Chapter 3

Isabella POV:

I pulled away from his touch and retreated to the sunroom, the glass walls feeling like a cage. I needed to be alone, to piece my fractured composure back together.

Through the glass, I watched him. He stood in the kitchen, phone to his ear, his expression a perfect mask of concern. He was probably calling our family doctor, arranging for a house call, playing the part of the devoted husband. The performance was flawless. He was the most powerful man in the city, feared by his enemies and revered by his men, and he had built his empire on this kind of control, this ability to present a perfect facade to the world.

As I watched him lie, a strange sense of clarity washed over me. The shaking stopped. The nausea receded. What remained was a cold, hard certainty. I knew exactly what I had to do.

I walked back into the kitchen. He hung up the phone. "Dr. Evans is on his way."

"That's not necessary," I said. "I know what will make me feel better. We should have your parents over for dinner tomorrow night. It's been too long."

He looked surprised, then wary. "Dinner? Tomorrow? Bella, I have..."

"You have plans," I finished for him. "I know. Cancel them."

He shifted his weight, a flicker of panic in his dark eyes. He was trapped. Refusing a family dinner with his parents, the former Don and his wife, would be an insult. It would raise questions. Giovanni Moretti did not like questions.

"Of course," he said, the words tight. "I'll move things around. For you."

That night, I waited until he was asleep, his breathing deep and even. I slipped out of bed and went back to his study. His laptop was on the desk, sleeping. The password was the date we met. The irony was so thick it was suffocating.

He had a hidden folder. Inside was a video.

I clicked play. It was Sofia. She was in a bedroom I didn't recognize, wearing one of my silk robes, the one he'd bought me in Paris. She was holding up her hand to the camera, showing off a ring. Not a wedding ring, but a diamond promise ring.

"Soon, I'll be Mrs. Moretti," she said to the camera, her voice dripping with venomous triumph. "And she'll be nothing."

Then, the camera panned, and Gio was there. He kissed her, a deep, possessive kiss that he used to give me. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

I felt nothing. No pain. No jealousy. Just a profound, chilling emptiness. It was like watching a movie about two strangers. The woman on the screen, Isabella Moretti, was already dead. I was just her ghost, waiting for the right moment to disappear.

He stirred in his sleep, reaching for me across the empty space in the bed. "Bella," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep.

I slid back under the covers, my body cold as marble. I laid a hand on his arm, a gesture of reassurance. A lie.

"I'm here," I whispered into the darkness.

The next morning, his burner phone started buzzing at 6 a.m. It was on the nightstand, a blatant piece of arrogance. He grunted, grabbing for it.

"Not now," he whispered into the phone, his voice rough with irritation. He hung up.

He turned to me, forcing a smile. "I'm going to make you breakfast," he announced, a grand gesture to make up for his divided attention. "Pancakes. Your favorite."

Later, as I mechanically ate the pancakes he'd made, he said, "This house is too much for you. We should hire a live-in housekeeper. Someone to help."

Someone to replace me. The words hung in the air between us.

"No," I said, my voice sharper than I intended. "This is my house. I'll take care of it."

He looked at me, a strange expression on his face. "Bella, do you still love me?"

The question was so absurd, so monumentally clueless, that a real laugh almost escaped my lips. I swallowed it down.

"Of course I do, Gio," I lied, looking him straight in the eye. "There is no me without you."

He visibly relaxed, his ego stroked. He believed it. He truly believed I was nothing without him.

"Good," he said. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. "I have to go. That warehouse issue flared up again."

As he walked out, I said his name. "Gio?"

He turned.

"Did you ever get that leak in the wine cellar fixed?" I asked casually. It was a commitment he'd made months ago, one he had completely forgotten.

A flash of panic crossed his face. "I'm on it," he said, a little too quickly, before turning and leaving for good.