Chapter 4

Isabella POV

The subway ride back to the edge of Brooklyn was a blur of rattling metal and biting drafts. By the time we unlocked the door to our cramped apartment, the storm had seeped into our very bones. The old radiator in the corner groaned, fighting a losing battle against the thick icicles forming on the windowpanes.

I stood by the doorway, watching my mother, Annabel, frantically rub Abby's freezing hands between her own. My father, Arturo, slumped onto the worn sofa, his face buried in his hands. The sheer exhaustion and humiliation of being a lowly Associate crushed beneath the heel of the Hobbs Matriarch radiated from his hunched shoulders.

Looking at them, the phantom heat of a roaring inferno licked at my skin.

My mind violently pulled me back to the trajectory of my past life. Back then, naive and desperate to protect my father, I had believed Hertha Hobbs's lies. I had walked into the Velasquez estate thinking I was saving my family, only to find myself locked in a gilded cage that quickly turned into a lightless underground cell. I remembered the starvation, Javier Velasquez's sadistic torture, and the news of my mother dying of a broken heart.

My nails dug so deeply into my palms that the skin nearly broke. The agony of being treated as disposable *Collateral* in a mafia power play ignited a dark, consuming fire in my chest. I would rather walk straight into the Romero family's Selection Gala and face the terrifying Dark Don, Damien Romero, than ever step foot in the Velasquez slaughterhouse again.

"We... we should reconsider, Arturo," my mother's trembling voice broke the silence, pulling me back to the present. She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed. "Elzada Velasquez is known as a pious philanthropist. It's a Capo's family. If Isabella marries her son, she'll be protected. It might be the only way to keep her away from the Romero Selection Gala. We all know what happens to girls who catch the Dark Don's eye."

My father looked torn, the heavy weight of the mafia hierarchy suffocating his instincts to protect me.

I walked into the tiny kitchen, poured three cups of hot tea, and carried them to the coffee table. My hands didn't shake.

"Mom," I said, my voice eerily calm for an eighteen-year-old girl. "If this marriage is such a monumental blessing, why didn't Aunt Bette secure it for her precious Bianca?"

Annabel blinked, the teacup halting halfway to her lips. "What?"

"Aunt Bette would sell her soul for a Capo's alliance," I continued, sitting across from them. "She wouldn't let a golden opportunity slip to an Associate's daughter unless the gold was actually rot."

"Isabella, you can't speak of your aunt that way-"

"I tracked the Velasquez family's offshore accounts and encrypted messages on the dark web last month," I lied smoothly, using the hacking skills I had secretly honed as my shield. "Elzada's biological son isn't a young prodigy. He's a severe drug addict who already has a bastard child with a stripper from an underground club. They don't want a bride. They want a naive, powerless girl from the slums to act as a respectable cover for his filthy scandals."

The color drained from my mother's face. "No... Hertha wouldn't..."

"It gets worse," I said, leaning forward, ensuring every word pierced through her blind familial loyalty. "Elzada's 'pious' reputation is a mask. She murdered the Capo's first wife to take her place, and right now, she is embezzling millions from the family's casinos. The original wife's eldest son, Javier Velasquez, knows everything. He is quietly gathering weapons and loyalists. A *Vendetta* is coming, Mom. A bloodbath that will tear their estate apart."

The radiator hissed loudly in the suffocating silence.

Arturo's head snapped up, his eyes wide with horror. He was an accountant; he knew exactly what happened to the collateral damage when a mafia family imploded over stolen money and blood feuds.

"They aren't offering us a seat at the table," I whispered, watching the last shreds of my mother's illusion shatter into dust. "Grandmother and Aunt Bette are throwing me into a warzone to be a human shield, just to earn a favor from a corrupt Matriarch."

Annabel let out a choked sob, her hand flying to her mouth as the horrifying reality set in. The Hobbs family didn't see her as a daughter or a sister. They saw us as garbage to be disposed of for their own political gain.

My father stared at the peeling wallpaper, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek. The hesitation in his eyes was gone, replaced by a dark, simmering rage.