Chapter 34 - Face to Face
The tension inside the armored Maybach on our way to the Metropolitan Museum was suffocating. Outside, rain lashed against the reinforced windows, smearing the neon lights of Fifth Avenue into streaks of bleeding crimson and gold.
I sat across from Julian. In my lap was an antique velvet box containing my father’s signet ring—a platinum band bearing the roaring lion of the Rossi crest. Beside it was a concealed, ceramic-bladed dagger strapped to my inner thigh beneath my emerald silk evening gown.
"What happened in Corsica, Julian?" I asked, breaking the forty-minute silence that had hung between us like a drawn blade.
Julian didn't look at me immediately. He was inspecting the magazine of his sidearm, clicking the brass-tipped rounds into place with mechanical rhythm. When he finally looked up, his jaw was tight.
"Five years ago, before I took the contract to protect you, my private security firm took an asset recovery job in the Mediterranean," he said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "We were hired to retrieve a stolen biological patent from a yacht off the coast of Bonifacio. The client lied to us. The yacht didn't belong to a corporate rival. It belonged to Donato Visconti."
"And Lorenzo was there?"
"Lorenzo had laid the ambush himself," Julian said, his eyes darkening with memories of slaughter. "My entire team was wiped out in six minutes. Eight men. Men who had served with me in the British Special Air Service, men whose children called me uncle. Lorenzo spared only me."
"Why?"
Julian’s throat bobbed. "Because he gave me a message. He said: *Go back to New York. Wait until Isabella takes her mother’s throne. When the time is right, you will be the hinge upon which her cage swings open.*"
The air left my lungs. "You... you were his plant? All this time? When you kissed me on the terrace? When you pulled me from the fire after Alessandro tried to kill me?"
"No!" Julian snapped, his voice cracking with sudden, raw agony. He reached across the small space between us, grabbing both of my wrists, his grip desperate, pleading. "I swore an oath to kill him the day my team died. I took the contract to protect you because I knew you were the only target he cared about. I wanted to use you as bait, Isabella. In the beginning, that’s all you were to me: bait to draw Lorenzo into the open."
Tears pricked my eyes, hot and humiliating. "And now?"
"Now," Julian whispered, his face inches from mine, his eyes burning with an intensity that terrified me, "I would burn the entire city of New York to ash before I let him touch a hair on your head. My life is yours, Bella. If you think I betrayed you, draw that knife on your thigh and end me right now. But do not doubt that tonight, I will die to keep you safe."
I stared at him, feeling the ferocious beat of his pulse beneath his skin. The betrayal cut deep, but the raw honesty in his confession cut deeper. In the high-stakes game we played, nobody was clean. Everyone was drenched in blood and secrets.
Slowly, I pulled my hands from his grip, not pushing him away, but sliding my palms up his chest to rest against his neck.
"Keep your life, Julian," I whispered, our breaths mingling in the dark interior of the car. "I need you alive tonight. Because when we walk up those steps, we aren't negotiating. We're going to war."
The Maybach pulled to the curb outside the Met.
Hundreds of flashbulbs detonated like miniature lightning strikes against the torrential rain. The red carpet leading up the iconic stone steps was lined with private security in black ties and earpieces—Visconti men.
I stepped out of the car, lifting my chin, the emerald dress trailing behind me like liquid poison. Julian was at my side, his hand hovering an inch from his concealed weapon.
We entered the Great Hall. The museum had been transformed into an imperial court. Towering arrangements of black calla lilies and blood-red orchids flanked the marble pillars. Manhattan’s elite—governors, hedge fund titans, foreign ambassadors—stood frozen, champagne glasses in hand, their eyes darting between the entrance and the grand staircase leading to the Temple of Dendur.
Standing at the top of that staircase was Lorenzo Visconti.
In person, the resemblance was uncanny to the point of nausea. He wore a bespoke white tuxedo that contrasted sharply with my dark emerald gown. Around his neck hung an antique golden chain bearing the coiled Visconti serpent.
As I approached the base of the stairs, the chatter in the hall died completely.
Lorenzo descended slowly, his movements fluid, magnetic, like a panther stepping through a banquet hall. He stopped two steps above me, looking down with a smile that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
"Good evening, sister," he said, bowing with exaggerated, mock reverence. "You look magnificent. Mother would have hated how much you look like our father."
"And she would have hated how much you look like a bastard begging for scraps," I replied smoothly, my voice carrying clearly through the cathedral-like hall.
A collective gasp swept through the crowd.
Lorenzo’s smile never wavered, but behind his gray eyes, a vicious, murderous spark ignited.
"Always the fighter," he whispered, stepping down until we were standing on the same marble tier, our faces inches apart. "Did you bring the ring, Bella?"
"I brought something better," I murmured, leaning in as if to kiss his cheek.
May you like
As I did, I leaned close to his ear and whispered: "I know what you did to Donato Visconti’s real will, Lorenzo. And I know who really killed the old man."
***
