Chapter 3 - Blood at the TableThe photograph did what Emma’s words could not.
It removed doubt.
For a moment, Allessandro stood so still that everyone in the dining room forgot to breathe.
Matteo.
His cousin. His childhood shadow. The boy who had learned to shoot beside him at fourteen. The man who had stood at his father’s funeral and sworn loyalty over the coffin.
Matteo had been in the kitchen.
Not stopping Isabella.
Watching her.
Allessandro turned the photograph toward Isabella.
“Explain.”
She glanced at it.
Only a glance.
Then she smiled faintly.
“Bad angle.”
Lucia made a strangled sound.
Allessandro’s voice went dangerously soft.
“Bad answer.”
Isabella folded her hands on the table.
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I am thinking more clearly than I have in months.”
“Then think about this,” she said. “A photo appears minutes after a servant child accuses me. Convenient. Too convenient.”
“Who sent it?”
“I have no idea.”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
He stepped closer.
“Where is Matteo?”
“At his apartment, I assume.”
“No.” Allessandro turned to his guard. “Find him.”
The guard nodded and left.
Isabella’s composure finally cracked—not with fear, but irritation.
“All of this because some little girl wanted attention.”
Emma lifted her head.
Something changed in Allessandro then.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
But everyone felt it.
He looked at Isabella as if she had stepped over a line she would never be allowed to cross again.
“You will not speak about her that way.”
Isabella’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh, now she matters?”
“She saved my life.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
Isabella stood quickly. Her chair scraped against the marble.
“I will not sit here and be judged in front of staff.”
“You will sit,” Allessandro said.
She laughed. “You think you can command me?”
“No. I know I can contain you.”
Two guards moved to the doorway.
Isabella looked at them, then back at him.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Allessandro picked up his phone and dialed.
Everyone waited.
A voice answered.
“Romano.”
“Seal the west wing. Isabella stays inside the estate until I say otherwise. No calls. No visitors. No driver. No lawyer unless I approve the room first.”
Isabella’s face went white with fury.
“You can’t imprison me.”
He ended the call.
“I just did.”
She took one step toward him.
“Allessandro, listen to me very carefully. You are not the only powerful name in this city.”
“No,” he said. “But I am the one whose breakfast you poisoned.”
A guard returned, breathless.
“Boss.”
Allessandro turned.
“Matteo’s apartment is empty. His phone is off. His driver says he left before dawn.”
“Where?”
The guard hesitated.
“He said Matteo was headed to Providence Harbor.”
Isabella looked away too fast.
Allessandro saw it.
“Harbor,” he repeated.
The guard nodded.
“There’s more.”
He handed Allessandro a second item: a small black recorder.
“Found taped under the gate box with the envelope.”
Allessandro pressed play.
Static.
Then voices.
Isabella’s voice first.
“Don’t make it too quick. If he dies suddenly, they’ll look at me.”
Then Matteo.
“He trusts the food. He trusts you. That is the beauty of it.”
Allessandro’s face did not move.
The room seemed to tilt around him.
Emma began to cry silently.
Lucia held her tighter.
The recording continued.
Isabella again.
“After the wedding, everything transfers cleanly.”
Matteo laughed.
“Unless he doesn’t make it to the wedding.”
The audio clicked off.
No one spoke.
Even Isabella had gone silent.
Allessandro set the recorder down.
He looked at the woman who had slept under his roof, worn his ring, kissed his cheek, and planned his death between wedding fittings.
“When did you stop pretending?” he asked.
Isabella’s mouth opened.
Then closed.
And then, slowly, she smiled.
“There he is,” she whispered. “The real Romano.”
The mask was gone now.
Allessandro felt no victory in seeing it.
Only disgust.
“You were never going to marry me,” he said.
“I was going to marry your name.”
“And Matteo?”
“Matteo understood reality.”
“You mean greed.”
“I mean survival.” Her voice hardened. “Your family built an empire on fear, then expected everyone else to call it honor. Matteo knew you were weak.”
“Weak?”
“You let servants eat in the kitchen. You send doctors to employees’ children. You apologize when your men frighten old women. You think kindness makes you different from your father.”
Allessandro stepped closer.
“No. It makes me better.”
Isabella laughed.
That was when the glass door behind her shattered.
A bullet tore through the dining room window and buried itself in the wall inches from Allessandro’s head.
Lucia screamed.
The guards drew weapons.
Allessandro dropped low and pulled Emma and Lucia behind the table.
Outside, engines roared near the gate.
Isabella stood in the chaos, still smiling.
And Allessandro understood.
May you like
The poison had failed.
So Matteo had moved to the second plan.
