Isabella's POV
The hours crawled by after Alex left, each second heavier than the last. I tried to distract myself—cleaning the apartment, folding laundry, even flipping through channels on the TV—but nothing worked. My thoughts kept circling back to him. Where was he? Was he safe? And what did Monalisa really want from him?
The tension in the room was suffocating, and the silence pressed down on me like a lead blanket. I stared at my phone for the hundredth time, willing it to ring, but it remained frustratingly silent.
When a sudden knock broke through the quiet, I nearly jumped out of my skin. My heart thudded in my chest as I approached the door cautiously.
“Who is it?” I called, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to sound calm.
“It’s me,” came Alex’s familiar voice, low a
