Chapter 3 3

Isabella POV

The heavy mahogany doors clicked shut behind us, sealing away the cloying scent of Elena's perfume and the suffocating malice of the drawing room. The silence of the corridor was immediate and absolute, broken only by the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of my heels on the black-and-white checkered marble.

Here, in the veins of the Herrera estate, the air was always colder. The portraits of my ancestors-men who had killed without hesitation and women who had buried their secrets along with their husbands-stared down from the dark wood-paneled walls. They offered no comfort, only judgment.

Beside me, Clara was vibrating with tension. She had held her tongue in the presence of the Matriarch, trained well enough to know that a servant's outburst would only earn punishment, but now that we were alone, her composure shattered.

"That two-faced puttana!" Clara hissed, the venom in her voice echoing slightly in the empty hall. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, her knuckles white. "Did you see her face? Smirking like she had won a prize. As if Leo Contreras is anything more than a spineless coward wrapped in an expensive suit."

I didn't stop walking, keeping my gaze fixed on the arched window at the end of the hall. "Lower your voice, Clara. The walls have ears, and Elena has spies."

"Let them hear!" Clara choked out, a sob catching in her throat. She rushed forward, stopping in front of me and forcing me to halt. Her eyes, usually so warm, were wide with terror. "Miss Isabella, how can you be so calm? Do you not understand what they have done? They haven't just humiliated you; they have sentenced you to death!"

I looked at her, really looked at her. Clara wasn't just an associate; she was the only person in this house who had ever brushed my hair without pulling it, the only one who had snuck me extra sweets when Elena put me on a diet. Her fear wasn't for herself. It was for me.

"I understand perfectly, Clara," I said softly.

"No, you don't!" She grabbed my hands, her grip desperate. "It's Damien Russo, Miss. The Damien Russo. They call him the Broken Don, but the whispers in the kitchen... they say he is a monster. A cripple who sits in a wheelchair and tears apart anyone who looks at him wrong."

She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a trembling whisper. "They say his face is a ruin, scarred beyond recognition. And his wives... Dio mio (My God), Miss Isabella, his last two fiancées didn't just die. They vanished. Or they fell down stairs that weren't slippery. He is cursed. He kills what he touches."

A chill that had nothing to do with the drafty corridor slid down my spine. I had heard the rumors, of course. In our world, fear was a currency, and Damien Russo was the richest man in the city.

"Leo Contreras was safe," Clara cried, tears finally spilling over. "He was weak, yes, but he was safe. You would have been the wife of an Underboss. You would have lived. But this... this is a sacrifice."

"Leo Contreras," I interrupted, my voice sharp enough to cut through her panic, "was a man who let his family break a sworn engagement because he found a shinier toy. A man like that would have sold me to the highest bidder the moment I became inconvenient. There is no safety in weakness, Clara."

I gently pulled my hands from hers and smoothed the fabric of my dress. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage, but I forced my breathing to remain even. Panic was a luxury I could not afford.

"Listen to me," I said, my tone shifting from comforting to analytical. "Forget the scars. Forget the wheelchair. Think about the game."

Clara blinked, wiping her eyes. "The game?"

"Why me?" I asked, turning to look out the window at the sprawling, manicured gardens that felt more like a prison yard. "Leo Contreras, an Underboss, publicly rejects me. I am damaged goods. A cast-off. In our world, my value should have plummeted to zero. I should have been married off to a low-level Soldier or sent to a convent."

I turned back to her, my eyes narrowing as the pieces of the puzzle clicked together in my mind.

"Instead, Don Vincenzo-the Capo dei Capi himself-intervenes. And he doesn't just find me a husband. He binds me to a Don. A man who outranks Leo in every conceivable way."

Clara frowned, her confusion momentarily overriding her fear. "But... why give a Don a rejected bride? It's an insult to the Russos."

"Exactly," I murmured, the realization cold and sharp. "Is it an insult to the Russos? A way to tell Damien that he is so broken he only deserves another man's scraps? Or is it a punishment for the Contreras family? A reminder that what they threw away, a Don picked up?"

I began walking again, my stride purposeful. The fear of the "monster" was still there, lurking in the shadows of my mind, but it was being eclipsed by a burning need to understand the board I had been placed upon.

"Don Vincenzo doesn't make mistakes, and he doesn't do favors," I said, more to myself than to Clara. "There is a reason I am being sent into the lion's den. And until I figure out what it is, I cannot afford to be afraid of a few scars."

Clara hurried to catch up, her expression still worried but no longer on the verge of hysteria. "So, what do we do?"

I stopped at the door to my suite and looked back at the long, empty corridor.

"We prepare," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "Tomorrow, the Russos will come to collect their due. I intend to be ready."