Veil of Vengeance

CH 22: Raw emotions

Chapter 21: Unraveling Truths

Isabella's POV

The sun barely peeked over the horizon as I paced the length of my apartment, replaying the events of the night before in my mind. Alessandro's parting words still echoed in my ears, refusing to let me rest. "We're not done talking about this." The gravity of those words, layered with an intensity I hadn't expected, had left me more unsettled than I cared to admit.

I had spent the night tossing and turning, thoughts of Alessandro and Antonio swirling through my mind. Alessandro's raw emotion, so close to the surface, was unlike anything I had seen from him before. It had cracked through his usual veneer of ruthlessness, revealing something that had left me questioning everything I thought I knew about him—and about myself.

But there was something else, too—a slow, creeping realization that my feelings for Alessandro were no longer as straightforward as they once had been. What had started as animosity, fueled by suspicion and anger, had evolved into something far more complicated.

My phone buzzed on the table, pulling me from my thoughts. Alessandro again, with another cryptic message: "Meet me at the safehouse in an hour. We need to talk."

Not this again, I thought, rolling my eyes. But as much as I wanted to ignore him, curiosity—or perhaps something deeper—got the better of me. I quickly got dressed, trying to shake off the unease that had settled in my chest.

The drive to the safehouse was quick, but my heart pounded with every mile. When I arrived, Alessandro was already there, leaning against the hood of his car, his expression unreadable. His presence had a way of filling the space, making the air feel thicker, charged with an unspoken tension.

"Morning," he said, his tone neutral, but his eyes told a different story. There was a fire in them, a barely restrained intensity that sent a shiver down my spine.

"Morning," I replied, trying to keep my voice steady as I walked over to him. "What's so urgent?"

Alessandro didn't answer right away. Instead, he reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair from my face. His touch was brief, almost hesitant, but it was enough to send a jolt of electricity through me. "We need to talk about Antonio," he finally said, his voice low.

The mention of Antonio snapped me back to reality. I stepped back, creating some distance between us, as if that would help clear the fog in my head. "What about him?"

He handed me a file, his jaw clenched tight. "Marco dug deeper. This is what he found."

I opened the file, my hands trembling slightly. The contents were a mess of bank statements, offshore accounts, and photos of Antonio with men I didn't recognize—but I knew the type. Men who dealt in shadows, who thrived in the underworld. I felt my stomach twist into knots.

"Antonio... what have you done?" I whispered, more to myself than to Alessandro.

"I don't know what his endgame is, but it doesn't look good," Alessandro said, his voice clipped. "You need to be careful around him, Isabella. I don't want you getting caught in whatever he's wrapped up in."

I looked up at him, my mind spinning. "You're asking me to doubt my best friend. The one person I've trusted with my life for as long as I can remember."

Alessandro's expression softened, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of something in his eyes—something like regret. "I'm asking you to be smart. To think about what's at stake."

"What are you saying, Alessandro? That Antonio is some kind of traitor? That he's been lying to me all this time?"

"I don't know," he admitted, his tone unusually vulnerable. "But I do know that he's not telling you everything. And in our world, that kind of secrecy can get you killed."