Chapter 402: Do You Want To Meet Up?

POV: ISABELLA

The vanity table in Isabella’s bedroom was the only place in the Russo estate where she felt like she could breathe.

The mirror reflected back a woman she didn’t quite recognize anymore. Her hair was longer than it used to be. Her face was thinner. The anxiety medication had helped a lot, but Isabella now knows that she needed more than just her daily dosage everyday if she wanted to remain and look functional to her family.

But overdosing on the medicine had left marks on her and it was more than physical changes.

It was the way her eyes looked haunted. The way her shoulders curved inward as if she was still trying to make herself smaller, less visible, less threatening to the people who controlled her life.

Isabella ran her fingers through her hair, staring at her reflection without really seeing it.

Her mother had come to her room that morning with a smile that was far too bright, far too determined. her mother had sat on the edge of her bed bed and reminded, in careful language, that Dimitri would be arriving in Rome next week. That her father had made arrangements. That it was time for her to understand her role in the family’s future.

It was time, her mother had said, for her to be ready.

Ready for what? Isabella had asked, even though she already knew the answer.

For Dimitri, her mother had said. For the alliance. For the future her father had planned.

And Isabella had said nothing, because there was nothing to say. She’d known this was coming. She’d always known. From the moment her father had started grooming her for this role. From the moment she’d understood that she was a pawn in a game far larger than herself.

She had no choice.

The question was: did she want to have a choice?

Isabella stood and moved to her window, looking out at the Roman gardens below. The estate was beautiful, all manicured hedges and ancient stone and the kind of wealth that came from centuries of power. It should have felt like home. Instead, it felt like a cage.

She thought about Dante.

Of all the men in her life, Dante was the only one who’d made her feel like she mattered for reasons that had nothing to do with politics or family legacy or strategy.

Yes, he’d deceived her. Yes, he’d targeted her specifically to hurt Dimitri. Yes, everything between them had been built on lies and manipulation.

But when she was with him, when he looked at her with that intensity in his eyes, when he touched her like she was something precious and dangerous and his to protect, she’d felt something she’d never felt before.

Ownership. Not in a diminishing way. But in the way that meant someone had chosen her. Had claimed her. Had decided that she was worth fighting for, worth protecting, worth making part of his world.

With Dante, she wasn’t a piece on a chessboard. She was a woman he wanted.

Isabella returned to her vanity and picked up her phone.

She stared at Dante’s number, the number she shouldn’t have saved, the number that represented everything her father would forbid, the number that meant danger and chaos and the kind of love that destroyed people.

Her thumb hovered over it.

She could call him. She could text him. She could reach out and acknowledge that he was still in her life, still in her mind, still the only person in Rome who’d made her feel like she had agency.

Or she could delete the number. She could accept her father’s plans. She could wait for Dimitri to arrive and play the role she’d been assigned. She could be the dutiful daughter and the strategic asset and the pawn in her father’s elaborate game.

Isabella took a breath.

And she sent a text: "hey, how are you?"

Her heart was pounding as she hit send. This was rebellion. This was defiance. This was choosing something for herself before her life was decided for her.

The phone rang within seconds.

Dante.

He’d been waiting for her to reach out. He’d been hoping she would.

Isabella answered but said nothing.

Dante said nothing either.

They were silent together for a long moment, And then Dante broke the silence.

"Isabella," he said softly. "How are you?"

There was genuine concern in his voice. Not the manufactured concern her father showed. Not the political calculation her mother displayed. But actual concern for her wellbeing.

"I am doing okay," Isabella said quietly. "And how are you?"

Dante’s laugh was bitter.

"What do you expect?" Dante said. "Your ex fiancé nearly crippled me."

Isabella felt a pang of guilt. She knew what Dimitri had done to him. She knew about the retaliation, the injuries, the suffering that had come from his defiance.

She said nothing, and Dante continued.

"I heard your father placed you on house arrest," Dante said.

"Words travel fast," Isabella said.

"I can get any information I want in Rome," Dante said, and there was pride in his voice. "Even if it is from within your father’s territory."

"That will get you killed," Isabella warned.

"I have faced worse at the hands of your ex fiancé and look who is still alive," Dante said. "Me."

Isabella understood. Dante had survived Dimitri’s retaliation. He was still operational. He was still powerful. He was still dangerous.

They were silent again, and Isabella could feel the weight of everything between them....the deception, the betrayal, the genuine connection that had somehow bloomed in the middle of all the lies.

"I heard words that Dimitri is coming to Rome next week," Dante said finally.

Isabella made a small sound of confirmation.

"I guess your father is urging you to amend things with him," Dante continued.

Another small sound from Isabella. This one affirmative.

"Do you want to meet up?" Dante asked.

The question hung between them.

Isabella knew what meeting Dante meant. It meant defying her father. It meant risking her position, her safety, her entire carefully constructed life at the Russo estate. It meant choosing Dante over the alliance her father was trying to build. It meant making her own decision before she was forced into someone else’s decision.

"My father is currently watching my movement right now," Isabella said.

"You don’t have to worry about that, Isabella," Dante said, and his voice was absolutely certain. "Just let me know if you want to see me and I’ll take care of the rest."

Isabella’s hand tightened around the phone.

She knew what he was saying. She knew what accepting his offer meant. It meant Dante would orchestrate a meeting despite her father’s surveillance. It meant he had the resources and the nerve to defy the Russo family itself. It meant he was willing to risk everything to see her again.

And the question wasn’t whether he could do it.

The question was whether she wanted him to.

Isabella closed her eyes for a moment, standing at the edge of a decision that would change everything.

If she said yes, she was committing to Dante. She was choosing him over her family’s expectations. She was refusing to play the role her father had assigned her. She was claiming her agency and her right to make her own choices, even if those choices were dangerous and foolish and would probably end in heartbreak.

If she said yes, she was breaking free.

"Yes," Isabella whispered.

She could hear the satisfaction in Dante’s voice when he responded.

"Okay," Dante said. "Wait for my call. I’ll let you know when it is time to move."

The line went dead.

Isabella set down her phone and looked at her reflection in the vanity mirror.

The woman looking back at her was different from the one who’d picked up the phone minutes ago. There was something sharper in her eyes now. Something more decisive. Something that suggested she was no longer going to wait passively for her life to be decided by other people.

She had made a choice.

Whether it was the right choice, whether it would end in disaster, whether Dimitri’s arrival next week would change everything, those were questions for another day.

For now, Isabella simply held onto the fact that for the first time in weeks, possibly for the first time in her entire life, she had chosen something for herself.

She had chosen Dante. She had chosen rebellion. She had chosen the chance to feel like she mattered before she was forced back into her father’s game.

Isabella moved away from the vanity and lay down on her bed, staring at the ceiling of her room.

The Russo estate was beautiful and golden and filled with the kind of wealth that most people only dreamed about. But it was still a cage. And she had just decided that she was going to escape it, at least for a moment, before the cage closed around her completely.

Dante would come for her.

Dante would orchestrate something that would allow them to meet, to talk, to remember what it felt like to be together even if it was built on lies and manipulation and the kind of love that was dangerous and consuming and ultimately destructive.

And when Dimitri arrived next week, when her father pushed her toward the alliance he’d planned, she would at least know that she’d had one moment of true choice. One moment where she’d decided her own fate instead of having it decided for her.

It wasn’t much.

But it was something.

And in the Russo household, in a life controlled by powerful men and political games and dynastic ambitions, something was everything.

Isabella closed her eyes and waited for Dante’s call.