Chapter 1
Chapter 1
"Bella, Isabella, listen to me," Andrea mumbled to his teenage daughter as he held her in his arms.
He took a breath and stroked her pale hair, then knelt down so he was at her eye level. "Do not leave there tonight, no matter what happens."
Isabella hugged her father again and asked, "What's going on, papà?"
He didn't use her full name very often, and hearing it come out of his shaky mouth made her nervous.
"Isabella, my lovely child," he moaned as he stroked her face.
The earnestness in his voice made her bright blue eyes get bigger, and tears came out of them.
"Don't worry, Bel. Just promise me that you will stay right there no matter what."
She nodded, and her crying got worse. She pulled him close and said, "Papà, please."
As she held on, her tiny body shook. He tried to pull her hands away, but she didn't move.
She didn't want to let go because she was afraid it would be the last time they'd ever see each other.
"Promise me, Bel, please promise me," Andrea begged his crying daughter as he joined her.
He shook his head and bit the inside of his lower lip as he wrapped his hands around her small body.
Isabella answered, "I promise you, papa, that no matter what happens, I will not come out." Her voice shook, and her hand shook as she gave him a pinky promise.
"Here, take this," Andrea said as he pressed a piece of white paper into her hand.
"Go there," He paused, took out a bunch of keys from his pocket, and pointed to a corner of the room where another door was.
"Take anything you see and get out of here. Go far away, somewhere he can't find you."
"These are the keys to every door there. Don't stay there or he will find you. Take what's there and go very far away," he said, holding the keys in his hand.
"Papà, what are you saying? I don't understand you. Why do I have to run away? Who are you talking about?" Isabella wrinkled her eyebrows and scrunched up her button nose.
He wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand and said, "His name is Leonardo Le Enzo."
"Papà, who is he? Is he a bad person?"
Andrea mumbled, "I'm sorry, my child, please forgive me," but he didn't answer her question. His shoulder shook again, and he cried out loud.
She asked her father, "Papà, why don't we leave together?"
"No, Bel," he said, shaking his head slightly. "We can't. If we did, he would find us and kill us both, and I can't let that happen."
"I'm sorry, sweet child, but my enemy has found me, and it's time I pay for what I've done," he said as he pushed her into the closet and shut the door.
Isabella banged her hands on the wooden wardrobe and begged her father not to leave.
Even though she cried, her father didn't stop. There was nothing he could do to avoid the death that was coming.
Tears fell from his red eyes as he turned to look at where his daughter was hiding to make sure it wasn't clear she was there.
Isabella wanted to call out to her father again, but she couldn't because she heard gunshots.
She watched from a crack in the closet as the door to the room opened and a man in a black tux and some other men walked in.
Isabella shook when she saw the guns in their hands. She gripped her hand tightly to stop herself from pulling on the wardrobe handle and running out to meet her kneeling father.
"Please, Sandro, don't punish me. I'm sorry for what I did." Andrea held out his hand to the guy who was twenty years older than him.
"Bastardo!" said the man Bel thought was Sandro.
He pushed his hand through his dark brown, unkempt hair, and his green eyes narrowed as he looked at her father.
She bit her lip as he kicked her dad in the stomach, making him fall over.
"Now you regret it, don't you?" Sandro's voice was thick with an Italian accent. "Well, too bad for you, I won't let you off this time. Do you know how long I've been waiting for this day, the day I can finally get back at you for what you did and make you pay for it?"
Isabella was shaking as she held the wardrobe door handle. She tried to turn it, but then she remembered what she had told her father.
Sandro didn't listen to him when he begged for forgiveness.
Sandro yelled, "Do you know that every night all I could think about was how you betrayed me and took away everything I had?"
"You must have hidden your daughter somewhere you think I won't be able to find her," he said as he looked around.
He laughed, and his voice got colder as he said, "I'll tell you one thing: no matter what happens, I'll find her and make sure she goes to hell with you."
Isabella shook when she heard the threat from where she was hiding.
She knew deep down that it wasn't just an empty threat. The man who is beating her dad right now would do what he said.
"P-please, Sandro," Andrea stuttered as he coughed up blood. "You want me. Kill me, but don't hurt my little girl. She doesn't know anything."
Sandro sneered, "Spare?"
"Why should I spare the child of my enemy? Did you hear me when I told you the same thing many years ago?" he asked as he took a gun from one of his goons.
"You f*****g ruined my life," Sandro muttered.
"You hurt me. Every f*****g night, the things you did come back to me in my dreams and become my worst nightmare. You took away my peace and happiness, and here you are talking about sparing your daughter."
Sandro gave a snort.
"Well, too bad, I can't make your wish come true. It's time for you to go to hell, but don't worry, I'll find your precious daughter and make sure she suffers the same way I did."
As he c****d the gun and pointed it at her father's head, a wicked smile formed on his face.
Isabella put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes when she heard the gunshot.
After a while, she opened her eyes and saw her father lying in a pool of blood, with blood all over the room. She clutched her throat and coughed.
She barely opened her mouth and took a deep breath before slowly letting it out.
Her hands gripped her trembling legs as her eyes moved back to her father's dead body on the floor.
Her whole body shook, and she felt a lot of different feelings.
Grief, then fear, then pain, and then hate. She didn't like him.
Leonardo Le Enzo was someone she hated.
Isabella saw him laugh like he had won. He seemed like a monster, and she wasn't sure if he was a real person or a wild animal dressed up as a person.
But she knew that one thing: that night would change her life for good.
She would never forget the look on the man's face.
Leonardo Di Enzo.
He was her worst fear and her worst enemy.
She promised to get revenge for her father while quietly crying.
I know many things.
The next...
"Can I help you out with that?"
When Isabella heard the deep voice, she stood up straight. She furrowed her brows and narrowed her eyes.
A guy about her age walked towards her and took a lighter out of the pocket of his red cargo pants to light the cigarette that was sticking out of his mouth.
She looked at his face as he got closer.
He was the most beautiful man she had seen since she got to Cooan, a big city known for its nightlife and mystery.
Maybe she didn't meet enough guys because she didn't go out much.
But she thought she had seen more than enough people in the Peace Blossom Plaza to know that he was too good-looking.
He had toned muscles, and when he raised his hand to smooth back his dark brown hair into a quiff, the muscles on his arms flexed.