Chapter 24 - A Poisoned Truth
With trembling fingers, I pulled the satellite phone from my silk pocket. The screen flashed with the same chilling label: *MAMMA.*
Julian’s eyes locked onto the screen, a grim, humorless smirk touching his lips. "She moves fast when she smells money. Answer it, Bella. Let's see what fable she has prepared for you."
I swiped the green icon and pressed the speaker button.
"Bella?" Helena’s voice came through, panting and breathless, surrounded by the faint background sound of traffic and screeching brakes. "Bella, are you safe? Did he find out?"
I looked up at Julian. He stood motionless, his arms crossed over his chest, listening like a judge waiting to deliver an execution.
"I’m in the penthouse, Mamma," I said, my voice deliberately flat. "Julian is here."
A sharp gasp hissed through the receiver, followed by a bitter, ragged laugh. "Then you are already in the lion's den, my darling. Don't listen to a single word he says. Julian Vance is a monster. He tells you he saved me? He imprisoned me! He kept me locked behind high stone walls in Bonifacio while he systematically drained the Rossi offshore accounts!"
"Did he?" I asked, looking directly into Julian’s eyes. "Or did you sign away my custody to Alessandro’s father twenty years ago for two hundred million dollars?"
The line went completely dead for two agonizing seconds.
When Helena spoke again, the frantic, maternal tenderness had vanished. In its place was a cold, calculating purr—a voice of pure aristocratic malice that sent shivers straight down my spine.
"He showed you the contract, didn't he?" Helena sighed, sounding remarkably bored. "Julian always was such a meticulous boy. Just like his pathetic father."
"You... you really signed it?" I choked out, feeling as though the ground had vanished beneath my feet. "You sold me to Alessandro's family?"
"Grow up, Isabella," Helena snapped, her tone cutting through the speaker like broken glass. "In our world, daughters are collateral. Your grandfather had cut me off completely. I had debts in Monte Carlo, debts to men who would have peeled my skin off in strips. Alessandro’s father offered me a way out, and you were a seven-year-old brat who barely understood what money meant!"
"You abandoned me," I whispered, the crushing weight of reality suffocating me.
"I survived!" Helena snarled. "And now, it’s time for you to do your duty as a Rossi. Julian thinks he’s so clever, keeping me locked away. But his little security empire has leaks. I’m in Manhattan, Isabella."
Julian’s eyes widened slightly, his posture instantly coiling into high alert.
"Where are you, Helena?" Julian demanded, stepping toward the phone.
"At the High Line terminal, Julian darling," Helena mocked, laughing softly. "And I’m not alone. Alessandro’s former associates, the ones who survived your little corporate purge—they were more than happy to sponsor my return. We hold the original Rossi trust covenants. If Isabella doesn't meet me at the Pier 54 warehouse in one hour, alone, the documents proving Julian Vance orchestrated the illegal seizure of Rossi Global will be on every federal prosecutor’s desk in New York."
"Helena, don't do this," Julian warned, his voice deadly quiet. "You won't survive the sunrise."
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"One hour, Isabella," Helena said, ignoring him. "Come alone, or watch your precious husband spend the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary while your baby is born in a visiting room."
The call terminated with a loud, final click.
