Chapter 5 - The First Wife
"Put the gun down, Roman," Isabella said gently, placing a protective hand over sleeping Emma’s shoulder. "If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have brought you here. I would have let the men outside your gate finish what they started."
Roman slowly lowered his weapon, though his fingers remained tight around the grip. "My father wrote in his ledger that you died in a harbor crash."
"Your father was a master of fiction," Isabella replied, standing up slowly from the wooden bench. She walked toward the cell door, stopping just inside the iron frame. "Vincent didn't lock me away because I was a threat to his business. He locked me away because I discovered who really ordered the hit on my father—the founder of the Bellandi syndicate."
Roman’s eyes narrowed. "My grandfather died of cancer."
"Your grandfather was poisoned," Isabella spat, her voice suddenly spiking with sharp, righteous venom. "By your mother."
The words hung in the damp air like a heavy blade.
Roman took a step forward, his voice dropping into a dangerous rumble. "Watch your tongue. My mother was a saint."
"Your mother was Vincent's mistress long before I was removed from the picture!" Isabella countered, stepping directly into the light of the kerosene lamp. "Elena was the daughter of the Moretti family—our rival syndicate! Vincent married me to secure the north, but when he wanted the south, Elena convinced him that my father had to die. They poisoned my father, framed the police, and when I found the bank transfers in Vincent’s safe, they staged my 'death'!"
Isabella pulled back the sleeve of her dark coat, revealing heavy, horrific silver scars wrapping around her wrists—the marks of decades-old iron restraints.
"For fifteen years, I was chained to the bed in the basement ward beneath this very building," she whispered, her eyes filled with a terrifying, burning intensity. "Fed like an animal. Forgotten by the world. Kept alive only because Vincent was superstitious enough to believe that killing his lawful wife would bring a curse on his sons."
Roman stared at the scars on her wrists, his mind racing, trying to find a lie, a flaw, a contradiction in her story.
"How did you get out?" Roman asked raspy.
"Vincent died eight years ago," Isabella said. "The guards he paid to keep me here stopped receiving their monthly transfers. Most of them abandoned the facility. One of them—a young nurse who took pity on me—finally unlocked my door three years ago."
"And Emma?" Roman pointed toward the sleeping child. "Who is she?"
Isabella looked back at the little girl, her expression softening into profound tenderness.
"Emma is your niece, Roman," Isabella whispered. "She is the daughter of your younger brother, Julian."
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Roman froze, every nerve in his body going numb. "Julian? Julian died in a car crash in Miami two years ago!"
"Julian didn't die in Miami," Isabella revealed, tears finally welling in her dark eyes. "Julian found out I was alive six months ago. He came to me. He brought me his daughter to protect her—because he had discovered that your mother’s family, the Morettis, are still controlling the Bellandi syndicate from the inside!"
