Chapter 7

Isabella POV

"You think I can't perform?"

The icy hiss sent a violent shudder down my spine. His hand was a steel vice around my wrist, crushing my delicate bones.

The heavy clouds outside the window finally parted, allowing a sliver of pale moonlight to slice through the suffocating darkness of the honeymoon suite. It illuminated the sharp, cruel angles of the man hovering above me.

My breath caught in my throat, turning into a silent scream. It wasn't Leo. It was Damien Moretti. The Don. The monster I feared more than death itself.

"No," I choked out, pure terror overriding the lingering haze of the first assault. I scrambled backward, tangling in the Egyptian cotton sheets, but he yanked me back with terrifying, effortless strength.

He didn't care that I was the wrong sister. He only cared that I had bruised his massive, fragile ego. Driven by a terrifying, unnatural rage that burned in his dark eyes, he descended upon me again. There was no mercy, no hesitation. It was a brutal, calculated conquest meant to shatter me and erase the insult I had unknowingly hurled at him.

I sobbed, begging him to stop, but my pleas were swallowed by the darkness. He pinned me down, his voice a lethal, freezing whisper against my ear.

"Now, do you think the Moretti legacy is in trouble?"

The sheer agony and humiliation finally dragged me under. My vision went black, the last thing I felt being his massive weight collapsing beside me, as if his body had suddenly given out.

When I opened my eyes, the room was bathed in cold morning light. I was alone, but the air still smelled of him. My body throbbed with a vicious ache, the ruined sheets a glaring testament to the nightmare I had survived. He had done this to me deliberately. A calculated, personal destruction just to prove his dominance.

I tried to move, but a heavy thud echoed in the room. Damien had returned. He was a terrifying picture of composed authority, his dark hair slicked back, a white towel wrapped low around his waist. His eyes swept over the chaotic room, landing on me with absolute disdain.

"Get up and wash," he commanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.

"Don't touch me," I choked out, shrinking back against the carved mahogany headboard. "Stay away from me!"

Damien's eyes narrowed. In three long strides, he was at the edge of the bed. I screamed as he ripped the sheet away, scooping me up into his arms as easily as if I weighed nothing. He carried me into the freezing, black marble bathroom and unceremoniously dropped me onto the floor of the massive walk-in shower.

Before I could scramble away, he twisted the gold dial. Ice-cold water blasted down from the rainfall showerhead, stealing the breath from my lungs. I gasped, wrapping my arms around my knees as the freezing spray hit my bare skin, washing away the dried blood and the terrifying scent of him.

Damien stood just outside the spray, towering over me like a wrathful god. "Explain to me," he demanded, "how exactly you ended up in my suite, Isabella."

"I didn't know!" I sobbed, my teeth chattering violently. "The maid-she was so nervous. She opened the door for me!"

Damien froze. I saw the exact moment the pieces clicked together in his cold, calculating mind. A stupid, catastrophic human error. He didn't apologize. He simply looked at me with a mixture of disgust and something I couldn't name, before turning and walking out of the bathroom, leaving me shivering on the cold marble.

Dragging my battered body out of the shower, I pulled a thick robe tightly around myself and slipped out of the suite. I had to find Francesca.

The corridor of the main wing was a silent, oppressive tunnel. A few yards away, I saw her. Frankie. Her posture was rigid, her expression a mask of cold fury.

"Frankie," I breathed, my voice cracking.

Before she could reach me, the door to another suite swung open. Leo Moretti stumbled out, clutching a torn silk robe around himself. He didn't look like an arrogant playboy anymore; he looked like a terrified, broken boy.

He spotted Frankie and visibly flinched, the color draining from his face.

Leo's gaze shifted, landing on my disheveled, broken state. A flicker of confusion crossed his face as he took a hesitant step toward me.

Instantly, Frankie moved. She stepped directly in front of me, becoming a lethal shield. She leaned in close to Leo, her voice dropping to a deadly, quiet register that only the three of us could hear.

"I told you to stay on the bed. Get back to your kennel, or I'll make sure you never leave a wheelchair for the rest of your life."

Leo swallowed hard, genuine terror in his eyes. He didn't dare speak. He took a slow, hesitant step back.

Frankie glanced over her shoulder at me. In that single, silent look, an unbreakable alliance was forged. We were trapped in a house of monsters, but we would not break.

She turned her attention back to her husband, her eyes narrowing as she stepped toward him, forcing him to retreat backward into his suite.