Page 38 of Isabella

“She’s not going to come to me,” I grumble from the passenger seat while Leo drives across the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Forcing her to speak to you hasn’t been working,” Dante says. “You both have a serious history, and then add in the fact that your dad had her parents killed? Fuck, man, I wouldn’t want to talk to you either.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I narrow my gaze on Dante’s. “Is that supposed to be helpful?”

“Yes, actually, it is. You need to stop forcing yourself into her life. She’s pissed, and at this point, you’re just making it worse. Breaking up with her the way you did probably fucked with her.”

“I didn’t have a choice, Dante. I needed to break her heart. I had to make it so she’d never want to talk to me again. You know that.”

“You’re right, I do know that, but she doesn’t. All she knows is that you broke up with her for another chick. Put yourself in her shoes. How would you feel?”

I scoff. “I’d kill any motherfucker that laid his hands on her.”

Leo chimes in from the driver’s seat. “It’s been over three years, Nicco. She’s probably been with another dude at this point.”

Not fucking helpful.

The thought of Isabella wrapped in another man’s arms brings an intense wave of anger coursing through my body, causing the blood to feel like it’s exploding from my veins.

She’s mine.

She was always supposed to be mine.

“I can’t wait for her to talk to me. If I wait for her, she’ll never come.”

“So what’re you going to do? Ambush her again?” Dante asks.

“Ambushseems harsh,” I mutter.

“But it’s exactly what you did,” Leo says. “You had us watching your ex-girlfriend—unbeknownst to her—and reporting to you as soon as she was out in public so you could show up and try and stronghold her into talking to you.”

“That’s an ambush if I ever heard one,” Dante says from the back.

I turn in my seat and glare at both of my friends. “Whose fucking side are you guys on?”

“Yours, obviously, which is why I’ve decided you need to listen to Dante,” Leo says. “You need to back off and let her come to you. If you continue trying to force her to speak to you, she’s just going to keep shutting you down even harder.”

“Fucking fine,” I bellow out, tired of going round and round with these guys. But also, as much as I hate to admit it, they might have a point. I just don’t know how much longer I can take this silent treatment from her. And with my dad breathing down my neck about this too?

Fuck.

If I take too long to tell her why I had to break up with her, my dad will get impatient and think of other ways to get what he wants, and I can’t let that happen. My plan is finally starting to come together, but I need Isabella to come to me sooner rather than later. Because if she doesn’t, my dad will follow through with his threat against the DiMaggios, and I’m worried he’ll start with Isabella.

24

ISABELLA

I’ve been thinking a lot about Nicco and the feelings brought up with even the smallest possibility that my brother would kill him.

While I know nothing can happen between Nicco and me—not that I even want it to—I’m beginning to think Lux and Liana are right. I’ve been harboring a lot of anger toward him with how he ended things and abandoned me during the most vulnerable time in my life. But now that he’s back in the city, I will have to deal with seeing him around more. I need to move on from our relationship—from the miscarriage—without getting angry at him every single time I see him.

Things were fine when he was in Italy. I never had to worry about running into him, which made it easy to bury thoughts of him in the deepest part of my brain, but now that he’s here—showing up in my day-to-day life—he’s toying with my emotions more than I care to admit, and it’s suffocating.

I need closure.

As much as I don’t want to give Nicco the chance to explain himself for cutting me out of his life in the worst way possible, I’m thinking I need to put my anger aside and let him explain so I have the clarity I was never given.

While Rocco and Gianni drive Lux and me through the busy city to meet Liana at Il Forno Pizzeria, I find myself locked in a trance, gazing out the window at nothing, lost in the depths of my mind, which is consumed by Nicco.

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