Chapter 3 The Morales II

"You have to go somewhere!", Mr Morales said, confusing Isabella even more.

"What, what do you mean?", Isabella asked, still looking between her parents for answers.

However, it didn't look like she was getting any favorable answers with how still her parents stood.

The room still in silence, Isabella pressed, "Why aren't we all going?", she asked, going further into the room to touch her father's hands.

The tension combined with the silence made her afraid for some reason.

"No Isa, you have to be the one to go!", her father answered.

"What? Go where?", Isabella asked.

"You should take a seat for what your father's about to say!", Mrs Morales said, taking her daughter's hand and helping her to sit on the office chair in front of her father's desk.

"I took out a loan sometime ago...!", Mr Morales drawled, wondering how best to tell his daughter.

They might have given the younger girls a watered down version, but Isabella was much older and she couldn't be deceived.

"What does your loan have to do with me going anywhere?", The confusion still apparent on Isabella's face.

"I took the loan from the Don, the Mafia Don!", Mr Morales completed, striking fear into Isabella's heart.

"What!? That's Luciano Rossi! Father, he's a ruthless man! Why didn't you...?", Isabella said, suddenly standing up.

"It was unexpected, Isa!! Now, you don't tell me what to do!", Mr Morales replied, starting to get annoyed at the questions from Isabella.

"But father, he's a very ruthless man!", Isabella said, trying to refute.

She continued, "We could have worked it out! We could have come up with a better plan, where we didn't have to...!"

The questions Isabella asked annoyed Mr Morales even more.

He didn't need said questions at the moment, thus, he banged the table.

This caused Isabella and her mother to flinch.

Mr Morales approached the window sill where Luciano stood earlier, except this time, the sun was already setting.

"Yes, I took a loan from the Don, I took a huge loan from the Don and, yes Isabella, yes, I couldn't pay it back, I couldn't..."

Isabella watched how her usually composed father fidgeted around the room, fear setting into her heart, at the thought of the conclusion of his words.

"Luciano would take you, just until I can pay back some more, just a little bit more , and then, then you can come back to us!", Mr Morales said.

Tears already welling up in her eyes, Isabella tried to refute, "... but father, I don't want to go with Luciano. We can, we can work from here...!"

"Isabella!", Mr Morales shouted, "you will go with Luciano and that's final! Now get out of my office and go pack your bags!" , Mr Morales said, leaving the room.

He passed his wife as he headed up to his room. The situation was much bigger than him, he wasn't going to make her think they could disobey the Don.

Tears running down her cheeks, Isabella turned towards her mother, "Mama, they cannot take me!", Isabella said, shaking her head rather vigorously, despite the tears running down her cheeks.

"Isabella, you have to do as your father says! He's going to be here soon!", Mrs Morales said.

"But I don't want to go!", Isabella said, holding her mother.

"Come on Isa, have dinner first and we can discuss the other details!", Mrs Morales said, trying to get Isabella to the dining area.

"I don't want dinner mama! I don't want to go with them!", Isabella said with pleading eyes to her mother.

"Mama what's going on with Isabella, what's going on at all!", One of Isabella's sisters suddenly asked with wide eyes as she saw tears on her sister's face.

"You don't have to worry girls...!", as Mrs Morales continued, Isabella understood that her younger siblings hadn't been told the entirety of the story.

Thus, she decided to head up to her room, to at least protect the innocence of her siblings.

Mrs Morales sighed seeing the sad figure of her daughter going up the stairs.

"Isabella's going to be okay, come on, let's go have dinner!", Mrs Morales said, giving her other daughters a portion of the truth.

Isabella had no clue the individuals who had dinner that night, especially with the burden of the news that was broken to her.

Dinner was rather bland, considering the thick air of tension that lingered in the Morales' house. They only scraped their meals, storing the leftovers in the freezer.

Opening the door to her room, Isabella started to entertain the different scenarios where she wouldn't get killed, or she would be shown mercy by the mafia Don.

However she burst into tears again as she remembered all the terrorizing things she had heard about him.

'Would he kill me?'

'Or would he have me work for him?'

'What if he has sick ideas ?'

'What if I'm imprisoned?'

His reputation didn't exactly contain showing mercy.

Tears rolled down her eyes as she heard her younger sisters go up the stairs with plates rattling. It was a normal routine as their father didn't go downstairs for dinner.

She listened intensely as her sister's footsteps got closer and closer till she suddenly heard the knocking sounds right above her head.

"Isa!", her sister called out as she knocked some more, and a little more, till she called out again.

"Isa, do you want me to bring you dinner?!", she asked one more time, hearing nothing but silence.

Isabella turned rather weak from hearing the news, thus, she didn't feel like talking or having dinner.

She slid down her door, bursting into tears, wondering how she was going to navigate her life.

She stayed still for what seemed like hours, only accompanied by the ticking of her bedside clock.

The situation made her headache feel like she had more than a migraine.

She wondered what she was going to do, she didn't want to entertain the gory details that came to form in her head.

Her father had said she would come back after he had paid a certain amount.

'What if he couldn't pay back?'

'What if...?'

