Isabella POV
The clinking of my spoon against the porcelain was suddenly shattered by the sharp buzzing of my phone on the marble counter. The caller ID flashed: Arthur Blanchard.
I hesitated, a naive, pathetic part of me hoping my father was calling to check on my well-being after the disastrous wedding fallout. I answered, bringing the phone to my ear.
"You will go to Julian Falcone, get on your knees, and beg for his forgiveness."
No greeting. Just a command forged in absolute ice.
"He cheated on me, Father," I whispered, my knuckles turning white. "He humiliated me."
"I don't care if he fucked half of New York!" Arthur roared, his voice vibrating with rage. "You cost us a fifty-million-dollar alliance! Do you have any idea what you've done to my reputation?"
In the background, I heard the sickeningly sweet voice of my step-sister, Sophia. "Daddy, please don't let her upset your heart. I'll talk to the Falcones for you..."
"Listen to your sister," Arthur sneered, the contempt in his voice slicing through my chest like a scalpel. "What do you have besides that face, Isabella? Will your medical degree pay back fifty million dollars? Will your pathetic acting dreams secure our status? You are useless." He paused, letting the venom sink in. "Without the Falcone heir, do you really think any respectable man in this city will touch a publicly discarded woman?"
Click. The line went dead.
I sat frozen, the phone slipping from my trembling fingers. The last fragile illusion I held about my family shattered into dust. I wasn't a daughter. I was a pawn, a defective product that had failed to secure a transaction.
Before the tears of humiliation could fall, the sharp chime of the penthouse doorbell echoed through the room.
Damien stood up. His movements were fluid, silent, and lethal. He walked to the entryway and pulled open the heavy ebony door.
Standing in the hallway, holding a massive bouquet of red roses and wearing a sickeningly confident smirk, was Julian Falcone. He had come to collect his property. But the moment his eyes landed on the towering wall of muscle blocking the entrance, his smirk vanished, replaced by an ugly scowl.
"Move," Julian snapped, trying to shove past him.
Damien didn't yield a single inch. He looked down at Julian with deadpan calm, an immovable mountain of dark menace.
Julian's arrogance flared. He pointed a manicured finger at Damien's chest. "A dog kept by the Blanchards dares to block my path?"
The sheer audacity of his words, colliding with the fresh, bleeding wound my father had just inflicted, ignited a blinding, reckless rage inside me. I marched toward the door, my heels clicking sharply against the marble floor.
"He's my man, you have no right to lecture him!" I hissed, my voice trembling with pure fury.
Julian's eyes widened in shock, but before he could utter a single word, I grabbed the edge of the heavy ebony door and slammed it shut with all my strength.
Crack.
The thick wood connected violently with Julian's face, followed by a muffled yelp of pain from the hallway. But in that split second before the door clicked shut, I saw something else. I saw Julian flinch-not from the impact of the door, but from the suffocating, terrifyingly dark aura suddenly radiating from Damien. It was a suffocating pressure, the kind of absolute authority Julian had only ever seen in his own father, the Don of the Falcone family.
I turned around, the adrenaline rapidly draining from my veins, leaving me hollow and exhausted. I just wanted to retreat to my bedroom and lock the world away.
But as I stepped toward my doorway, Damien moved.
In a blink, he closed the distance, crowding me against the white doorframe. His massive chest caged me in, the scent of dark tobacco and danger wrapping around me. Before I could utter a word of protest, his hand tangled in my hair, tilting my head up, and his mouth crashed down on mine.
It was a kiss of absolute possession, a predatory claim that devoured the air from my lungs. It burned with dark heat, demanding my surrender, branding me as his.
When he finally pulled back, my knees were weak, my chest heaving against his solid torso. He rested his forehead against mine, his deep Sicilian eyes locking onto my soul.
"That's for defending what's mine, principessa(princess)," he murmured, his voice a dark, gravelly rumble. His rough thumb brushed over my swollen lower lip, sealing my fate. "Be a good wife, Mrs. Moretti."
