blurs. Boots hit the floorboards—silent, synchronized. No one we know moves like that.

A door explodes inward. Figures in matte-black tactical gear sweep through—no insignia, no hesitation. Not Selene’s soldiers. Not Volkov’s, either.
“Isabella De Luca,” a modulated voice says through a rebreather. “On your feet. We’re extracting you.”
“On whose authority?” Dante growls, hauling himself upright despite the pain.
A second figure steps in—no mask, no hesitation. He doesn’t need theatrics to be terrifying.
Tall. Perfectly tailored suit. A face that belongs on magazine covers and wanted lists. Eyes like polished onyx.
“On mine,” he says, smooth as poison. “Cassian Roarke. The Obsidian Circle.”
I’ve heard the name, very popular. They don’t war—they broker wars. They don’t pick sides—they own them. Rumor says they bank the Volkovs, launder the Lucha’s art, and sell mercenaries to governments with too much conscience to admit it.

“What’s the price?” I ask, voice low.
He smiles faintly. “Smart. The price will be named when it matters.”
“I don’t do open tabs.”
“You do tonight,” he replies. “Or Selene will name your ending.”
The floor quakes—incoming fire. The eastern wall starts to crumble. Smoke pours in. Selene found us faster than even Dante predicted.
Cassian’s men don’t flinch. “Forty-five seconds,” one intones into his comm. “Bird is hot. Pathway clear.”
“Choose,” Cassian says, gaze flicking to Dante, then to the empty, broken window. “Die here—or owe me.”
I look at Dante.
He nods once.
I turn to Marco. “Move.”
We go.
\=====================

The helicopter is silent. Too smooth to be military. Too elegant to be legal. I’m strapped into a leather seat in black air and machine whispers.
Dante’s beside me, stitched and stable. Marco opposite, jaw tense. Luciana gripping a rosary she hasn’t touched in ten years.
Cassian sits like a king of shadows, legs crossed, eyes on the night. His people are ghosts, hands resting on weapons they don’t need to brandish.
I force my voice steady. “Where are you taking us?”
“To ground,” he says. “To a place where Selene cannot touch you. For now.”
“And then?”
“And then you work. You plan. You rebuild. You pay.”
“And Aria?” I demand. “Selene has her.”

Cassian’s gaze slides back to me. “Aria is a piece. Pieces can be recovered. Sacrificed. Repurposed. You, Ms. De Luca, are a board.”
I bare my teeth. “I’m a blade.”
He almost smiles. “Good.”
The helicopter cuts over a sprawling skyline—towers and glass and neon. Milan. Far from Palermo’s ghosted streets and Selene’s tunnels. But close enough to the kind of money that funds empires—and ends them.
We descend onto the rooftop of a black glass tower that pierces the clouds. Obsidian, literally. The Circle’s nest.
Inside, it’s everything I expected and nothing I trust: minimal, lethal, expensive. Bodyguards that look like art. Art that is probably a smuggled weapon.

Cassian leads us into a penthouse suite with bulletproof windows overlooking the city. “Welcome to your sanctuary,” he says. “Temporary, of course.”
Marco steps forward, hard-eyed. “What do you want from her?”
Cassian’s smile is slow. “Everything your father took from me, for a start.”
The room freezes.

Luciana goes still. Dante’s gaze sharpens. “Salvatore did business with you.”
“He failed to honor it.” Cassian turns to me, all elegance and threat. “Debts, Ms. De Luca, don’t die with the Don. They pass with the blood. Your father’s signature is irrelevant. You are the collateral.”
My jaw tightens. “If the Circle is so powerful, why help me at all?”

“Because Selene is messy,” he says, almost bored. “She burns assets she could leverage. She unbalances a network I prefer stable. And because your sister’s ascension would put a zealot on a throne I prefer to negotiate with.”
“My sister isn’t a zealot,” I snap.
“No,” he agrees. “She’s a weapon. And weapons always belong to someone.”
I take a step closer. “Whose side are you on?”
“The side that pays their bills,” he replies. “And honors their contracts.”

I swallow. “So name the contract.”
He tilts his head. “Later.”
Dante’s voice is low. “No.”

Cassian’s gaze shifts. “No?”
“We don’t sign in blood without seeing the knife.”
Cassian looks amused. “You think you’re negotiating from strength?”
Dante’s chin lifts. “I think you just risked soldiers and resources to pull us out. Meaning we are leverage. You want Selene neutralized? You want your order back? You need us.”

Cassian watches him, considering. “You’re useful,” he concedes. “But she’s valuable.”
“Then deal with me,” Dante says. “And leave her out—”
“No,” I cut in.
Silence. Then slowly, Cassian smiles like a man truly entertained.
“Then let’s make this painless,” he says. “You’ll get Aria back. You’ll get Selene’s war chest. And you’ll get the route to your father.”

My breath dies. “My father is dead.”
Cassian studies my face. “Is that what he told you… before he disappeared?”
Luciana’s hand clamps over her mouth.
I stare at him. “Where is he?”

Cassian spreads his hands. “Alive. In the city. And very interested in which daughter lives long enough to inherit his empire.”
The floor seems to tilt.
Dante’s hand finds mine under the table—rough, steady, promises in silence.
Cassian pours two glasses of something older than my sins and slides one to me.

“Welcome to Milan,” he says.

“Welcome to the Obsidian Circle. You’ll set up shop. Run your club. Be seen. Become bait. And when your father steps out to claim what’s his…”

“You’ll take him,” I whisper.

His eyes glitter. “No. You will.”
I lift the glass. I don’t drink.
“Fine,” I say. “We play.”
“And your debt?” he asks softly.
“I’ll pay it.” A beat. “What is it?”
Cassian stands, buttoning his suit jacket like he’s sealing a coffin. “When I decide. And when I do, you won’t refuse.”
I hold his gaze. “Try me.”

“Careful, Ms. De Luca,” he murmurs. “You’re not the only one who bites.”
He turns to leave, then pauses with a final gift of a grenade.
“Oh,” he says casually, “and one more thing. The sniper at the docks?” His eyes flick to Dante. “It wasn’t Veritas.”
“Who was it?” I ask.
Cassian’s smile is razor-thin.
“Your father.”

\=================
Night. Milan.

The penthouse window reflects a woman I barely recognize.
On the glass coffee table, Cassian has left a slim, unmarked phone. It buzzes once.
A single text;

"TONIGHT. PIAZZA DUOMO. COME ALONE.
— S."

Dante steps out of the bedroom, half-buttoned shirt, fresh bandage at his ribs. “Who is it?”
I stare at the message, heart pounding.

“It’s not Selene,” I whisper.

He stops dead. “Then who?”

I look up at him, the Milan skyline a neon crown behind me.

“My father.”