The Romano Bride

Chapter 2

ISABELLA

I escaped to the library after, the only room that had ever felt like mine. The shelves still towered, the old wood still carried a warm, papery smell, like if you breathed deep enough you could drown in story instead of reality.

I traced the spines of books I once used to hide behind. Art histories and poetry, mythology that told you every tragedy had meaning if you squinted hard enough. I touched the window glass with my forehead, watching the estate lights smear into gold halos.

Canada felt like a dream I was waking up from wrong. Mornings with coffee and lectures. Friends who thought my worst habit was studying past midnight. Daniel telling me stories from his surgical rotations that made me believe some people built their lives around saving others. Safety. Ordinary. Softness. A different kind of power — the quiet kind, the kind that didn’t need to be announced with iron gates and men at doors.

“Isabella.”

My mother’s voice. I turned. Elena stood in the doorway, hands folded. In this light she looked like every painting of a saint who would have been a queen if she were allowed to be anything.

“You look tired,” she said.

“I’m home,” I replied. “Fatigue comes with the key.”

She stepped into the room, eyes flicking to the window, the books, me. “I should have fought harder to keep you.”

There was a part of me that had wanted that apology for ten years. It slid into the place where my anger lived and made room for grief. “You knew he would send me,” I said.

“I knew he would break you to prove a point,” she said, voice steady. “I also knew you would force yourself back together in a shape he didn’t expect.”

We stood in the quiet, the old house breathing around us.

“Don’t let them take Sophia,” she said finally. “You were always the one who protected her.”

“I am,” I said.

She nodded once, like a vow, and left.

I touched the window again. The glass was colder now. “I’ll survive,” I told my reflection. “I always do.”

Morning brought movement. Staff changing tablecloths like flags before battle. Fresh flowers arriving like peace offerings. A dress hung on a stand in my room — black silk that said elegance and armor in the same breath.

Sophia slipped in without knocking, barefoot, hair twisted into a messy knot. “It’s beautiful,” she said, touching the fabric with a reverent finger that made me ache.

“It’s a costume,” I said, not unkindly.

She sat on my bed, legs tucked under her. “Do you think he’s handsome?”

I laughed — a small, surprised sound. “I hope he’s courteous.”

“That’s not the same,” she said.

“It’s better,” I said. “Handsome never kept anyone safe.”

She chewed her lip. “If he’s cruel…”

“Then I’ll be crueler,” I said. “On your behalf.”

Her eyes softened. “You don’t owe me this.”

“I owe you everything,” I said. “It’s not about owing. It’s about us.”

She rested her head on my shoulder. We sat like that until the dress felt heavier than silk in the room, until footsteps in the hallway told me time was moving even if I wanted it to stall.

By late afternoon, the estate wore its brightest smile and sharpest teeth. Men in suits folded like knives stood where they always stood — visible enough to warn, hidden enough to ignore. The kitchen smelled like lemon and butter and something sweeter underneath it. Voices threaded through rooms, carrying names I didn’t know yet. The faceless heir’s people. The faceless heir’s preferences. The faceless heir’s power measured in what he did not need to attend to himself.

I stood at the top of the stairs and watched the house prepare to hand me over like a gift-wrapped apology.

“Ready?” Antonio asked from the hall, tie skewed, guilt smudged under his eyes like fatigue.

“No,” I said, honest. “But willing.”

He looked at me in a way that made us both sixteen again. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” I said, because it hurt him to hear it and it was still true.

We descended together. My mother waited at the bottom, perfect, poised. My father waited beside the door, perfect, impenetrable. Sophia waited between them, hands clenched into small fists. I squeezed one until the fingers loosened.

Engines rumbled outside. The sound rolled along the driveway, steady, unhurried, confident enough to arrive late and expect no one to mention it.

“Remember,” Vittorio said, his voice without warmth, without cruelty, a pure instrument. “Grace.”

“Remember,” I replied, “leverage.”

He gave the faintest twitch of his mouth, which was his version of respect.

The doors opened.

Black cars slid into place. Men unfolded from them like shadows stepping out of deeper shadow. I felt the air change — that subtle shift a room makes when power walks in, even if power hasn’t crossed the threshold yet.

The first man through wasn’t the heir. He was a middle-aged envoy with careful eyes, the kind that measured and filed. Behind him, two more men, both silent and alert. And then a fourth — younger, taller — paused on the threshold, scanning the room with practiced disinterest. Not him either. I held my breath without meaning to.

More footsteps. A hush, then the faintest trace of cologne — expensive, restrained — like cedar and something darker.

I didn’t look away.

He didn’t enter all at once. A silhouette cut against the evening sky, then a shoulder, a hand, the edge of a jaw. He spoke to someone behind him, voice too low to catch, and the envoy shifted instinctively, as if that shadow had gravity.

The envoy cleared his throat. “Mr. Romano, may I present Adrian Salvatore, Don of the Salvatore family.”