The Mafia's Enemy
1182 Words
Chapter 6: The Mafia's Enemy
Isabella knew something was wrong the moment she heard the security alarm.
She stepped into the corridor and found two guards rushing past her.
“What's happening?”
Neither answered.
“Hey!”
One of them stopped long enough to say, “Stay inside your room.”
Then he disappeared down the stairs.
Isabella stared after him.
Absolutely not.
She had spent enough time being told where she could and couldn't go.
She followed.
At the bottom of the staircase, the mansion looked nothing like the elegant home she had first seen. Doors stood open. Men spoke into phones. Someone was checking the security monitors while another guard loaded a weapon.
Then Alessandro appeared.
“Everyone out of the east corridor,” he ordered.
His voice cut through the chaos.
The room obeyed instantly.
Isabella watched him.
This was the man people feared.
No hesitation.
No raised voice.
Just control.
He noticed her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Trying to find out why your house suddenly sounds like it's under attack.”
“Go upstairs.”
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“Isabella.”
“I heard the alarm. I'm not going back to my room and pretending nothing happened.”
He walked toward her.
“This doesn't concern you.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Someone has been following my family. My brother is missing. My mother's being watched. How exactly does that not concern me?”
He stopped.
For a moment, they stared at each other.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
“Talk.”
His expression changed as he listened.
“Lock the north gate.”
A pause.
“Now.”
He ended the call.
Isabella watched his face.
“What happened?”
“Someone breached the outer security line.”
“Viktor?”
“Possibly.”
She felt a knot form in her stomach.
“Then we're running out of time.”
Alessandro's eyes narrowed.
“You've been thinking about this.”
“Yes.”
She stepped closer.
“I want to see everything you know.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you're not trained for this.”
“Neither was I trained to lose my father, take care of my mother, or become responsible for Matteo.”
His expression softened for half a second.
She continued.
“But I learned.”
He said nothing.
“I've spent my whole life dealing with problems other people left behind. So stop treating me like I'm incapable of making decisions.”
Alessandro studied her.
Then he reached inside his jacket and handed her a thin file.
She opened it.
Photographs stared back at her.
Her mother.
Matteo.
Her father's old office.
And finally, a picture of her father standing beside a man Isabella recognized from the stories surrounding the Moretti family.
Her stomach dropped.
“Who is that?”
“Viktor Vescari's father.”
She looked up sharply.
“My father knew him?”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“Well enough to trust him.”
She looked back at the photograph.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It gets worse.”
Alessandro took the photograph of her and placed another one beside it.
An old ledger.
A torn page.
Her father's signature.
Isabella stared.
“This is fake.”
“Why?”
“Because my father never told me about any of this.”
“He didn't tell me either.”
She looked at him.
“What happened between them?”
“Someone convinced both families that the other had betrayed them.”
“And Luca?”
Alessandro's expression went cold.
“My brother died because of it.”
The words silenced her.
Isabella looked again at the photographs.
“So someone created the war.”
“Yes.”
“And after all these years, Viktor is still trying to finish it.”
Alessandro nodded.
“But he's changed his strategy.”
“How?”
“He's stopped attacking me directly.”
Isabella already knew the answer.
“He's using my family.”
“Yes.”
Her hands tightened around the file.
“Then we stop reacting.”
Alessandro frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“We make him think we know nothing.”
“You want to set a trap.”
“I want to find out who is giving the orders.”
“That is dangerous.”
“So is doing nothing.”
She closed the file.
“My mother knows something.”
“We don't know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“After my father died, she told me he was afraid someone would find what he'd hidden.”
Alessandro went still.
“What exactly did she say?”
“That if anyone ever asked about a blue painting, I was to say I knew nothing.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Where is the painting?”
“At my mother's apartment.”
“We go there.”
“Not yet.”
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because we're being watched.”
She pointed toward the windows.
“If someone is waiting for us to move, taking a whole convoy to my mother's house tells them exactly what we're looking for.”
Alessandro was silent.
Then he nodded.
“Good.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Good?”
“You're learning.”
“I'm not learning your world.”
She held his gaze.
“I'm learning how to survive it.”
Before he could answer, a sharp c***k came from outside.
A gunshot.
The mansion erupted.
Men drew their weapons.
Alessandro grabbed Isabella and moved her behind a stone pillar.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Isabella.”
“I can help.”
“You can stay alive.”
Another shot rang out.
A guard shouted from the hall.
“They're inside!”
Alessandro's expression changed.
“Inside?”
He immediately looked toward Isabella.
She understood before he spoke.
They weren't attacking the mansion.
They were coming for her.
A figure appeared at the end of the corridor.
Isabella recognized the man from the security photographs.
Viktor's man.
He raised his weapon.
Alessandro fired first.
The man ducked behind the doorway.
“Get Isabella upstairs!” Alessandro ordered.
Two guards moved toward her.
“No!”
Isabella pushed past them.
She remembered the file.
The blue painting.
Her mother's apartment.
The hidden ledger.
Everything suddenly connected.
She turned to Alessandro.
“They don't want me.”
He looked at her.
“They want what my father hid.”
His expression hardened.
“And you know where it is.”
“I know where to look.”
Another gunshot echoed.
Alessandro stepped toward her.
“Then we're going together.”
Isabella nodded.
Not because she was being ordered to.
Because she had made her decision.
For the first time, she wasn't simply running from Alessandro's world.
She was choosing to step into it.
And somewhere outside the mansion walls, the man behind the entire war was waiting for them to make exactly that choice.
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