Chapter 4 - The Serpent's NestUpstairs in the master suite, Isabella was pacing frantically across the plush Persian rug. Her mind was racing, panic clawing at her throat.
"Fool! I was so stupid!" she muttered to herself, grabbing her leather handbag from the bed.
She pulled out a burner phone and dialed a contact listed simply as Snake.
"He knows," Isabella whispered frantically into the receiver the second the line connected. "The little maid girl saw me last night! Allessandro didn't eat the toast!"
A heavy, gravelly voice came through the speaker. "Calm down, Isabella. Did he call the guards?"
"He took the bread to test it! He's going to find the arsenic, Antonio! If he finds out the Morettis offered us forty percent of his territory to kill him, we're both dead!"
"Listen to me carefully," her brother Antonio snapped over the line. "You need to get out of that house right now. Drive to the docks. I have a boat waiting."
"I can't just walk out!" Isabella cried, looking out the bedroom window. Down on the driveway, two black SUVs had just pulled up, blocking the main gate. Armed men in suit jackets were stepping out, taking positions along the stone walls. "It's too late! His men are locking down the grounds!"
"Then you use your brains, sister," Antonio growled. "You're his fiancée. Play the victim. Frame the maid. Do whatever you have to do to buy time. I'm sending a strike team to the estate right now. We take Romano down today—dead or alive."
The line went dead.
Isabella stared at the phone, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror. Her hair was immaculate, her makeup flawless. But behind her eyes, the panic was turning into venomous desperation.
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She opened her bedside drawer, pulled out a small, nickel-plated .22 caliber pistol, and hid it inside her waistband.
"If I'm going down, Allessandro," she whispered to her reflection, "I'm taking you with me."
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