Isabella's POV

The cold kiss of the blade hovered a breath from my throat. I could feel each pulsation of my terrified heartbeat thudding against its edge.

I forced myself not to flinch. Fear was what most men like him fed on, and I won't give him that.

“I told you who I am,” I whispered, my voice trembling despite my defiance. “I am Don Vincenzo’s girlfriend.”

His jaw flexed, and a storm raged behind his gray eyes. “You must think me a fool, if you expect me to believe that?” he snarled. His voice was low, deadly, controlled. Each word said with careful thought, a slight pause after each one. “You walked into a private territory you were never supposed to know existed, somehow, ended up in my suite, and conveniently—conveniently…” he stressed. “...the Don you claim to be dating ended up dead. And then here you are playing detective at his death, no grief, no sympathy, nothing, seeming to know where every detail fits.”.

“I didn’t kill him,” I hissed back. The blade pressed harder, punishing me for the words. A bead of heat trickled down my throat—blood. Not enough to hurt, but enough to remind me that I was the powerless one here, and to cap it all, I was in a deep mess.

My eyes jumped briefly to Vincenzo's body, and disgust stained my lips. Why did the bastard have to die? No matter how I shaped it, the bastard dying incriminates me. Even in death, the bastard still found a way to trap me in his mess.

The stranger's gaze dropped suddenly to something on the floor, some feet away—my purse. The bundle of leather sat forlornly on the floor. I'd lost it after the struggle with Don Vincenzo.

In a flash, he released me only to snatch the small purse. I lunged for it as well. There were things in there that would only sink me further. But he moved with impossible speed.

“No—don’t!” I cried, reaching for the bag.

But he already had it open, dumping its contents viciously onto the marble floor. Lip gloss. Mascara. A broken compact mirror and a couple of other female beauty things I had used to keep up the slut persona.

He stared at the content on the floor for a moment, and then at me. Then his v-shaped jaw, which I had thought sexy, and that grey pair of entrancing eyes of his, together worked out a sinister grin that caused my stomach to quiver.

My chest heaved, thumbing furiously against my chest, the more I watched him feel around the purse with his hands. His sister's grin grew, claiming the whole of his lips as he touched something on the purse.

“No—don’t. Give back my purse.” I screamed at him, reaching for my purse. But he had already torn it open with his knife. They dropped from the thin, carefully crafted pocket in the purse. A flat USB stick I needed for my mission and my cardholder.

His fingers froze on the cardholder especially, the USB clattering to the floor.

He lifted the slim cardholder, and my press badge slid out, dangling between his fingers.

“ISABELLA ROSSI. INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, UNDERCOVER DIVISION.” He reads carefully in that same cold, clinical voice, each word rolling off his lips with disdain before the next.

The whole room went abuzz with a collective gasp, and then whispers followed immediately. They didn't bother to be hushed about it.

The stranger’s face darkened, yet he held tight to a dark smile. “You really are Vincenzo's girlfriend, except you are also an investigator, and the bastard was your ticket into this resort.”

My lips twitched, but I knew nothing to say, so I just shut them tight, saying nothing. There was nothing to say. I had been found out. My whole plan and years of hard work unravelled in a matter of seconds.

I stared at him and the rest of the room, basking in the heat of their hostile gazes. My only option out of this was escape, yet with the number of hardened criminals in the room and the resort as a whole, the chances of that happening were far less than a sudden magic uprooting me from the room.

“A spy,” Don Pietro Vitale gasped, not from fright, but rage. Teeth clattering with each word. “We have a spy in the resort—”

“And the bastard, Vincenzo, brought her in.” Don Silvio said. He adjusted his silk shirt, and his big gold chain necklace clinked as he moved. His eyes swept Vincenzo’s corpse with explicit disdain as he tapped the ash off his cigar to the floor. He shook his head, “...and this I’ll say, is good riddance.”

“But there is still the problem of the spy. How do we treat that?” Don Ricardo fingered his gold-rimmed wristwatch as he spoke. Eyes shifty, bouncing like balls in motion.

The eldest of them, Don Matteo Russo, just fingered his silver-haired beard, settled in his classic Consigliere pose, brows hung high, and thoughtful. “There's no other way to treat it. She dies. No one must see Rafaele's face, and no one kills a member of the confraternity and lives. Her death is already decided.”

Don Fabrizio Moretti, the family's enforcer, turned to me, and his face, permanently locked in a stern expression, dissolved for me in a dark smile. “Then I’ll enjoy killing this one.” He adjusted the sleeves of his turtleneck, and he pounced menacingly at me, waddling his stocky build. He was a thick-set, almost five hundred pounds of muscles.

“I didn’t kill him!” I yelled. “You have to believe me, I didn't kill him.” I spat again, louder this time—a desperate scream fighting off my lungs.

But each gaze I met only hinted at thoughts to strangle me. The bastards weren't going to let me live. And for the first time in my life, I was scared.

My heartbeat rose to a terrifying beat in my chest. I thought it would explode, my eyes inching with each throw of Fabrizio's powerful legs to me.

The stranger planted himself between the Dons and me, while his eyes sized me up carefully, quietly studying me. “Stay back,” he snapped. And Fabrizio froze just instantly. He didn't move even a muscle afterward.

For some reason, I don't know, this stranger controls them. Was he Lorenzo Marino? I thought. But Don Matteo had referred to him as Rafeal earlier. How could he be both names?

Don Matteo Russo dragged his thin, wiry body forward. “But Rafeal, you can't let her live. Vincenzo aside, she has already seen your face. She has to die.”

“I will be the judge of that?” He said, cold and clinical as always.

Don Matteo looked to argue, but stopped and stepped back from the stranger—Rafeal, as he was called.

The Dons glanced among themselves, brows angled in confusion, uncertain as they watched the scene quietly. Not even one moved their lips for speech.

Rafeale turned back to me, his glare savage enough to tear through me like a blade.

He leaned forward and he grabbed my chin, forcing my eyes to his. But I was already staring at him before then. My life hung on his decision. I couldn't look elsewhere. Especially not when he was also a specimen of a strange breed of manly beauty, that sent my insides fluttering as his dark, hostile gaze sent my heart on a wild rampage in my chest.

“Listen carefully, Isabella Rossi.” He leaned in, and his breath ghosted hot across my cheek. His touch was nothing near tender. His fingers were as hard as steel on my jaw, yet I could almost squeal in delight at the feel and touch of him.

Focus, Isabella. Focus fool.

“If it were up to me, I’d slit your throat right now and throw your body in the bay. But I want the truth. And I want the one who left that note.”

He released me abruptly, and I collapsed to my knees, gasping, my hand holding tight to my chest.

“You claim you didn't kill Vincenzo, so you are going to have to prove you’re innocent,” he continued, stepping back. “You’re going to find the killer. And you’re going to bring me his head.”

“And if I don’t?” My voice cracked open, raw. I could tell there was a clause. There was always one.

He crouched before me, lifting my chin again—but this time with chilling calm.

“You have one week.” His voice was low and firm, a whisper that filled every corner of the room. “One week to find the man who murdered Vincenzo. One week to prove you weren’t a part of it.”

“And if I fail?”

He smiled—slow, merciless, beautiful in the most terrifying way. “Then I’ll kill you myself. And I would do it in the most terrifying way possible for you, so you will have much time to hate me, just as much as you fucked me last.”