(Isabella’s POV)
Time stretched and warped in the silent study. I sat on the leather chesterfield, the book containing my father’s secret resting on the desk like a dormant bomb. Lucian remained by the door, a statue of quiet vigilance. Every distant siren, every creak of the building, sent a fresh jolt of anxiety through me. Alessandro had left hours ago, his face a mask of cold, controlled fury. He had gone to “attend to business,” a euphemism so chilling I dared not let my mind linger on its meaning. He had gone to hunt the traitor.
My thoughts were a tangled mess of past and present. My father, a man I thought I knew, was now a stranger who had left cryptic warnings in his enemy's library. And Alessandro, the man I was falling in love with, had a ghost with his face, a brother determ
