Chapter 21
Isabella's POV
The cold stone floor bites into my knees as I remember the medical wing three days ago. My own words echo in my mind: "If you want me to be nothing more than a whore, then use me like one."
I'd reached for Marco's belt again, my fingers steady despite everything. When I'd said those words—when I'd offered myself to him like some broken thing—something had shattered in his dark eyes.
For a heartbeat, he'd looked like I'd gutted him. Raw pain, desperate hunger, and something that might have been self-hatred all warring across his face. His hands had trembled as they covered mine.
Then the mask had slammed back into place.
"Don't." His voice had been barely controlled. "Don't do this."
"Why not? Isn't this what you want? Your whore, ready and willing?"
That's when his face had gone white as marble. He'd jerked away from me like I'd burned him, his breathing harsh and uneven.
"Connor!" The name had cracked like a whip. "Take her to the basement. Lock her in the holding room. Now."
He couldn't even look at me as Connor led me away. Couldn't face what I'd become—what he'd made me become.
That was three days ago.
Now I sit in this windowless stone chamber, my back pressed against the wall, arms wrapped around my knees. The fluorescent light buzzes overhead, casting harsh shadows across the gray walls.
The door opens with its familiar creak. Connor enters carrying a silver tray, his blue eyes avoiding mine as he sets it on the small wooden table.
Wedgwood porcelain gleams under the light. Truffle risotto with handmade pasta. The smell makes my empty stomach clench, but I don't move.
"Lunch, Miss Isabella," Connor says quietly. "Chef Benedetto prepared your favorite."
"I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten in three days."
"Good."
Connor's jaw tightens. "Don Marco is concerned—"
"How touching." A bitter laugh escapes me. "We're not friends, Connor. You're my jailer."
He flinches. "I'm following orders."
"Of course you are. Good little soldier."
Connor stands there, hands clasped behind his back. But his blue eyes keep darting to my face, concern visible despite his professional mask.
"Please eat something. Even just the bread."
"No."
"Why are you doing this to yourself?"
"Because it's the only choice I have left."
"Starving yourself isn't a choice. It's giving up."
"Maybe that's what I want to do."
Connor takes a step closer, his composure cracking.
"You don't mean that."
"Don't I?" I stand slowly, legs unsteady from three days without food. "What exactly do I have to live for? Being Marco's pet prisoner?"
"Things could change."
"Could they? Will Marco suddenly develop a conscience? Will he admit he destroyed an innocent woman's life?"
"Isabella—"
"Will he beg forgiveness for selling me to human traffickers?" My voice rises. "For letting them drug me and break me into pieces?"
"Stop." Connor's voice is rough.
"Why? Does the truth make you uncomfortable?"
I move toward the tray. Before Connor can react, I sweep my arm across the table. The Wedgwood porcelain crashes to the stone floor in an explosion of white fragments. Truffle risotto splatters across the gray stones.
The sound echoes off the walls.
Connor doesn't flinch. He crouches down, beginning to gather the larger pieces.
"In Belfast," he says without looking up, "we had a saying. 'An empty stomach makes for poor rebellion.'"
"I'm not rebelling. I'm dying on my own terms."
His hands pause. "Is that what you want? To die down here?"
"It's better than living as Marco's broken doll."
Connor looks up, and something in his blue eyes makes my breath catch. Not pity—understanding.
"You're right," he says quietly. "About everything. What Marco did to you—it's wrong."
The admission shocks me. Connor O'Brien, Marco's most loyal soldier, agreeing with me.
"Then why are you here? Why are you following his orders?"
Connor is quiet for a long moment, still holding porcelain fragments.
"Because I'm a coward," he finally says. "Because it's easier to follow orders than to do what's right."
"At least you admit it."
"I've watched him destroy everything good in his life," Connor continues. "Including you. And I've done nothing to stop it."
He stands, dumping the broken china into a waste basket.
"But watching you starve yourself—" His voice breaks slightly. "I can't stand by and let that happen."
"You don't have a choice. You have orders."
"Maybe I'm tired of orders." Connor's Irish accent thickens with emotion. "Maybe I'm tired of watching good people suffer."
Something in his tone makes me study his face. There's determination there, something that looks like decision.
"What are you saying?"
Connor glances toward the door, then back to me. "I'm saying you might not have to die in this room."
My heart stops. "Connor—"
"I'm saying maybe there are other options. For someone brave enough to take them."
The implications hang between us, dangerous and electric.
"You could be killed for even thinking that."
"Some things are worth dying for." His blue eyes meet mine steadily. "And some people are worth saving."
"Why?" I whisper. "Why would you risk everything?"
Connor is quiet for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is soft but certain.
"Because I had a sister once. Moira. She got mixed up with the wrong people in Belfast. Promised her a modeling career in London."
Understanding hits me like ice water.
"They found her body six months later," Connor continues. "Used up and thrown away like garbage. I swore I'd never let another woman suffer like that."
He looks at me with those kind blue eyes.
"And here I am, working for a man who sold his own fiancée into the same hell that killed my sister."
The room falls silent. Connor's confession hangs between us, raw and honest.
"But first," he says, voice becoming practical again, "you need to stay alive long enough to matter. That means eating."
He moves toward the door, then pauses.
"I'll bring you something simple for dinner. Soup, maybe bread." His hand rests on the door handle. "Will you try? For me?"
I stare at this Irish soldier who's just offered me something I thought was impossible—hope.
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because," Connor says simply, "you don't have any other choice."
The door closes behind him with a soft click, leaving me alone with broken porcelain and the scent of cooling truffle risotto.
For the first time in three days, I'm actually thinking about food.
Connor O'Brien just offered me something that feels like salvation. Now I have to decide if I'm desperate enough to believe him.