Part 16:

He pulled a clean white shirt from the rail. A knock landed on the door. Tony’s voice came through it. The other house is ready, boss. Men are already in place. Security’s tight. OS pulled the shirt on over the marks she’d bandaged down in the tunnel, working the buttons without looking up. Call the pilot now.

His tone didn’t lift. I don’t stay long inside another man’s trap. By the time she came out of the shower, she’d changed into something of her own. A white dress she’d grabbed without thinking, cut lower at the front than she’d have chosen, but there was nothing to be done about that now. She faced the mirror and took stock of herself.

The cut above her brow had at least stopped bleeding. So what happens now? The thought sat heavy in her chest. If she knew her father at all, and she did, he would put a bullet in Svino the first chance he got. The thought should have steadied her. It didn’t. She didn’t want Aeros dead, and that was the part that frightened her.

Then the colder one came right behind it. What if OS reached Veto first? She let her back come to rest against the mirror, the glass cold through the thin cotton of the dress. Please, God, don’t make me watch one of them kill the other. Three hard wraps cut through the thought. Anita OS close on the other side. The helicopter’s coming.

We’re leaving now. She pulled the door open. His gaze dropped from her face to the bare line of her collarbone, lower, and came back up slow enough that she felt it travel like a hand that never touched her. Something flickered behind his eyes. Then he buried it. Get in front of me. He stepped back to let her pass.

We’re leaving the house. She walked ahead of him with her chin up. every step a small act of defiance and threw the words back over her shoulder. You don’t have an Isabella Ki to marry anymore. What are you going to do with me? Why don’t you let me go too? A small smile touched his mouth. Because Anita, he said her name slow like he was deciding something with it.

I don’t want to spend my days in Malta without you. She looked at him over her shoulder, her voice gone pointed and sharp. I hope you don’t think 12 hours in a tunnel made us friends. He closed the distance in two strides and came down the stairs beside her, his mouth near her ear. Who said anything about being friends? The helicopter lifted off the mansion roof with the four of them inside, the pilot up front, Tony beside him, Aeros and Isabella in the back.

The coast was falling away beneath them, the white cliffs and the long blue water shrinking by the second, when a smaller island came up fast, low and pale against the sea. Isabella knew it the second it cleared the window, her stomach tightened. Are we staying on this island? Aeros watched her reaction more than the view.

Maybe I should have asked you about my new house. His mouth tilted. You’re the one who’s from here after all. She kept her eyes on the rock coming up to meet them and let her voice go light with an edge under it. This used to be a quarantine island. They’d bring the sick out here and just leave them.

Back in the 1700s, this was where somebody decided who lived and who didn’t. She glanced at him then. No escape, no medicine, no second chance. and she was hearing her own situation in every word of it. A strip of stone between surviving and dying, the sea standing in for a wall. She’d grown up in one cage already. This one was just smaller.

Thanks for the history lesson, Osed low and unbothered. Honestly, makes me like the place even more. The helicopter banked and came down over it, and the house was the cliff. Someone had cut it straight into the white rock face. tall vertical ribs of pale stone framing the glass. A narrow jetty running out into water so clear it looked lit from below.

A boat sat mured against it, small and white and very far down. They sat down on the flat crown of the rock, and from there a private elevator carried them down through the cliff into the rooms hidden inside it. Tony stepped out first and looked the place over. It’s secure, boss. Nobody’s getting in here without us knowing.

OS clapped a hand on his shoulder. Good choice. Then his gaze slid to Isabella and the corner of his mouth curved. If this house has tunnels, Anita, I’m locking you to me. The elevator opened into a living room carved straight out of the rock. Pale stone walls were rising into shadow above them, and a single tall slot of a window cut the cave in two, opening onto a blade of sea, the light coming in soft and gold off the lamps.

It was beautiful and it was a cage and Isabella could feel both at once. OS stepped out and looked it over. It will do. Tony came out behind him. Next move, boss. Aos started unbuttoning his shirt. I’m going for a swim, Tony. Not like we get a vacation like this every day. Isabella folded her hands in front of her, watching him like he’d lost his mind.

You raided his house, took his daughter, humiliated him on his own island. Her shoulder lifted and the corner of her mouth went sharp. Men like Veto don’t pay after that. They punish. Besides, you don’t even have his daughter to bargain with anymore. OS raised a brow, and the look he gave her was loaded. Don’t I? He laughed low in his chest.

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