Chapter 36 Nonna's house
Isabella didn’t cry when the car started.
She showed no emotion at all. It was as if her body was there, but nothing else remained inside her. No thoughts. No feelings. Just emptiness.
That was the first thing her mother noticed.
The long drive through the countryside passed in silence, the world outside the window blurring into green and stone and sunlit dust. Once, Isabella would have commented on it — on the olive trees, on the way the hills folded into each other like quiet secrets. She had always loved nature. The ride used to be her favorite, because it filled her with dreams of places she wanted to visit, plans she would make and forget, then make again. She had once been so full of life, able to find joy even in the smallest things.
Now she only stared.
When the gates opened and the familiar villa appeared — old, proud, heavy with history — Isabella didn’t react.
Her grandmother’s home.
A place that smelled of polished wood and rosemary and things that refused to die.
“Isabella,” her mother whispered, touching her arm gently. “We’re here.”
Isabella nodded.
That was all.
Inside, servants moved quickly, heads bowed, eyes flickering with curiosity and fear. News traveled fast in their world. They already knew something was wrong.
Nonna was waiting in the sitting room.
She rose slowly from her chair — tall despite her age, back straight despite the years, hair silver and severe, eyes still sharp enough to cut through lies. She had buried two husbands, three brothers, and a son.
Loss had never made her soft.
“Come here,” she said.
Isabella stepped forward automatically, as if obeying something deeper than thought. Her grandmother took her face between her hands, turning it from side to side, inspecting her like a soldier returned from war.
“You look thin,” Nonna murmured. “But alive. That matters.”
Isabella swallowed.
Her mother hovered nearby, twisting her fingers together, eyes already wet.
They settled in the sitting room. Tea was brought. Biscuits remained untouched.
The television murmured quietly in the corner — the only thing Marco had not taken from Isabella’s world.
It was there by design.
Nonna sat opposite her, posture unyielding.
“So,” she said. “You met a De Luca.”
Isabella flinched.
“Nonna—”
“I don’t need details,” her grandmother interrupted. “I know what men like him are. I knew his grandfather. Same eyes. Same hunger.”
Her mother tried to intervene. “Mama, please—”
“You were always too soft,” Nonna snapped without looking at her. “That is why you lost so much.”
Isabella’s chest tightened.
Nonna turned back to her. “Do you know what love is, child?”
Isabella hesitated.
“I thought I did,” she whispered.
Nonna nodded slowly. “That is how they get you.”
She leaned forward.
“Blood is love,” she said. “Blood is loyalty. Blood is the only thing that remains when everything else burns.”
Isabella shook her head weakly. “He protected me.”
“So did my first husband,” Nonna replied. “Until protecting me became inconvenient.”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“He didn’t know who I was,” she whispered.
“Men always know,” Nonna said. “Even when they pretend not to.”
The television changed suddenly.
A glossy magazine cover filled the screen.
A photograph.
Alessandro De Luca.
Laughing.
A beautiful woman beside him — dark hair, expensive dress, her hand resting intimately on his arm.
The caption was brutal in its simplicity:
DE LUCA HEIR SPOTTED WITH NEW COMPANION
Isabella’s breath left her body in a broken sound.
Her knees nearly buckled.
Her mother gasped. “Oh God…”
Nonna didn’t look surprised.
“They do this,” she said calmly. “They move on. They always do.”
Isabella stared at the image, her vision blurring.
He hadn’t come.
He hadn’t called.
And now he was smiling for cameras.
“No…” she whispered. “That’s not—he wouldn’t—”
Her grandmother watched her carefully.
“This is the truth,” Nonna said. “Not what you felt. Not what he promised. What he does.”
Isabella sank into the sofa, shaking.
Her mother moved to her, kneeling, trying to pull her into her arms. “Bella, please—”
Isabella pushed her away gently, like someone afraid of breaking glass.
Her heart felt hollow.
Like something had been removed and left a cavity behind.
Inside her grandmother’s mind, another voice echoed.
Marco called me last night, Nonna thought.
Told me she was lost. That I had to bring her back.
She had listened.
She always did.
“Your brother is trying to save you,” Nonna said aloud. “From men who take and take until nothing is left.”
Isabella didn’t answer.
She only stared at the screen.
At Alessandro’s smile.
At the woman beside him.
The world kept moving.
And Isabella felt like she had been left behind in a room with no doors.
By nightfall, she followed her family through the villa without protest.
A daughter.
A granddaughter.
A Romano.
Hollow.