Chapter 7

Isabella POV

The silence was a living, breathing thing, heavy with the metallic scent of Julian's blood and the roar of the freezing river. Julian finally pushed himself up from the gravel, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated hatred. But it wasn't just directed at me-it was the humiliation of a predator caught in a pathetic trap.

Rosalie broke first.

The shock in her eyes vanished, replaced by a frantic need to salvage the wreckage of her master plan. She lunged forward, her hands gripping my arms with bruising force.

"Isa! How could you be so foolish?" she cried out, her voice trembling in a masterful symphony of fake grief. "You ran off! You didn't listen to me! Look what your childish rebellion has caused!"

She gestured wildly toward the dead body and the bleeding Underboss. "Francesca is dead! And Julian-Julian is injured because of your absolute selfishness! He could have been killed trying to save you from your own reckless mistakes!"

In my past life, this was the exact moment I would have crumbled. I would have wept, begged for forgiveness, and let the crushing weight of manufactured guilt bind me tighter to her strings.

But the girl who would have cried for Rosalie died in a pool of her own blood years from now.

I didn't flinch. I didn't cower. I simply looked down at her hands gripping my coat, and then up into her tear-filled eyes. A low, dark laugh slipped past my lips, the sound so cold and foreign that Rosalie actually took a step back.

"My selfishness?" I asked, my voice dropping to a deadly calm. I stepped into her space, forcing her to drop her hands. "If I recall correctly, dear sister, *you* were the one who insisted on this secluded route. You swore it was safer."

Rosalie's breath hitched. "I-I was only trying to-"

"To what?" I cut her off, my eyes flashing. "Get us killed? A New York Underboss is bleeding in the dirt for a maid because of *your* safe route." I shifted my gaze to Julian, making sure he heard every single word. "Who should answer for that, Rosalie? Because it certainly isn't me. You owe Julian, and dead Francesca, an explanation."

Julian's head snapped toward Rosalie. The murderous rage in his eyes shifted, morphing into a dark, calculating suspicion. He wasn't a fool; he was a Mafia Underboss. He was beginning to realize that the woman who promised him an easy hero's victory had instead orchestrated his public humiliation.

Rosalie paled. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. The perfect, gentle sister facade cracked, revealing the venomous, cornered viper beneath.

As her face contorted in raw, unfiltered fury, I truly looked at her. Without the veil of blind sisterly affection that had clouded my vision for a lifetime, a chilling detail suddenly snapped into focus.

She didn't look like a Falcone.

My little sister Sophia and I both shared our mother Eleonora's sharp, slightly upturned almond eyes and aristocratic nose. It was the undeniable stamp of our bloodline. Rosalie had none of that. Her features were softer, her jawline less defined, her brow entirely different.

My heart turned to ice as a ghost from the estate flashed in my mind. Garrison Bolton. Our uncle's loyal, mild-mannered Advisor. The shape of the eyes, the slope of the brow... the resemblance was uncanny.

*She isn't my sister.*

The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow, yet it made terrifying sense. It explained the deep-seated jealousy, the lack of familial loyalty, and the ease with which she had slaughtered our family in my previous life. She wasn't destroying her own blood; she was stealing what was never hers to begin with.

Rosalie stared at me, entirely unaware of the earth-shattering secret I had just unearthed from the lines of her face. Seeing that her anger was useless against my new armor, her expression began to shift again, her eyes welling up with fresh, desperate tears as she prepared to play her final card.