Chapter 258: If you move one more step toward me, I’ll blow off your skull

Isabella’s jaw clenched. She could feel her pulse in her neck, hammering so hard she thought he might be able to see it.

"I know about Dante Romano," her father continued, moving closer. His voice was calm. Almost gentle. Which was somehow more terrifying than if he’d been shouting. "I know that you’ve been seeing him. I know that you’ve been letting him use your body like it’s his personal toy. I know that while he was fucking you, he was gathering intelligence on this family. On me. On our operations."

Isabella wanted to deny it. Wanted to say that it wasn’t true, that she’d been careful, that no information had been compromised. But the words stuck in her throat.

"How did you find out?" she asked instead.

Her father smiled. It wasn’t a kind smile.

"Did you think I wouldn’t find out?" he said. "Did you think you could hide this? You, who’ve been trained since childhood to understand the importance of loyalty to family? You, who should know better than anyone what it means to be a Russo?"

He walked closer until he was standing right in front of her. Close enough that she could smell his cologne, something expensive and sharp that she associated with her childhood. With safety. With protection.

But there was nothing safe about this moment.

"You turned yourself into a fuck toy for a man whose family is our enemy," her father said, his voice still calm, still almost gentle. "A man who is actively trying to destroy everything I’ve built. Everything your grandfather built. Everything that bears our name."

"Father, I didn’t know..."

"You didn’t know what?" Lorenzo interrupted. "That Salvatore Romano was our enemy? You didn’t know that his family has been trying to move into our territory for the past decade? You didn’t know that aligning yourself with them was the equivalent of betraying this family?"

"I didn’t know who he was," Isabella said, and it came out like a plea. "When I met him, I didn’t know..."

"And that makes it acceptable?" Her father’s voice finally hardened slightly. "That you didn’t ask questions? That you didn’t vet the man before you spread your legs for him?"

Isabella felt tears starting to form. She blinked them back viciously. Tears were weakness. And she couldn’t afford to be weak right now.

"I’m disappointed in you," Lorenzo said, and those five words hit harder than any physical blow. "Not just disappointed. Ashamed. You lost your fiancé to that American woman. You nearly got yourself killed by your own engagement....humiliated this family in the process. And instead of learning from those mistakes, instead of rebuilding your position and understanding that your value to this family depends on your loyalty and your strategic thinking, you spread your legs for the Romano boy."

"It wasn’t like that," Isabella whispered.

"Then what was it like?" her father asked. "Tell me. Explain to me how you fucking a man who is gathering intelligence on us isn’t a betrayal of everything you’ve been taught."

Isabella opened her mouth. Closed it. There was nothing she could say that would make this better. No explanation that would justify what she’d done.

Her father walked back to his desk and pressed the intercom button.

"Ricco," he said. "Come here."

It took less than five seconds for Rocco to enter. Which meant he’d been waiting right outside. Which meant this whole conversation had been choreographed. Planned. Designed to break her down before the real punishment came.

"Isabella is going to stay here at the estate," her father said coldly, not looking at his daughter, speaking about her like she wasn’t even in the room. "From now on, she doesn’t leave this house. She doesn’t go anywhere without permission. She doesn’t speak to anyone outside this family. She doesn’t make phone calls. She doesn’t send messages. She stays in her room if necessary, but she does not leave."

Isabella’s stomach dropped.

"She’s confined to the grounds until I decide otherwise. If she tries to leave, she’s to be stopped. By force if necessary. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Don Russo," Ricco said.

"You can’t do this," Isabella said, her voice quiet but gaining strength. "You can’t keep me here like I’m a prisoner."

"I can and I will," her father said, finally looking at her again. His dark eyes were harder than stone. "Until you prove to me that you’ve learned your lesson. That you understand what loyalty means. That you can be trusted again."

He turned back to his desk and began reviewing some documents, dismissing her like she was beneath his attention.

Ricco moved toward her.

And something inside Isabella’s brain flipped.

She’d been trained since she was six years old. Trained by the man standing in front of her. Combat. Weapons. Strategy. Survival. For years, she’d pushed all that training down because it didn’t fit with who she thought she was supposed to be. Delicate. Pleasing. Pliable. The kind of woman who fit into the narrow box her family had created for her.

But standing here, facing the prospect of being caged like an animal, facing the reality that her father was willing to imprison her in her own home, something woke up inside her that had been sleeping far too long.

She reached behind her back...to the holster she’d strapped on before leaving her apartment, just in case. The gun she’d taken from her father’s study years ago when he’d taught her how to shoot. The Glock 19 that fit perfectly in her hand.

She pulled it out in one smooth motion and pointed it directly at Marco’s head.

"If you move one more step toward me, I’ll blow off your skull," she said, and her voice was steady. Cold. The voice of someone who knew exactly what she was doing and meant every single word.

Ricco froze. His hand moved instinctively toward the weapon at his hip, but Isabella cocked the hammer.

The sound of it echoed through the office.

"Don’t," she said. "Hands where I can see them. Both of them."