Page 30 of Mafia Daddy's Christmas Bride
I hang up with Marco, the tension of our conversation leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
Twenty-five years of loyalty, and one question threatens to crack the foundation.
I pour another drink and pull out Isabella's burner phone. The passcode screen mocks me, but this isn't my first rodeo. I'll have my tech guy crack it tomorrow.
For now, I focus on what I already know.
Isabella believes we killed her mother.
The FBI is involved.
Those two facts circle each other in my mind.
Which came first? Did Isabella reach out to the Feds with her suspicions, or did they approach her? The distinction matters.
If she sought them out, it means she developed her theory independently.
But if they approached her, that suggests something more calculated, a deliberate attempt to drive a wedge into La Corona.
I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. And why is the FBI suddenly interested in her death?
Unless it was never about her death at all. Unless her death is just convenient leverage.
I pull out a notepad and start jotting down what I know about Isabella's FBI contact.
She has a burner phone and regular contact, suggesting she’s being managed, not assisted.
She clearly doesn’t want to be in our world, which indicates she expected to be protected, maybe even put into witness protection when she tried to run off the other night.
Is that what she was doing tonight?
Trying to get him to extract her from me?
If that’s the case, she’s important to them. She’s not a victim. She's a source of information.
Isabella doesn’t strike me as stupid, but she’s clearly got a blind spot around her mother’s death and someone is taking advantage of that. They’re using it to get information.
But what’s their endgame? Arrest us? Or perhaps turn La Corona against itself?
I'll find the truth.
And if someone is targeting us through Isabella, they've made a critical mistake.
They've brought the fight to my doorstep, and I never lose.
6
ISABELLA
I jolt awake as the mattress dips beside me.
Heart hammering, I twist around to find Roman sliding under the covers on the other side of the bed.
The soft glow from the moonlit window silhouettes his broad shoulders before he lies back next to me.
"What are you doing?" I hiss, clutching the blanket to my chest even though I'm fully clothed in a T-shirt and pajama pants.
"Going to sleep." His voice is maddeningly calm, like this is the most normal situation in the world.
