CH-26

CH-26


Isabella POV

Milan at night feels like another kind of battlefield.
The Duomo square glows like a ghost—its marble facade drenched in golden light, shadows stretched thin between the cathedral’s ancient ribs. The rain hasn’t stopped for hours, soaking the city in mist, turning statues into blurred phantoms. The air is sharp, wet, humming with something primal.

Dante hates this.
I feel it in the way his hand hovers near my hip, not touching, not quite letting go either. Every step we take across the piazza crackles with restraint—he’s coiled tight, like he’s waiting for the crack of a gunshot to rip through the silence. His eyes scan every shadow like they owe him blood.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he murmurs, voice low and carved from granite. “We don’t know if this is a trap.”
“It is,” I say, and step out of reach. “But I need to see him.”

Marco waits by the black Maserati under a streetlamp, face unreadable as he scans the rooftops with that lethal calm only killers wear well. He’s Dante’s shadow tonight, and mine too—though it feels like I have a thousand of those lately. Selene. Aria. The ghosts of my family’s sins.

My boots click against the wet stone. The sound echoes like gunfire. My coat is slick, rain-slick leather that clings to my legs, and every inch of me is soaked in a sense of inevitability.

Then I see him.

Salvatore De Luca.
The king in exile. My father.

He stands beneath the archway like he’s been carved from the shadows themselves. A dark suit tailored like armor, silver hair gleaming beneath the lamplight, his face leaner than I remember—less man, more weapon. There’s no warmth in his stance, just calculation. Distance. Power.

When our eyes lock, time splinters.

“Isabella,” he says, like he never stopped saying it, like I’m still seven and asking him to tell me about the constellations. His voice is a blade wrapped in velvet—soft, but meant to slice.

“You’re alive,” I whisper, breath catching.
He offers a faint smile, the kind that means everything and nothing. “Disappointed?”

Dante stiffens behind me, a silent storm.

“You left her to fight this war alone,” he snaps.
Salvatore doesn’t even blink. “Dante. Still breathing, I see.”
“Not for lack of trying on your part,” Dante growls.

I step between them, spine straight as a blade. “Enough. Both of you.”

Salvatore’s gaze returns to me, sharp as ever. “You’ve grown harder, figlia mia. Like your mother.”

The name hits like a slap.

“Don’t,” I whisper.
“She wanted this for you,” he says softly. “But you’ve made yourself a target. Selene isn’t our only enemy.”

The rain thickens, turning into sheets. Thunder murmurs in the distance.

“Why did you run?” I demand. “Why did you let her take everything from me?”

He laughs—a low, hollow sound. “Run? No, Isabella. I was erased. The moment your mother named you heir, I became a liability. Selene didn’t just want me gone. She wanted you undefended.”

My hands curl into fists. “And so you disappeared? While I watched her carve our family apart?”

His face hardens. “I needed to know if you’d survive. If you could wear the crown without crumbling like the rest of them.”

“And Aria?” I ask, voice splintering. “Did you test her too? Did you leave her with Selene to rot?”

For a beat, there’s something in his eyes—regret? No. Something colder. Calculation.

“Aria is what this family needs,” he says. “Ruthless. Unforgiving. She understands what it costs to rule.”

My stomach twists. “She’s not family. She’s Selene’s weapon.”
“She’s both.”

He takes a step forward. The rain drips from his jaw like tears he’ll never cry.

And then he reaches into his coat and presses something cold into my palm.

A ring. Heavy. Gold. Marked with the De Luca crest—our curse, our crown.

“If you wear it,” he says, voice like smoke, “I’ll know you’re ready. Until then, you’re just another piece in Cassian Roarke’s game.”

The name detonates inside me. “You know Cassian?”

“I knew him before you did,” Salvatore murmurs. “He doesn’t offer help without taking something first. Remember that.”

My breath hitches. “And what did you take from me, Father? My mother? My future? My sister?”

He doesn’t flinch.

“I took everything you are,” he says, almost tender. “Because I made you this way.”

The words slice through me. And suddenly, I hate him—for his calm, his certainty, the way he thinks he knows me. A scream rises in my throat, full of rage and betrayal and twenty years of silence—

—but I never get to release it.

A rifle cracks through the night.

“DOWN!” Dante roars, tackling me as a bullet whines past my cheek and shatters the marble beside us. The stones bite into my back as we hit the ground, the rain now mixed with the scent of gunpowder and fear.

Chaos explodes.

More shots echo off the cathedral walls. Marco returns fire, ducking behind the Maserati, muzzle flashing like strobe lights.

“Snipers!” Dante growls, yanking me behind a pillar. “That’s Selene’s pattern—two, maybe three.”

I whip my head toward where my father stood—

—but he’s gone.

Vanished. Not a silhouette, not a whisper. Just a bloodied glove on the stones.

“ISABELLA—” Dante grabs my face, eyes wild. “We have to move. Now.”

But I’m frozen. My hand clenches the ring, the metal biting into my skin.

My father offered me a crown.

And disappeared.

We sprint toward the car, bullets ricocheting around us. I taste metal in my mouth—fear or fury, I can’t tell. Marco peels out the moment we dive inside, tires shrieking against the stone.

“Where the hell did he go?” I yell over the gunfire, heart pounding.

Dante shakes his head, drenched, grim. “Your father doesn’t vanish without a reason. He’s playing his own game.”

“And Selene?” I ask, voice cracking. The ring is burning in my fist now.

“She’s already here,” he says darkly. “That was her warning shot. She’s letting us know—the real war has begun.”

Then my phone buzzes.
Unknown number.
I shouldn’t answer it.

But I do.

The voice is honeyed, cruel, and unmistakable.

“Hello, sister.”

Aria.