Chapter 34

Aaron's POV

After she screamed for me to get out, I stood right outside Isabella’s bedroom door for hours, listening to nothing, unsure what to do. She knew the truth now – that not only had I known about his affair with Victor since the start, but that I’d set the entire thing up to catch my own brother. The sound of hurt in her voice when she’d accused him of lying had been like a knife in his chest.

Half of me wanted to kick in the door and tell her everything – why and how and how it never should have happened, how I’d fallen in love with her, how I’d loved her all along, despite the fact that our marriage had been built on a lie. But Isabella needed more time to mull over what she had discovered, and pressuring her would only be counterproductive.

I headed to my study where Diablo stood with information on the night's damage.

"Boss, Victor don split the Palazzo Romano as soon as the meeting was over. He was tracked home by our surveillance team, who reported that he seemed to be packing in a hurry in his apartment.

"And the northern syndicate representatives?"

"Not happy. They see tonight as a tremendous waste of their time and an insult to them personally. The word is they intend to make Victor pay for the embarrassment.”

I filled a glass with whiskey and sank into my chair. Victor’s big idea had gone terribly, terribly south, and the repercussions were not going to be good. The northern syndicates were not known for their magnanimity, especially after they believed they’d been made to look like fools in the eyes of other family capos.

“How much trouble is Victor really in?”

"Immediate and severe. These are not apologizing, explaining people. Victor was supposed to serve your elimination tonight, and instead they got amateur theater.”

"Do you know where he thinks he’s going to go?”

“We’re hearing from our sources that he’s planning on leaving the country altogether. Smart move, considering."

I nodded, sipping my whiskey and feeling like my brother. For no matter his treachery, his plotting, his readiness to tear the ties of fractious brotherhood in pursuit of raw power, he was both flesh and blood. And the woman upstairs, whose heart I was attempting to win, was in love with him.

"Boss, there's something else."

"What?"

"We picked up a phone call that Victor made around twenty minutes ago."

I looked up sharply. "To whom?"

"Your wife."

My blood ran cold. "What did he say?"

He begged her to elope with him. Said he would be at the marina for an hour and she could go with him before he goes away.

I paused, and set my glass of whiskey down, heart pounding. Victor was giving Isabella a way out of it all — out of our arranged marriage, out of the family politics, of the manipulation she had suffered from both of us. He was giving her the freedom she’d always craved.

"When was this call?"

"About twenty-five minutes ago."

Which meant Victor was going to be at the marina for about another thirty-five minutes. And Isabella was soon to make a choice that would dictate the rest of both our lives.

"Sir, what are your orders?"

I could stop her. And I had a number of gunmen who would make certain Isabella never made it to the docks. I had the power to put Victor in jail or just have him killed before Isabella could get to him. I could use my power and wealth to make sure Isabella had no other option than to be with me.

But then I'd be no better than Victor- a man ready to play puppet master, to bend and control the woman who had owned my love and taken it for herself.

"No orders. Let events take their course."

“Boss, if Isabella goes out with Victor…”

"Then she leaves. I'm not going to trap her in a marriage that she doesn't want.”

“Even if you lose her forever?”

"Especially if it risks losing her forever. Real love requires choice, Diablo. If Isabella ends up picking Victor, then I'll know how much our marriage was worth to her."

After Diablo departed, I sat alone in my study, staring at the clock and pondering Isabella in her room above. Was she packing a bag? Was she trying to write me a letter justifying her decision? Had she wrestled with the pull of duty and the tug of desire or had she already known?

I remembered our weekend together at the villa, the way she’d giggled at my stories and allowed me to hold her hand on the beach. I remembered the real warmth I’d seen in her eyes at our romantic dinners and the way she had kissed me, as if with real feeling. Any of it, had any of it been real or had Isabella been as good of an actress as I was?

The fact was, I might never find out. Because no matter how Isabella chose tonight, our relationship could never be the same. Now she knew that I had been engineering all this from the start, that I had peacelessly allowed her to live in guilt and torment when I knew in my heart the truth. Even if she remained, how could she ever trust me again?

My phone vibrated, breaking me from my reverie. The caller ID was from an unfamiliar number.

"Aaron, it's Victor."

"Victor. I wondered if you'd call."

“I’m calling because I need you to know something before I disappear.”

"What's that?"

"I love Isabella. I really, genuinely love her. This has nothing to do with winning or losing or family politics. I love her, and I feel like she deserves more than either of us has given her.”

"I see."

"Do you? Because I'm not sure you do. Isabella's not something to be won, Aaron! Here is somebody who should have the right to decide for herself, in the way that she sees fit."

"I'm aware of that."

"Are you? Because all you’ve done in this situation is control and manipulate. You have been playing people like pieces on the chessboard, even the one woman you purport to care for.”

The criticism hurt, because it was largely fair.

"What's your point, Victor?"

"What I'm saying is I've asked Isabella to go with me tonight. Not because I want to beat her in some death match between us, but because I think she deserves a shot at happiness. For once, an opportunity to pick her own path.”

"And if she chooses to stay?"

"Then I'll respect that choice. But it’s gotta be her decision, Aaron.” Not something you force upon her.”

“I’m not trying to force anything.”

"Good. Because you have both manipulated Isabella enough.”

"Victor, about tonight—"

“Tonight was a disaster, and we both know it. You outplayed me completely. But this is no longer a game of winning or losing. This is my way of allowing Isabella to make up her own mind, without either of us getting in the way.”

"Understood."

"I hope it is. Because if you try to interfere with her right to choose, if you wield some power to scare her from making you go away, I will know. And I will see to it she knows it too.”

And then the line went dead, leaving me staring at my phone.

One thing Victor was right about, Isabella had been manipulated enough. By him, by me, by the circumstances of our understanding of marriage. If she was going to be here, it needed to be a place she actually wanted to be and wanted to build a life with me and not because she felt like she was fucked, you know?

I looked at the clock. Victor would be at the harbor for another fifteen minutes or so. If Isabella was coming to him, she would have come by now.

But as I continued to sit through the wait, it struck me what I had on my hands: I had no idea what Isabella would do. All my noticing and all my figuring, all the months of attempting to divine what she felt and why, and I’d no fucking clue whether my wife was going to stay with me or skip town with my brother.

The uncertainty was terrifying.

Then suddenly, at midnight, my telephone rang. This time it was Giuseppe, the chief of my security.

"Mr. Romano oh, about ten minutes ago. She's driving toward the marina."

My heart stopped. "I see."

“Shall we keep on her or what?

I closed my eyes and thought of Isabella driving through the night to a decision that would alter both our fates forever.

"No," I said finally. "Let her go."

"Sir, are you sure—"

"I'm sure. What happens now is entirely up to Isabella.”

I replaced the receiver, leaned back in my chair and gazed out the window at the estate grounds. Out there somewhere, my wife was making her choice between a shaky, maneuvered marriage, and a blank, scout-like future with the brother who’d persuaded her to betray me.

And I would have to live with whatever decision she made.

Because, for the first time since I’d been married to Isabella Hawthorne, I was going to allow her to make her own choice, not puppet her into submission, manipulation or coercion.

Even if it destroyed me.