221

Isabella

Perhaps it was Donatella's face that was the most surprising, but the days following my declaration and official ascension to the throne were followed by endless visits to my family's estate.

I had to temporarily move there because I was worried about the constant movement and how my son would take it. However, according to Julio, it also applied pressure to bring Cassandra back to the city.

She had disappeared a few days ago, and I believed she went to have her child.

"I must say, he's a very handsome boy," Nicholas said as he carried my son and began to walk around the new nursery. The baby cooed in his arms and raised his little fists towards his face.

 I smiled but began to miss the little bundle of warmth that he provided. I had once complained to Damon, and his reply was,

"You'll just have to get used to it. Or are you going to take my son away from me?" Damon said with a smile.

***

To my surprise, Cassandra didn't show up over the next few weeks. I began to genuinely worry about her and think about whether or not there was a possibility that either she or the child died.

"Maybe it's both of them," Julio said to me one day after voicing out my grievances.

"But in a way, I suppose it's good. After all, it reduces the contention that you have. The contention doesn't exist anymore. I am now in my place as I should be. Cassandra has no contention. My lineage is safe in Marcelo," I replied, but Julio didn't look convinced.

"Yes, and we both know the kind of person she is. You know what? I'll just tell them to keep an eye on her in case they have any new information. I'll send word at some point," Julio said after a moment, which I agreed with.

After a number of back and forths with the appointed members of the senate, the choice was left up to the people.

The election was slated for three weeks from my declaration as queen and was even broadcasted in the lower city. The lower city had presented representatives to me as members of the council.

"Tell them to send more," I said after a while of looking at the men.

 "A senate is going to have at least 20 members. I want 10 from the lower city and 10 from the upper city. It needs to be even; otherwise, the representation would be unequal," I directed Andrew, who had kept to oversee the matters concerning the lower city.

He smiled and continued with penning down my words as my Secretary. Over the next few days, another seven were nominated by the lower city as well as the already existing 10 nominated.

Donatella was still avoiding me.

***

Council meetings, as well as meetings with the new senate, proved to be very lucrative and important.

 Damon, still appraising his role as the mafia king, would attend the Senate meetings, while I, simply because I was nursing my son, would attend any other less stressful meetings, as I had said.

Finally, the day of inaugurating the Senate came and went without incident. I was extremely bored, watching the slow movements of each member as they rose and slowly walked to a seat in the large conference room, taking too much of a toll on my mind.

The only thing that filled it was seeing Marcelo ball his little fists and his face turning pink when he cried.

After what felt like ruling for hours, the inauguration came to an end, and I was free to go home and rest.

"Isabella... my queen," I heard Donatella call from behind me. I turned around to face the woman. Surprisingly, all the members of my council of six were now senators, except for Donatella.

"Is this something I can help you with, Donatella?" I asked as I kept my back straight and looked downward at her.

"I want to apologize," she said as she shifted from one foot to the other.

"There's nothing your apology can do for me, Donatella. It's not going to help me, and it's certainly not going to help the city."

"I know that, my queen, but I sense that we have a strained relationship."

"I didn't strain my relationship with you. You, after swearing your loyalty to me, chose not to trust me. You chose to side with my enemy and even brought her into a sacred meeting.

You knew of her crimes, you knew everything, yet you still did that. I should punish you, but honestly, I'm not in the mood." I turned around, leaving her standing there with tears streaming down her face.

The day pandemonium broke loose in my heart was a week after the inauguration of the Senate.

I felt a slight burning in my eyes, and when I opened them, I ran to Marcelo's nursery. My heart stopped several beats as I found Cassandra standing over my son's cradle with a deranged look on her face.

Isabella

Cassandra looked like a maniac, truthfully. Her eyes were wide open, and she had a strange smile on her face.

"It's strange that you get to give birth to a son while I pushed out a daughter. I watched your little broadcast when I was in labor," she said, suddenly leaning back and putting her hands on the side of the cradle.

"You did a very good job hiding your pregnancy from me and from the rest of the city."

She leaned around and walked towards me. "Why did I have to have a girl? I don't have any problem with girls, but I wanted a boy. I wanted a boy so that it would cement my claim for the throne.

 But he beat me to it. Maybe if I slice him open just a little bit, my child would become next in line. After all, you cannot have another child."

"Cassandra," I called slowly as I took a step towards her.

She suddenly jumped and screeched at me as she waved a knife in my face and then at my son. Instantly, my son started to cry as he could sense the discomfort of his mother.

 I heard footsteps behind me, telling me that Damon had reached me and was taking his time. He walked into the room, and I felt Cassandra's attitude instantly change as I turned to look at my husband.

Damon's face was a mask of rage as he looked at the woman who threatened the safety of me and our son.

"I will kill you if you touch him," Damon said.

Cassandra's lips suddenly started to tremble. In a way, it reminded me of the way my infant son's lips trembled when I burped him.

 "All I wanted was to have what was mine. You always got to have everything. You have the best parents, you have handsome Frederick, and I took your parents from you, and I took your fiancé from you!

 And I took your birthright from you. But it was never mine to begin with. No matter how much I tried to clutch onto the reality that it was now mine, it didn't sink in. Especially this house. Sometimes I see your mother's ghost," she said, her eyes suddenly widening.

"Sometimes your father's too. Sometimes they come to me in my sleep and ask me why. But I don't have answers for them," she said, suddenly starting to giggle hysterically.

She lifted the knife again as my son continued to cry. Tears came out of my eyes, and I began to work the robe I wore just as my breasts began to release milk in response to his cries.

 "But none of that matters now! You have returned and you have taken everything I held dear, taking everything I converted to my own. If not for him, I would have sat on the throne after my father, but he just had to come and ruin everything! You ruined everything!" she exclaimed.

