Page 4 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

"The crew." Franco hesitates, and that pause tells me everything I need to know.

"Don't flower it up." I move to the window where the Mediterranean crashes against cliffs below—violent and unforgiving as the thoughts running through my head. "Give it to me straight."

Franco sighs. "We're bleeding money since the Irish alliance stalled. Lost three men near Milano last week. Execution-style, not accidents. The French are backing out of the Northern Europe deal, and everyone's asking the same question." He pauses, choosing his next words carefully. "Where's Isabella?"

Her name hits harder than it should. Three months, and it still feels like gravel in my throat.

"What do you mean?" Each word comes out laced with the kind of ice that makes smarter men run.

"They want to see her. Alive and well." Franco's fingers drum against his holster—nervous tell he's never managed to shake. "Word's spreading that she might be dead, that the contract isn't valid if she isn't living and breathing in this fortress. The French are particularly adamant. No Isabella, no deal."

I scoff, acid burning up my throat. "The whole point was marrying her to claim a piece of her father's empire. Being the heir was just insurance. Now it's all smoke."

"Maybe, but—"

"Her father isn't respecting his part of the contract. Why should I?" The words taste bitter, like the morning after our wedding night when everything burned down around us.

The argument gets cut short as Signora Martha bursts in. At seventy-something, she looks like she could be someone's sweet grandmother, but she moves through this fortress like she owns every stone. I've seen hardened sicarios step aside when she comes through. She's the only person I trust with Elena.

Elena. The little girl with Giuliana's smile and my eyes. My daughter, according to DNA tests that only confirmed what I knew when I first saw her. I've kept my distance, telling myself it's for her protection. In our world, love is leverage, and I've got enough enemies who'd use her to destroy me.

"She's vanished." Signora Martha's voice cuts through the room like a gunshot.

Ice floods my veins. Three words, and suddenly nothing else matters. Not Moretti, not the failing alliances, not even Isabella locked in her tower.

"Vanished?" The word tears from my throat, rough as the scars that map my body. "Explain. Now."

Chapter three

Isabella

"Andthentheprincess...principessa..."I draw the words out, weaving fairy tales into something real.

My stories for Elena have become a patchwork of everything I once believed in—Beauty and the Beast meets Cinderella meets Rapunzel—but reinvented for a girl who deserves better endings than the ones written for us. In my version, the princess doesn't wait for rescue. She builds her own strength from broken pieces, finds her worth in the aftermath of loss.

And the Beast? He has miles to go before redemption, learning that apologies require more than words, that change demands proof, that love isn't about conquering but growing alongside someone as equals. "The princess leaps into the air, knowing she built a parachute that will have her sailing away."

Elena responds with questions I sometimes can't translate, my Italian still stumbling despite Signora Marta's patientlessons. She giggles like I'm performing at the Bolshoi instead of spinning stories through a locked door. For these stolen moments, I almost forget the weight of stone walls and betrayal. My fingers work faster across the paper, sketching another princess adventure to slide beneath the door and keep her safely engaged.

But in the last few minutes, her questions and giggles fade into something softer, rhythmic. Unmistakable snores from a kid that could rival the most exhausted corps dancer after final bows.

"Elena!"

The voice slices through me sharper than any scalpel, cleaner than any surgical cut.

My body reacts before my mind can catch up. Muscles locking into place like during those early ballet rehearsals when perfection was the only acceptable outcome. My lungs forget their job, and my fingers press so hard against the door that my nails might leave permanent crescents in ancient oak.

Because that voice—deep, commanding, with an edge of panic beneath the control—belongs to him.

The man who dismantled every defense I built during cancer's siege, only to plant land mines in the rubble.

The man who'll never forgive me for a betrayal I didn't commit, whose hatred is the only constant in this stone prison.

The man I promised would never again have the power to reopen wounds I've been desperately trying—not to heal—but to stop from bleeding out.

Antonio is coming. Coming here. To the forgotten wing where he locked me away with his mother's letters and his contempt for company.

I don't want to see him. I can't... My breath catches in that dangerous rhythm that used to send nurses running. Water. I need water. I lunge for the glass on my nightstand, splashingsome on my face before taking a long sip. Inhale for four counts. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight. The technique my cardiologist taught me when SVT threatened to take control.

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