Chapter 6 - THE ENGAGEMENT ENDS
Isabella was eating strawberries when Alessandro entered the dining room.
She looked at the blood on his cuff.
“What happened?”
“You tell me.”
Her fork paused.
He placed the forged transfer order beside her plate.
She didn’t touch it.
“That looks official.”
“Two men tried to take Rosa.”
“Perhaps she misunderstood.”
“One grabbed her.”
Isabella set down the fork.
“Alessandro, your father is concerned about the situation.”
“My daughter isn’t a situation.”
Something sharp moved behind her eyes.
“So you’re sure now?”
“Sure enough to know you’re leaving.”
She laughed once.
“You don’t get to make that decision by yourself.”
“This is my house.”
“And this engagement keeps your trucks moving through Chicago.”
“Then they stop.”
“My father won’t accept humiliation.”
“He can put it on his calendar.”
She stood.
For the first time, her polished voice cracked.
“You think this is about jealousy? You think I care that you slept with a maid?”
“Careful.”
“She creates a claim. A child creates an heir. Everything changes.”
Alessandro looked at her ring.
“Take it off.”
She stared.
“Take it off, Isabella.”
Slowly, she pulled the diamond from her finger and placed it on the table.
“You’re choosing a woman who lied to you.”
“I’m removing one who helped threaten a child.”
Nico escorted her upstairs to pack.
Forty minutes later, she came down carrying a small handbag.
At the door, she turned.
“Ask your father about Route Nine.”
Then she left.
Alessandro found Rosa in the nursery Bruno had hastily assembled from a guest room.
There was no grand furniture.
Just a low bed, Lily’s quilt, her books, and a lamp shaped like a moon.
“She’s gone,” he said.
Rosa kept folding a small sweater.
“Gone isn’t the same as harmless.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He leaned against the doorframe.
“Not well enough, apparently.”
She looked at him then.
The truth had cost him something.
It should have.
His phone rang.
The laboratory.
He answered, listened, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Rosa watched his hand tighten around the phone.
When he hung up, his eyes were wet.
“Ninety-nine point nine nine percent.”
From the hallway, Lily called for her mother.
Rosa started toward the door.
Alessandro caught her hand gently.
“Can I come?”
She nodded.
Before they reached Lily, a message arrived from an unknown number.
A photograph of Rosa’s brother outside his repair shop.
May you like
Beneath it:
YOU HAVE ONE HOUR TO FIX THIS.