She suddenly dropped her hands and looked behind me as Damon pulled my shoulder towards him and slowly walked towards my son.

 She seemed suddenly stuck in position, and I used the opportunity to lean at the crib and pick him out of his cot before I went back to my husband and stood at his back, shielding my son from the witch.

 "Yes, Frederick. I'm coming" she said, and suddenly raised her hand to her neck. With a swift motion, she stabbed her jugular, and I watched as blood splattered out from her neck and stained the light blue carpet beneath her feet.

***

It took me weeks, even after we left my family's estate, to get over the sight of watching my cousin stab herself in the neck and kill herself in front of my infant son.

I told Ted to look for her child, and finally, that day, he told me that the baby was on her way.

When the girl arrived, she was even smaller than my son when he was born, signaling something strange.

"Dammit," Damon said beside me as I held the little girl. "She cut her belly open."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"I saw it. I saw the bloodstains through what she was wearing that night. She didn't give birth, not really. She had surgery, and I'm halfway willing to bet that it was self-inflicted," Damon replied.

"She can't be that mad," I protested.

Damon looked at me with a blank expression, and I knew it to be true. After all, the woman had killed herself.

 She was cremated a few days later, and her ashes were buried over the same opium fields that Frederick had died.

***

Valentino suddenly showed up one day after Cassandra's daughter arrived to meet me. I watched Damon and him talk from a distance before getting tired of watching the exchange and walking downstairs to face the man.

 "If you ever come into my city again, I will make sure that you die a slow and painful death.

 And you know what is worse? I will come after your city. I will take Rome as mine the same way you covet my city. I will conquer yours.

 And trust me, I'm going to do it. Just give me a reason, and I promise everything you think you hold dear to yourself will disappear into nothingness," I warned.

Valentino suddenly laughed a full hearty laughter as he threw his head back and slapped his belly.

"I knew you were always like this from the start," he said after his laughing fit. "I've always liked you. As soon as I saw you, I wanted to use you."

Damon grabbed him by the throat and held him up until the man stopped struggling. I tapped on Damon's shoulder.

"Don't kill anyone here," I said, and Damon dropped him immediately. Damon crouched and looked at him, causing the man to flinch back.

"That's what I thought. My wife doesn't like men like you. She doesn't like them slippery and weak. But trust me, her promise that she made, I will fulfill it if you step foot in my city again.”

Epilogue

8 years later

The slim man walked through the streets of Avalia. The place had changed considerably since the last time he was there.

For one, there were now four bridges that connected the lower city to the upper city. The lower city itself didn't really look like he remembered it; there were buildings, wide roads, and trees everywhere.

 Essentially, the place had changed drastically. Most of all, there were structures, and he found it very difficult to enter the city.

He even had to employ the help of an old friend who could change his face. The effects, however, didn't last long.

He chuckled to himself and wondered how Michael was doing since he helped him sneak into the city two weeks ago.

The man walked, knowing where he was going, and headed straight for the hotel where he knew a sudden meeting was going on. He laughed to himself as he thought about the Senate.

However, he couldn't deny the fact that the senate was much better off for the city than the council of six ever was. He suddenly stopped as he saw a picture on a billboard. It was Isabella, as he remembered.

 She was, however, much more beautiful as she aged, only seeming to amplify her beauty. She stood beside Damon, and they were surrounded by four children.

One of the children, in particular, looked very different from the rest. For instance, the girl had lighter blonde hair, a slimmer face, and was slightly longer than the rest of the siblings.

 "That's the one I came for," he thought to himself as he walked further towards the hotel. Security was tight as usual, but he was wearing a hotel staff outfit, so it made it very easy for him to sneak in and head towards the top floor that housed the current senate.

“I heard the building was going to be completed this year,” hee overheard two men say and assumed it was about the actual senate building. He finally reached the door just as the last few senators were leaving.

He pushed open the door to find Isabella standing with her back towards him, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the beach.

Beside her was Damon's large and tall frame, also looking outside. Instantly, Damon turned around and looked at him, with a sour look on his handsome face.

In a leap of movement faster than his eyes could see, he had the slim man pinned against the wall.

"Valentino, I am going to kill you," Damon said as he lowered the slim man to eye level.

Valentino felt the life slowly departing from him, but he managed to force out a few words.

"I don't want to fight," he said.

 "Let him go," Isabella said. "He's not going to fight. He's here for something else, aren't you?" she asked as she leaned against the nearest table.

Valentino pushed himself up from the floor. "The girl," he said.

"Which girl?" Isabella asked.

"I think you know the one I'm talking about. The girl that belongs to Cassandra. She's our daughter now," Damon said as he stepped closer to Valentino, causing him to flinch further into the wall.

"Why are you asking about her? She's Frederick's daughter, isn't she?" Isabella asked as she took a step forward towards Valentino.

"She's not Frederick's daughter," Valentino said. "But I think a part of you might have known that. She's my daughter. And I've come to take her back with me.”

 Isabella rolled her eyes. "She's not going to have the life you think she's going to have if she comes with you," she said.

"Maya is happier with us. She has an actual family. She has siblings.

 She has love and protection. She has care, and most of all, she has two parents who are willing to take care of her and love her. Valentino, the longer you stay here, the more I desperately want to fulfill my promise I made to you 8 years ago."

Valentino felt a chill run down his spine as he remembered the words Isabella told him.

"I came here for my daughter, Maya," Valentino said, taking a moment to let the name roll over his tongue. He liked the name.

"She has no future with you, and I have seen it," Isabella said.

 "I would rather tell her when she's older that her father tried to come for her but couldn't offer her the life she needed, than let her go with you."

"Alessandro," Damon suddenly said, and the man appeared beside him as though he had risen from the shadows.

"Take him away," Damon said, closing the chapter permanently.