Isabella's gory thoughts were cut short by knocking sounds on her bedroom door.

She was too deep in thought to notice the creaking of the stairs or recognise who approached her room through their footsteps.

"Amore, open the door, let me talk to you!", Mrs Morales said, more like whispered as she was trying to get her daughter to open the door.

"Amore!", she called out again, putting her ear against the door, hearing nothing but silence.

"Isabella, please open the door!", Mrs Morales pressed, still in that gentle voice as she knew exactly how stubborn her middle child could be.

She waited a while till she heard shuffling from inside the room.

Mrs Morales didn't know for sure if Isabella was going to open the door till she heard the key being inserted into the lock.

The door was suddenly opened, with Isabella's back turned as she approached her bed.

Mrs Morales quickly entered the room, closing the door behind her.

She approached Isabella's bed, sitting beside her daughter whose face was stained with several lines of tears.

"Your father made a mistake,a very terrible one at that, you can't condemn his efforts!", Mrs Morales started.

"Why do I have to be the one to pay for the mistake?!", Isabella asked in a solemn tone.

"You're not paying for his mistake amore! You just simply have to go somewhere!", Mrs Morales said, a desperate attempt to save her daughter from the details of whatever was awaiting her.

"Go somewhere? Mama, we woke up this morning like a normal family, and we all went about our days! Don't you think this is a shock for me?!", Isabella asked, scoffing in disbelief.

"I'm not arguing with that Isa, but regardless of emotions and everything you're thinking about right now, he's going to be back here to come get you!", Mrs Morales said .

"How many days from now?", Isabella asked.

"Three days !", her mother answered as she watched her daughter's face pale from the news being broken to her.

"How could you do this to me mama?", Isabella asked, putting Mrs Morales in a conflicting position.

"We couldn't read Luciano's mind Amore. Your father said he would work out something with him, but we didn't know it would come to this!", Mrs Morales said, holding her daughter's hand.

"Mama!", Isabella cried out amidst sobs, "I don't want to go with him!"

"I know Isa, I know you don't want to go, but it will only take a while, just a short while!", Mrs Morales said, trying to reassure her daughter.

Mrs Morales kissed Isabella on her forehead before she approached the door.

"You have to start getting ready, Isa, they'll be back in three days!", She said before she left the room.

Isabella only shook her head as she looked towards the window in her room.

She had always dreamed of independence, hoping that one day, she'll live her life away from the confines of her small town, maybe travel the world while she was at it.

She dreamt of a life where she wouldn't answer to the whims of any person, however said dreams were about to be clipped in the wings by Luciano.

"What did he even want with me?", Isabella asked no one in particular as she broke the deafening silence in the room.

"How much could he have borrowed that would make him want to collect a human person in return?!", she asked again.

"Would I even survive whatever torment papa has gotten me into!"

Isabella looked around her room, memorizing the details of one of her favorite places in the entire world.

She wondered what would become of the space if she left.

The amount of 'what ifs' in her head not helping the situation one bit

~~

While Isabella went through several horrific scenarios In her head, the object of her nightmares stood at the Dock, wiping his gun clean from the blood splatter.

Lying motionless on the floor before him was a mercenary who had been caught snooping around in his operation.

Cunningness was a particular trait Luciano could not condone, especially when it came to his business.

Walking away from the body, "clean this up!", he briefly said to the armed men who were closest to him.

Stopping in his tracks, he continued, "investigate whatever this is!"

"Yes Don!", the men answered, moving to clean up the mess.

He walked towards the car waiting for him, his assistant coming out of the front seat to open the door for him before he reached.

"The girl from earlier sir! What do you want to do with her?", Andreas Ancelotti, Luciano's personal assistant asked.

Luciano suddenly being reminded of the black haired girl who triggered his curiosity.

"I don't know yet!", Luciano answered, moving to sit comfortably in the backseat.

Bringing out his phone, Luciano was suddenly interrupted by Andreas asking, "Dinner?"

With a simple nod, Andreas started driving heading towards a restaurant nearby to get dinner for the Don.

The normalcy of the Don's job soon to become a rather gory topic for Isabella.

~~~

The Morales house remained strained for the remainder of the night, Luciano's guards remaining scattered around its compound.

Their job was simple, 'keep the family from doing anything crazy'

Luciano had authorized gun power WHEN necessary.

The use of said gunpower soon to be triggered by Isabella herself.

As soon as her mother left the room, she suddenly had a bright idea, a rather dangerous one at that.

Despite her headache, She looked at her window, and then her door, and then the window again.

A bright smile formed on her face despite the dried streaks of tears on her cheeks.

She quickly approached the door, gently locking it with the key, so as not to alarm anyone.

She quickly packed some things she thought would be useful inside a small bag before she changed into something more mobile.

Sighing, she looked around her room, taking a mental picture before she moved toward her window.

Isabella quickly took her bedsheets and tied them together before she threw the makeshift rope outside of her window.

Her backpack followed after making a loud thud.

However, just as she was about to follow, she suddenly heard a deep voice, alongside the cooking of two guns.

"Don't even think about it!"