Chapter 2

Isabella POV:

"I want no part of a man who offers me a shared throne," I said, my voice as cold and hard as the shattered glass on the floor. "I will be a queen, not a consolation prize."

My father stared at me, his eyes searching my face. He saw the unwavering resolve there, the new hardness that had settled deep in my bones. He saw that his daughter, the girl he had sheltered and protected, had grown up in the span of a single evening.

He nodded slowly. "This betrayal is not just against you, Isabella. It is against the Moretti family. It is against me."

I saw something shift in his eyes, a familiar, dangerous glint. It was the look he got before a war, before blood was spilled to settle a debt of honor.

"Tell me what you want me to do," he said, his voice a low growl.

"I want them to suffer," I whispered. "I want him to know what he has lost. And I want her... I want her gone."

"Consider it done," he said. The air in the room crackled with his authority, the absolute power of a Don. "He will be exiled. Stripped of his name, his power, everything. And as for the girl... he will watch as she pays the price for his disloyalty."

A grim satisfaction settled in my chest. It wasn't happiness, but it was something solid to hold onto in the wreckage of my life. A promise of vengeance. *Vendetta*.

A weight I didn't know I was carrying lifted from my shoulders. The decision was made. The path was clear.

I was leaving the study when I saw her. Angelia. She was coming down the hallway, a picture of innocence in a simple white dress. She saw me and her face lit up with a sweet, disarming smile.

"Bella! I was just coming to see you."

She reached for me, her arms open for a hug. The cloying scent of gardenias hit me first, a wave of nausea washing over me. It was the smell of deceit, the smell of my stolen future.

I flinched back as if her touch would burn me.

"Don't," I snapped, my voice sharp.

She looked at me, her lower lip trembling, her wide eyes filling with manufactured tears. "What's wrong? Did I do something?"

And then, she orchestrated her masterpiece. She took a clumsy step back, her ankle twisting at an impossible angle. She let out a pained cry and crumpled to the floor, a broken doll at my feet.

"Angelia!"

Marco's voice boomed from down the hall. He appeared in an instant, his face a mask of fury. He didn't even look at me. His eyes were only for her.

He knelt beside her, his touch gentle as he examined her ankle. "What happened?"

Enzo and Jax were right behind him, their faces dark with accusation.

"She just... she pushed me," Angelia whimpered, looking up at Marco with tear-filled eyes. "I don't know why. I was just trying to talk to her."

"I didn't touch her," I said, my voice flat.

Marco looked up at me then, and the disappointment in his eyes was a physical blow. *You are being childish,* his gaze seemed to say. *Why can't you just be kind to her?*

He scooped her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing. "I'm taking you to the doctor," he murmured, his voice soft with a tenderness he hadn't used with me in years.

He brushed past me without another glance, his soldiers following like a loyal honor guard. He left me standing alone in the hallway, the echo of her fake sobs still hanging in the air.

Later, from my balcony, I watched them in the garden below. Marco was kneeling, gently wrapping Angelia's ankle with an ice pack. She was leaning against him, her head on his shoulder, looking up at him with adoration.

A memory surfaced, sharp and unwelcome. Last year, I'd been thrown from my horse during a ride. My wrist had been broken, a clean snap of bone that had made me cry out in pain.

Marco had been there. He had helped me, but his touch had been reluctant, his expression resentful.

"My father will have my head if you're not perfect for the gala," he had muttered, his grip on my arm just a little too tight. He had tended to my injury not out of love, but out of obligation, a duty commanded by my father.

I looked at him now, doting on Angelia over a fabricated injury. He wasn't performing a duty. He was offering devotion.

A cold certainty washed over me, chilling me to the bone. This wasn't just about a kiss. This was about a choice he had made a long, long time ago.

He cradled her hand like it was precious glass. I remembered how he'd held my broken wrist like it was a burden.

And without another word, I turned and walked away.