Chapter 256: Welcome Home Miss Isabella

Then he hung up.

Isabella held the phone to her ear even after the line went dead, listening to the empty space like it might offer her some kind of explanation. Her father never called unless something was serious. And he never called to invite her anywhere....he summoned.

Which meant whatever this was about, it was bad.

She set down the phone and pulled up her messages.

Nothing from Dante.

She scrolled through the conversation history,, all the texts she’d sent over the past three days. All unread. All unanswered. Back when she didn’t know who he was, when she thought he was just some man who wanted her, his silence would have sent her into a panic spiral. Now, knowing the truth, knowing that he’d been using her, his silence felt worse somehow.

Because her body didn’t care.

She could feel it....that pull low in her belly, that heat that started whenever she thought about him. Her pussy clenching just from the memory of his hands on her body. Of the way he’d taken her. The way he’d used her like she was something that belonged to him.

She hated herself for it.

Isabella stood up and walked to the small table beside her bed. The drawer stuck slightly when she pulled it open...it always did. Inside, among the jewelry and loose change and forgotten things, was a bottle of white pills. Anxiety medication. She’d been taking them for months now, ever since she came back to Rome.

She opened the bottle and swallowed one dry, then walked to her bed and sat down heavily.

The bed was still unmade, sheets tangled from her restless sleep. The entire apartment smelled like him....his cologne mixed with sex and expensive whiskey. She’d opened the windows yesterday trying to air it out, but his scent was embedded in the fabric, in the walls, in her own skin no matter how many times she showered.

She lay back against the headboard and closed her eyes.

And immediately, her body betrayed her.

She could feel his hands on her waist. Could feel the weight of him between her legs. Could remember the exact sound he made when he came inside her...that low growl that wasn’t quite satisfaction, more like possession. Like he was marking her as his.

Her hand moved between her legs before she could stop it.

Her fingers found her clit and she rubbed slowly, her breathing already getting heavier. She was so wet....had been wet constantly for days now, her body unable to accept that he wasn’t coming back.

But even as her fingers worked her pussy, as her back began to arch, as that familiar heat started building, she felt it. The shame. The disgust with herself.

Because she was literally lying here touching herself thinking about a man who had used her. Who had lied to her. Who had recorded her and monitored her and made her believe that something real was happening between them when all along he was just gathering information to destroy the man she’d been in love with.

Isabella yanked her hand away like she’d been burned.

She stood up abruptly, her breathing ragged, and stripped off her clothes. She needed a shower. Needed to wash him off her body, even though she knew it wouldn’t work. Knew that no amount of water would get him out of her system.

The shower was scalding hot, the kind of temperature that turned her skin red and made her nerves scream. She stood under the spray and thought about nothing. Tried to think about nothing. Kept her hands to herself even though every nerve in her body was screaming for release.

By the time she got out, it was mid-morning. The anxiety medicine was starting to work....that numb feeling creeping in at the edges, making everything feel slightly distant and manageable.

She dressed in black. Black pants, fitted and expensive. A black top that hung loose enough to hide her body. Black sunglasses even though the sun wasn’t bright and she was just going to be inside the car.

The sunglasses were armor. A way to hide the fact that she’d been crying on and off for three days.

Her apartment was in a nice part of Rome....the kind of neighborhood where old money and new money lived side by side, where everyone minded their own business as long as you could afford the rent. She locked the door behind her and walked to her car....a sleek Mercedes that her father had bought her years ago as a "coming home" gift when she’d returned from her engagement negotiations in New York.

That felt like a lifetime ago.

She pulled out of the parking garage and merged into traffic.

What she didn’t see was the small black car that pulled out exactly three seconds after she did. Didn’t see it staying exactly two car lengths behind her, perfectly positioned to track her movements without being obvious.

The driver....one of Dante’s men.....pulled out his phone and made a call.

"Boss. She’s leaving the house."

There was a pause on the other end. Then: "Follow her. Don’t lose her."

The estate was exactly as Isabella remembered it. Massive. Old. The kind of property that had been in her family for generations, full of history and blood and the weight of expectations that had been crushing her since the day she was born.

The gates opened automatically when she entered the security code. The driveway curved through manicured gardens toward the main house....all stone and tradition and the kind of beauty that felt cold when you were approaching it with dread in your chest.

The nanny met her at the door.

Margot was French, in her sixties, and had been with the family for thirty years. She’d helped raise Isabella, had been softer with her than her own mother in a lot of ways. But even Margot’s face looked strained when she saw her.

"Welcome home, Miss Isabella," Margot said, her accent thick. "Your mother would like to see you first."