Chapter 5 5

Isabella POV

Caterina's face turned a sickly, ashen gray. Her eyes darted from me to the heavy oak door and back again. The realization of her catastrophic blunder shattered her carefully crafted mask of Sicilian elegance.

"What are you doing out here?" she hissed, her voice trembling with a volatile mix of panic and fury.

I tilted my head, my voice a soft, confused whisper. "I don't understand. Isn't Caitlin in that room?"

That was the spark that ignited the powder keg. Caterina let out a guttural, unhinged shriek. She lunged forward, her hand slicing through the air.

*Smack.*

The slap echoed down the corridor like a gunshot. My head snapped to the side, a sharp, burning pain blooming across my left cheek. I tasted copper. I didn't stumble. I didn't raise a hand to defend myself. I simply turned my face back to her, my green eyes locking onto her wide, manic ones.

The hallway plunged into a suffocating, dead silence.

I reached up, my fingertips lightly brushing my stinging cheek. My voice was not loud, but in that absolute quiet, it carried to every corner of the wing. "Mrs. Moretti. My father, Liam Carson, may have bled out for this alliance, but Carson blood has not run dry. My upbringing is the sole responsibility of my grandmother, the Matriarch of the Carson family. Since when is it your place to strike me?"

Eleanor's silver wolf-headed cane slammed into the hardwood floor. *Clack.* The sound made Caterina flinch.

Francesca Gallo let out a low, mocking tsk. The other wives exchanged condemning glares. Striking an allied family's daughter in front of her Matriarch was a gross violation of our world's unspoken laws.

Under the crushing weight of Eleanor's murderous glare and the collective judgment of the Outfit's wives, Caterina's chest heaved. She swallowed hard, her eyes burning with a promise of death. "Mi dispiace" (I apologize), she choked out, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. "My nerves... got the better of me."

She immediately tried to salvage the wreckage. "I must go find Caitlin. Come, Isabella, let us leave this mess to the staff." She reached out to grab my arm.

I stepped back, letting her hand grasp empty air. I turned my back on her entirely and faced my grandmother. I did not kneel, but I bowed deeply, my posture rigid with formal respect.

"Nonna" (Grandmother), I said, my tone ringing with solemn gravity. "I came to this wing to rest with my cousin Caitlin. Now she is missing, and there are strange sounds coming from that room. I beg you, as the Matriarch of the Carson family, to take charge. Seek the truth. Find my cousin."

Caterina gasped, stepping forward. "Eleanor, this is unnecessary-"

"Silence," Eleanor commanded, her voice a low rumble of thunder. She looked at Caterina with utter disdain, then turned to the two Carson soldiers flanking her. "Open the door."

Caterina was trapped. The color drained from her face completely.

But before the soldiers could take a step, Eleanor raised her cane, halting them. Her sharp, calculating eyes bored into mine. She needed her judgment to be airtight. "Isabella. Tell me exactly where you were resting before you came out here."

Every eye in the corridor snapped back to me. I felt the weight of their stares-some pitying, some suspicious, Caterina's desperate and venomous.

This was it. The final trap.

I raised my uninjured right hand and pointed a steady finger directly at the closed oak door. I kept my voice eerily calm, devoid of any hesitation. "The room I was resting in, Nonna... is that one."

The air in the hallway instantly turned toxic. The sympathetic murmurs died, replaced by sharp gasps of revulsion. The wives' faces twisted into masks of disgust. Even Eleanor's stoic expression faltered, a flicker of profound disappointment crossing her weathered features.

Caterina's terror vanished, replaced by a sudden, vicious gleam of triumph. She thought I had just confessed to orchestrating the entire scandal. In the eyes of every woman present, I had just transformed from a wronged victim into a venomous, calculating liar who had sacrificed her own blood for a petty rivalry.

I lowered my hand and waited for the door to open.