Chapter 85 – One Last Betrayal
****Isabelle’s POV****
The night was too quiet.
Too still.
That silence had become my greatest enemy, a warning cloaked in velvet darkness. I had lived through gunfire, explosions, shattered glass, and screams that tore through flesh and bone, but silence—the kind that slithered into your skin and gnawed at your bones—was the omen I feared most.
I sat in the study of the villa, the old oak desk buried beneath a map of Italy, sheets of coded documents, and a tumbler of untouched bourbon that glimmered in the dim lamplight. My fingers tapped absently at the edge of the glass, each click ricocheting in the emptiness of the room. Somewhere in the halls, guards patrolled, their boots hitting marble in practiced rhythm. Somewhere further off, Dante’s voice car
