Chapter 2
1149 Words
Smoke drifted through the chandeliers, soft and grey against gold. The scent of gunpowder curled around the room, blending with spilled champagne and fear.
Isabella’s pulse still hadn’t slowed. Her heart hammered so loud she could hear it over the chaos.
Adriano Moretti crouched beside her, eyes scanning the exits with the precision of a man used to gunfire. Even covered in shadow, he looked steady, too steady for someone caught in a supposed peace gala.
His jaw flexed. “Stay down.”
“I’m not a child,” she hissed back.
“No,” he said quietly, “you’re worse. You’re a Romano.”
She almost snapped a reply, but his tone, cold and protective, conflicted with her. He moved before she could speak again, gun sweeping toward the far balcony where the shooter had been.
Guards in black rushed forward, shouting orders. Guests scrambled for the doors, sequins and tuxedos dissolving into panic. The violins lay abandoned, their strings still quivering from the echo of violence.
Isabella crawled toward the nearest column, using it as cover. Her father’s men were already in motion, forming a wall around Don Romano. He was shouting, furious, face pale beneath his tan.
“Get my daughter!” he barked.
“I’m fine!” she yelled, breathless.
Her father turned from relief flashing, then fury. “I told you not to dance with him!”
Before she could answer, Adriano was there again. He’d crossed the chaos like he owned it. His hand caught her arm, firm but not rough.
“We need to move,” he said.
“Move where?”
“Anywhere but here.” His gaze flicked toward the upper balcony, then the doors. “That shot wasn’t random.”
“Are you saying….”
He looked at her. “Someone wanted you dead.”
Her breath caught. “Or you.”
“Possibly both.” His tone didn’t waver. “But only one of us is bleeding.”
She followed his gaze. On the marble steps, Marco Moretti clutched his side, blood seeping between his fingers.
Adriano’s composure cracked for the first time. “Marco!”
He ran, shoving through the crowd. Isabella hesitated only a second before following.
Marco was pale, his black suit stained crimson. “It’s nothing,” he gasped, but the lie trembled. Adriano tore his tie loose and pressed it against the wound.
“Who fired?” Adriano demanded.
Marco shook his head weakly. “Didn’t see. Masked. White jacket. Ran toward the terrace.”
Isabella froze. She’d seen a man in white earlier, talking to Vincenzo, her father’s advisor.
“Adriano…”
He looked up, eyes sharp. “You know something.”
“I might.”
“Then tell me.”
But before she could, her father’s guards closed in, surrounding her. “Miss Romano, come with us.”
“I can help”
“That’s not a request,” one said, gripping her arm.
Adriano rose to his full height, shoulders squared. “She stays until I get answers.”
The guard’s hand went to his holster. “She’s a Romano. You don’t give her orders.”
“And you don’t touch her again.” Adriano’s voice dropped, lethal calm beneath the chaos.
For a second, the air thickened, violence hovering between two empires in a single breath. Then Don Romano’s voice sliced through the tension.
“Enough!”
The guards froze. Adriano’s hand flexed around his weapon but didn’t raise it. Isabella’s father stepped forward, expression carved from stone.
“Mr. Moretti,” he said coolly. “I’ll take it from here.”
Adriano’s eyes stayed on Isabella. “Then you’re walking away from the truth, Don Romano. Someone inside your circle fired that shot.”
“My circle?” her father barked. “You dare”
“I dare protect what’s mine.”
The words hit like a spark. Isabella’s pulse stumbled. What’s mine? He couldn’t have meant her, he didn’t even know her. But the way he looked at her… maybe he did.
Her father’s men pulled her back toward the exit. Adriano didn’t stop them. He just stood there, blood on his hands, fire in his eyes, watching her like she was a secret he’d been hunting for years.
Outside, the night air bit cold against her skin. Sirens wailed in the distance. Reporters shouted questions, flashes exploding in her face.
“Miss Romano, were you targeted?”
“Is the peace treaty over?”
“Did Adriano Moretti save your life?”
She said nothing.
Inside the limousine, her father slammed the door shut and poured a drink with shaking hands. “This is what happens when you mix blood with snakes.”
Isabella watched the city lights blur past the tinted glass. “It could’ve been anyone.”
“It wasn’t anyone,” he snapped. “It was them. The Morettis don’t believe in peace.”
She looked down at her wrist, at the faint mark where Adriano’s thumb had brushed her skin. The memory of his voice echoed in her head. Stay down. You’re worse. You’re a Romano.
And yet, when the shots came, he was the one who pulled her to safety.
Something didn’t fit.
Back at the ballroom, police sirens screamed. The Moretti brothers would be giving statements, spinning truths into lies. The media would twist everything by morning.
But Isabella couldn’t shake the image: Adriano standing over his bleeding brother, eyes burning with something she didn’t understand, rage, yes, but also a flicker of something more human. Something dangerous.
She turned toward her father. “What if the shooter wasn’t them?”
He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “You saw who was hit, Isabella. They’ll blame us tomorrow. Don’t give them reason to make it true tonight.”
“But if it was someone else”
“There’s no ‘someone else.’ There’s us and there’s them. And don’t let a pair of dark eyes make you forget which side you’re on.”
She didn’t answer. Because she already had.
Later that night, alone in her penthouse suite overlooking the Hudson, Isabella stood at the window, the city’s lights painting her reflection in fragments. She pressed her fingers to the glass, watching sirens flash below like veins of fire.
She replayed the moment, the gunshot, the warmth of his body shielding hers, the sharp command in his voice. No one had ever spoken to her like that. No one had ever looked at her like she was more than a pawn.
A message notification blinked on her phone. Unknown number.
Unknown: “You’re safe. For now.”
Unknown: “Don’t trust anyone in white.”
Her breath hitched.
She typed back. Who is this?
No reply.
But she didn’t need one. She already knew.
Adriano Moretti had just entered her life and peace had just left it.
- Writer
