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“You’d better tread carefully, Isabella,” I warn, my voice cold as steel. “Whether your accusation is true or not, this will end with someone paying a heavy price. Either my mother’s crimes will demand justice, or you’ll face the wrath of our world for daring to falsely accuse her. One of us will lose everything.”
“Trust me, Andrey,” a deep voice rumbles from behind Isabella, “it won’t be Isabella who stands to lose everything.”
A tall man, who is slightly stooped and leaning on a cane, steps into view behind Isabella. His graying hair and the severe burn scar down one side of his face are unmistakable. I hear gasps from Roman and my mother as the man turns to face us fully. My eyes widen in disbelief as I recognize the face I’ve seen in a portrait on my father’s study wall—Grigory Belov.
“Grigory!” My mother’s whisper confirms my worst fears. “How?”
“It’s Dmitry Popov Junior now,” he corrects her, his voice dripping with bitterness. “If you’re wondering how I escaped the burning barn, you and my stepmother had her Irish mob family lock us in?” He glances at Temur. “Vasilli, Temur’s father, managed to pull me out. I was left for dead and endured years of suffering from my injuries.”
Isabella’s eyes meet mine, and at that moment, I know with absolute certainty that whatever trust or connection we had is shattered beyond repair.
Chapter 28
ISABELLA
Eight Week Later — A Small Island in the Caribbean
Two months have passed since that day—since everything changed. The memory is still vivid, seared into my mind like a brand that will never fade.
I remember the coldness in Grace’s eyes as she stood in Dmitry’s living room, her voice calm and venomous as she laid out her plans for all to hear. There was no remorse, no hesitation—just a calculated, methodical unraveling of the web she had spun over decades. She spoke of how she and Lev had conspired to bring down the Zhukovs, Andreevs, and Morettis, their betrayal woven into the fabric of every move they made. She planned to seize control of all the organizations that had once held the Belovs and Velvet Transport hostage, waiting patiently for Andrey and me to marry and for me to carry his children. It was all part of her grand design.
Even now, I can still see the disbelief on Andrey’s face as he listened to his mother confess, her words a blade that cut through the last remnants of the family he thought he knew. But when his gaze shifted to me, it wasn’t disbelief that I saw—it was something much colder. The connection we had, the tentative bond that had been growing between us, was gone. I was nothing more than a threat, an enemy who had dared to challenge his mother.
His warning still echoes in my mind. “You’d better tread carefully, Isabella.“ The icy edge in his voice left no doubt that, at that moment, I was standing on the edge of a precipice. One wrong move, and I would fall.
But I couldn’t stay. Not after everything that had been revealed, and certainly not after seeing the man Andrey had become in defense of his mother. With Temur’s help, I slipped away that night. He and his wife, Alex, and their children had helped me with my escape plan.
While the Belovs, Moretti, Andreevs, and Zhukovs had finally gotten their closure from a twenty-nine-year-old gaping wound and stopped the monster that had killed my mother and conspired to take over as much as she could, what I didn’t give them, was the paradise my mother had left to me.
Guilt slices through me when I think of my brother. I’d left without even a word to him. While they’d all thought they knew my mother’s escape plans for me, they didn’t. My mother had secretly bought this small island for me. To my surprise, it had been maintained by Maggie from the diner, a woman who my mother and grandmother had helped out of an abusive relationship years before I was born.
The island is a world away from everything—remote, hidden, a paradise where the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It is where I’ve started over, with the help of Temur, Alex, and their two kids.
Temur had sworn to my grandmother that he’d protect me, and is the reason he’d joined Konstantin on the mission to save me. My heart tugs for Temur to learn of how his father died—saving the life of another man. It’s what made me see that no matter what world you live in, there will always be good and bad, but most importantly, there are heroes like Temur’s father.
I’ve tried to put the past behind me. But it’s not that simple.
As I sit on the porch, feeling the warm Caribbean breeze against my skin, my hand instinctively moves to my belly. The babies are really strong kickers, a reminder that two new lives are growing within me—lives that Andrey will never know.
A tiny sliver of guilt threads through me, knowing that he’s missed two months of this pregnancy, but I quickly push it aside. He made his choice when he looked at me with those cold, unfeeling eyes and sided with his mother. I was never anything more than a possession to him, something to be controlled, manipulated, and discarded when convenient.
For a brief moment, I had been willing to give him the year he’d asked for to see if there could be something real between us. But that moment has passed the instant he chose his mother over me—over us. I knew then that there was no future for us—no trust, no love, only the cold reality of power and control.
My thoughts are interrupted as Alex joins me. Her own belly is round with the promise of new life. We’ve found a strange sort of peace here, a quiet existence far from the reach of those who once sought to destroy us. We’ve become more than friends—our shared experiences, the horrors we’ve escaped, have forged a bond that feels more like family.
“I made some tea,” she says softly, placing a cup in front of me. “Chamomile, to help you relax.”
I smile, grateful for her kindness, and take the cup. The tea is warm and soothing, and for a moment, it eases the tension that never entirely leaves me.
“I feel like if I get any more relaxed, I’ll fall asleep in the sun again,” I laugh, feeling a sense of contentment and freedom for the first time in my life, even though there’s still a hole in my heart where Andrey ripped it out.
“Oh, I love doing that, too,” Alex replies, her laughter light and infectious. She stands up and brushes the sand from her sundress. “But I should go check on the kids and find my husband.” She sighs. “He takes being head of your security very seriously and works the poor men so hard.”
“Temur is just trying to keep us safe.”
“From the seagulls?” she teases, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
I shake my head, still smiling, as I stand and walk with her back to the main house. The path from the beach is a short one, winding through the lush tropical gardens that border the sandy beach and surround the house—my sprawling beach villa.
