Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of Ghosts
The interior of the apartment smelled of cinnamon, roasted chicken, and the distinct, sweet scent of small children—baby powder and laundry detergent. It was an environment so completely foreign to my own stark, limestone mansion that it felt like stepping into another dimension. On the living room rug, a wooden train set was arranged in a wide, erratic circle. Two small navy jackets were draped over the back of a chair.
"They're asleep," Isabel said immediately, her voice sharp as she closed the heavy door behind me and locked the deadbolt. She stood in the center of the room, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, keeping a deliberate six feet of distance between us. "They went down an hour ago. And that is the only reason you are standing in this room right now without a police siren outside."
"Isabel..." I took a step toward her, but stopped when her jaw tightened so hard the skin over her cheekbones went white.
"Don't," she said, her voice trembling but unbroken. "Don't use that tone on me, Alessandro. The quiet, reasonable boss who is just trying to protect everyone. You don't get to do that. Not after what you did."
"I thought I was dying inside, Isabel," I said, the confession feeling heavy and ugly in the clean room. "The specialist told me there was no pathway. Permanent. Irreversible. I sat in that clinic and looked at a document that told me I was the end of a line. I knew how much you wanted a family. I knew what my life was—the threats, the shadow, the constant warfare. I told myself that if I couldn't give you the one thing that would make the danger worth it, the only honorable thing to do was to cut you loose before the life swallowed you whole."
"Honorable?" She let out a short, choked laugh that sounded remarkably like a sob. "You called it an honorable choice? You sat at my kitchen table, told me you had realized our marriage was a mistake, and walked out the door while I was three weeks pregnant with your children! I didn't even know yet, Alessandro. I found out six days after you changed your numbers, after your lawyers sent the settlement papers that I tore up and threw in the Chicago River."
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She stepped closer, her eyes blazing with a fury that made her look magnificent even in her grief. "I spent nine months hiding in a state where no one knew my name because I was terrified that if your enemies found out, they would kill them. And I was terrified that if you found out, you would take them from me and raise them in the dark of your empire. I did it alone. I held them in the hospital alone while the nurses looked at me with pity. You don't get to come in here now and claim them because a new doctor gave you a better report."
"I am not claiming them from you, Isabel," I said, my own chest aching with a pain I had never learned how to manage. "I am trying to keep them alive. Santino Calvetti doesn't care about my medical history. He cares about the fact that those boys are the only things in this world that could make me drop my weapons. If he takes them, I will burn this city to the ground to get them back, and he knows it. We have to move. Tonight."
