Page 32 of Accidental Alliance

One where choosing her openly would not just damn me but paint a target on her so bright, the whole underworld would take aim and fire.

In this world, women have always bled for crimes they never committed except being loved by the wrong man.

And that is simply a life I can not damn her to.

“No,” I whisper.

She dashes them away angrily, furious at herself for letting them fall and even more so at me for being the reason behind it.

The sight of her crying does something catastrophic to my heart. The tightening around it turns vise-like, stealing the breath from my lungs where the pain becomes unbearable.

“Fine.” She steps back.

“Isabella,” I say immediately, moving toward her.

“Don’t,” she whispers.

My hands flex uselessly at my sides, every instinct in me screaming to close the distance and catch her face, to force her to look at me until she understands exactly why I’m doing this.

All I can actually do is stay rooted to my spot as she steps around me and heads for the elevator.

“Goodbye, Elio,” she says.

I don’t turn back around to watch her slip between the elevator doors when they open. Nor do I watch as the numbers tick down to the ground level.

I simply stare out at the city skyline and feel my heart shattering in two.

7

ISABELLA

Eight years later…

I stand at the kitchen counter of our small rental house at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in this sleepy coastal town where violence feels like something that happens only on television.

This house is modest, though not in a bad way. White siding compliments the faded blue shutters and narrow porch outside with two flower pots I forget to water half the time until Matteo reminds me with dramatic offense.

Inside, everything smells faintly of lemon cleaner, coffee grounds, and the breeze that drifts in if the windows stay open long enough. The floors creak in places I know by heart. The cabinet beneath the sink sticks when the weather turns humid.

I used to think ordinary meant lesser. Now I know better.

Sunlight filters in through the white curtains I pulled back from the kitchen window earlier, the fabric stirring every now and then in the breeze coming through the cracked pane above the sink.

It paints the room in soft yellow, catching on the ceramic bowl of peaches on the table and the school forms I still need to sign before Matteo leaves.

Outside, the air carries the faint scent of fresh-cut grass as a lawn sprinkler ticks in slow, lazy arcs across the neighbor’s lawn.

Matteo’s laughter echoes from outside, bright and unguarded.

That sound is my favorite thing in the world.

I live for the sleepy version of it when he stumbles into my room in dinosaur pajamas and climbs into my bed before sunrise, for the wild version of it when he runs ahead of me and forgets there is such a thing as danger.

I live for the soft version at night when his voice goes syrupy with exhaustion and he asks for one more story even while his eyes are already falling shut.

Every day, I wake up and thank God he still laughs like that.

I look up from the lunchbox open on the counter and watch him through the window, my heart doing the same stupid, tender thing it always does.