Valentina.
“Run, Valentina. Run.”
The wind howled through the cracked window, sending a faint whistle into the dilapidated apartment as Isabella guided me inside.
Dust clung to the air, illuminated by the dim moonlight streaming in through the shattered blinds. My steps echoed off the wooden floor, every creak a reminder of how far we’d come.
The miles we’d ran with Isabella leading the way while I ran after her blindly.
“This… yours?” I whispered, fear of Luca creeping in clear every time I closed my eyes as I took in the remnants of a life long abandoned.
The place smelled of mildew and neglect, yet beneath the decay, there was something almost… familiar.
Isabella nodded, her face shadowed in the dim light. “Before everything that happened, yes.” Her voice was brittle, like she was confessing a long buried secret. “I used to come here when everything was too much. To think. It was my…. escape.”
I turned, taking in the peeling wallpaper, the broken furniture, and the empty walls where pictures might have once hung. It wasn’t the kind of place I imagined my sister in.
No matter how much of a rebel she had been.
This place was… raw, and somehow, it made her feel more human. Not the perfect, untouchable sister I knew some months back.
I didn’t care about the secrets she kept. Everyone did that.
“Why did you bring us here?” I asked, thoughts of danger still evident all around us. The warehouse wasn’t far away.
Luca could be here.
I needed to call Matteo.
Isabella’s grey eyes flickered with something I couldn’t quite place… fear, guilt, maybe even both. She stepped farther into the room, her fingers grazing the surface of a dusty table, as though the simple touch might ground her in the past.
“I had to show you this. To show you a part of me.” She said softly. “I wanted you to see that that you do know me… even if you haven’t seen everything.” She swallowed hard, turning to face me fully, her eyes hardening with determination. “No one knows me the way you do.”
This was heading somewhere.
I kept my mouth shut.
She stepped closer, her voice lowering to a whisper as though Luca himself might overhear her. Even here. “We can leave, Valentina. Both of us. We can get out before it’s too late.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the cut.
Clearly, I didn’t know Isabella anymore because all I wanted was to find a way to reach Matteo and get some hot cocoa.
Leave? Was she serious? After everything that had happened?
She was the key to helping Matteo not lose his title.
“And go where?” I asked, incredulous. “Luca would find us. Matteo would…”
“Matteo doesn’t own you, Valentina,” She snapped, her voice sharp. “And Luca doesn’t own me. They only feel so because of what Mother did. But we don’t have to continue with it.”
I wanted to believe her, but the weight of reality pressed down on me, crushing that fragile hope. “Isabella,” I began, shaking my head. “We can’t just… run. It’s not that simple.”
She grabbed my hands, her warm grip tight, almost desperate. “Yes, we can. Valentina, don’t you see? We’re just pawns tobhe used by the Nevarro brothers. This will never end unless we end it by ourselves. We can leave tonight. Disappear.”
We are just pawns to them.
Her words hung in the air between us, thick with the promise of freedom. I wanted to say yes, to run with her, to leave behind the madness and the pain. But there was a part of me that couldn’t shake the feeling of the unfinished business we had.
Especially when it came to the one who dragged us into this mess.
Our mother.
“Isabella… if we leave, what about mom?” I asked quietly.
Isabella’s face hardened at the mention of our mother, her eyes narrowing. “What about her?” she spat. “She’s the reason we’re both here in the first place. She sold you to Matteo and left me to fend for myself with Luca after selling me to some horrendous man. Why do you still care what happens to her?”
I flinched at the harshness of her words, though deep down, I knew she was right. Our mother had betrayed us both and manipulated us for her own selfish ends.
And yet, I couldn’t entirely let go of the gnawing ache of needing answers to understand why she had done what she had now that I had my sister back.
“I don’t care about her,” I said, more to convince myself than Isabella. “But I care about justice.”
Isabella’s lips curled into a bitter smile. “Justice? Do you think there’s any justice in this world?” She shook her head, laughing darkly. “No, Valentina. There’s no justice. There’s only revenge.”
A chill ran down my spine as I realized what she was suggesting. “Revenge? On her?”
She met my gaze, her eyes filled with something dark and vengeful. “Yes. If anyone deserves to pay, it’s her. She’s the one who put us here, Valentina. We didn’t choose this life… she chose it for us. And I’m done letting her get away with it.”
I stared at her, stunned. The sister standing before me wasn’t the Isabella I remembered. As much as she had disliked the mannerisms our mother displayed, she always held a soft spot for her.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Luca had truly twisted her beyond recognition or if there had been a darkness inside, waiting to be unleashed.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” I whispered, shaking my head. “She’s still our mother.”
Isabella’s eyes softened, but only for a moment. “And that’s why we need to do it together. Because if we don’t, she’ll keep hurting us over and over again. She’s already hurt us enough, don’t you think?”
Yes.
I couldn’t argue with that. The pain our mother had caused us was deep, festering like an open wound that refused to heal. And as much as I hated to admit it, the idea of confronting her-of making her pay for everything she had done… sent a thrill of something dark and satisfying through me.
“What would we do?” I asked cautiously, my voice barely above a whisper.
Isabella stepped closer, her voice low and filled with the weight of everything she had endured. “We make her confess. We expose her for the monster she really is. We take everything from her, like she took everything from us.”
A lump formed in my throat as I stared at my sister, torn between the urge to run and the urge to fight. I had never wanted any of this. I had never asked to be part of this nightmare. But here I was, caught in the middle of a war I hadn’t chosen.
“Or,” Isabella said, her voice softening as she gave me one final out, “we can leave tonight, forget all of it. Start over somewhere new, where no one knows us. No more Luca, no more Matteo, no more mother. Just us, like it used to be.”
Her words were like a lifeline, a promise of freedom from everything that had held us captive for so long. But the weight of everything we’d been through pressed down on me, making it hard to breathe.
I looked into Isabella’s eyes, seeing the desperation there, the hope mixed with the hurt. She wanted out-whether it was through revenge or escape, I wasn’t sure. But she wanted out, and she needed me with her.
“I…” I started, but the words caught in my throat. Could I really leave it all behind? Could I walk away from everything?
From Matteo? From the life I was forced into?
Or could I stay and fight, burn it all to the ground with Isabella by my side?
The silence stretched between us, the weight of the decision heavy in the air. My heart raced, torn between two impossible choices.
“Valentina,” Isabella said softly, her voice a whisper in the quiet of the abandoned apartment. “It’s now or never.”