Chapter 15: Unmasked
1393 Words
~Isabella’s POV~
The silence that followed wrapped around me like a vice. My fingers froze mid tap against my thigh, breath catching in my throat.
He didn’t look at me when he said it. Just kept his gaze fixed on the window, as if the answer was written somewhere in the blur of city lights.
“What does that mean?” I asked, voice low, cautious. Like stepping onto thin ice I knew would c***k.
Dante finally turned to me, his eyes sharp. Calculating. “It means I know who you are. Not just the name on your invitation or the designer dress you’re wearing like armor.”
My pulse spiked. “What exactly are you saying?”
He leaned closer, the space between us shrinking like a trap snapping shut.
“I’m saying I know you’re not Isabella Cassagrande.”
My body went cold.
He let the words hang between us like smoke.
How the hell could he have known?
“I don’t know who told you that......” I began, the lie forming instinctively, as I shrugged uncomfortably were I sat.
He cut me off with a smile. Not cruel. Not kind. Just...knowing. “Relax. If I wanted to expose you, I wouldn’t be sitting here in the dark, offering you a deal.”
A beat.
“Melissa!” he pronounced, his voice sounding almost predatory. My heart sank.
How was this even possible?
The sound of my real name......my dead name......was a gut punch. No one had said it in over two years. Not since the accident. Not since the fire. Not since the slow, painful rebirth in a hospital ward far from here.
I swallowed hard. “How?”
“You forget who you’re dealing with.” He shifted in his seat, stretching out, too comfortable for someone who just detonated a bomb. “When someone as public as you supposedly dies tragically, and no burial......not even a cremation ceremony was held in your honour, it's almost like you never even existed. Pufff.....gone without a trace, don't you think it would suddenly raise eyebrows? Especially when her husband moves on so quickly. Especially when that husband is Robert Mondragon.”
A bitter laugh escaped him. “I did some digging. Then you showed up. New face, new name... but the same eyes.”
I turned away, trying to breathe through the storm brewing in my chest. “Is that enough reason for you to assume I'm Melissa..... because I could literally be anyone else” I say, steadying my voice.
“Oh please..... Melissa cut the crap. he began, “Only a fool would see the colour white and call it black, and we both know I'm no fool” Dante let out, his tone even more serious than before, eyes locked on me.
From his countenance, there was no point in playing dumb any longer. The mask that shielded me for so long.....was now stripped away in mere seconds.
“So, what now? Do you intend to blackmail me?” I asked.
“Blackmail? he uttered teasingly. No, God no....that's not really my style”
“Rather I’m offering you a partnership.”
I froze. There he goes again with that term “Partnership”. What's it with this man and alliances.
He leaned forward, voice softening just enough to unsettle me. “Robert ruined you. Burned you to the ground. And now you’ve risen from the ashes. Tell me you don’t want to see him crawl?”
I didn’t answer. Not with words. But something in my silence must’ve been enough.
“He took everything from you. Dignity. Trust. Love. The least you can take back is your power.”
I looked at him then. Really looked. And for the first time, I didn’t see the charming, effortless playboy. I saw the man behind the smirk. A man with his own wounds. His own fire.
“And what do you get out of it?” I asked, voice steady now.
Dante’s eyes didn’t flinch. “I get to watch Robert fall. That’s enough for me.”
Then Silence.
I should have immediately said no, or even got out of the car and walked away. Despite knowing I was just another chess piece on the board, but something.....not sure what, kept me there still.
Then I said it. Quietly. Fatally.
“What do you want me to do?”
He smiled, and then leaned in close.....too close for comfort, his eyes mischievously searching my face. The space between us was thinner than a thin line, as though almost in a near kiss, I squinted my eyes shut in panic with my back pressed hard against the polished leather seat and the next thing I heard was a click sound.
I slowly opened my eyes, only to see a playful smirk stretched across Dante's lips, and darted my eyes to the direction of his outstretched hand on the door knob now unlocked.
“Let’s call it a night, I'll be in touch..... Goodnight Miss Cassagrande.” he said, finalizing our conversation, leaving my question unanswered. He corks the door open , gesturing for me to alight the car.
My cheeks flushed, annoyance creeping inside me, I pushed him back gently, “Jerk” I mumbled, before grabbing my clutch and stepped out of the car, shutting the door behind me. As I made my way towards the entrance of my home, my heels softly clinking against the marble below, came Dante's voice again stopping me in my tracks.
“Rest well Isabella, for we have much ahead of us” but I don't turn around, yet I could feel his eyes on me from behind and in mere seconds the last thing I heard was the faint hum of his car gliding through the driveway, disappearing into the darkness ahead.
**************************
Dante had dropped me off with nothing more than a lazy wave and a wicked smile, like he hadn’t just dismantled my entire reality in the back of a chauffeured car.
Now, alone in my bedroom, I felt the weight settle back on my shoulders. The gown clung to me like regret, heavy and suffocating. I yanked the zipper down with trembling fingers and let it fall to the marble floor.
I moved through the shadows barefoot, trailing past the open plan of my massive room and into the bathroom. The lights were dim, casting a golden halo over everything, too warm, too forgiving. I flipped the switch.
White, harsh light flooded the mirror.
And there she was.
Isabella....fucking....Cassagrande. Refined. Untouchable. Sculpted cheekbones, full lips, porcelain skin. A face that cost more than my entire wedding did once.
But the eyes.They were still mine.
Still Melissa’s.
Still full of fury and loss.
I pressed both palms flat against the marble sink and leaned in closer. Studying. Searching. As if, if I looked hard enough, I’d see the woman Robert walked out on. The woman who once believed love could heal anything.
She wasn’t there.
Only this stranger. This weapon in silk.
“Robert ruined you. The least you can take back is your power.”
Dante’s words echoed.
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right.
I reached into the drawer and pulled out a box. Thin, white, smooth. I hadn’t opened it in God knows how long. I wasn’t even sure why I brought it here to begin with.
But tonight, I needed to see it.
I lifted the lid.
Inside were fragments of the woman I used to be. A wedding band, scorched and bent from the wreck. A charred photo of me and Robert, smiling, stupid and in love.....at least so I thought. The birth certificate with my real name: Melissa Cortez.
My eyes burned.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that.”
Jackie’s voice echoed now too. That venom. That entitlement. That slap she didn’t dare finish.
They all thought I was gone.
But I was back. Not for closure. Not for peace.
For war.
I snapped the box shut and dropped it back into the drawer.
When I looked back into the mirror, I didn’t flinch this time.
“I’m not her anymore,” I whispered. “And God help the ones who made me become this.”
Because a storm was coming for them all.
- Writer
