Before Alessandro could speak, the clicking of heavy wooden heels echoed from the top of the grand staircase.
Isabella Romano stood on the landing, wrapped in a floor-length dark green silk robe. Her icy blue eyes swept down over the scene in the hallway—the maid standing upright, the child resting peacefully, and Alessandro standing so close to them that his shadow enveloped them both.
“Is there a reason my fiancé is playing guardian angel to the kitchen staff?” Isabella asked, her voice dripping with venom as she slowly descended the stairs, her manicured fingers gliding over the polished mahogany banister. “Or should I call my father and tell him the Moretti estate has turned into an orphanage?”
Alessandro didn’t move an inch. He slowly turned his head to look at her, his expression freezing into a mask of pure iron.
“Isabella,” Alessandro said softly, his voice deathly quiet. “Go back to your room.”
Isabella stopped three steps from the bottom, her brow furrowing as she registered the total lack of warmth or compliance in his posture. “Excuse me? I am the daughter of Vincent Romano. I will not be ordered around like a dog because a dirty little street rat dropped a button.”
“You touched the child’s shoulder when you screamed at her,” Alessandro said, taking one slow, heavy step toward the stairs. “I saw it from the balcony.”
Isabella laughed—a sharp, cold sound that rattled off the high ceilings. “I pushed her away! She was touching my silk robe with her sticky little fingers! If you think I’m going to live in a house where servants’ bastards run wild through the halls—”
CLANG.
Alessandro’s hand hit the iron banister beside her head so hard the heavy structure groaned. The air in the hallway instantly plummeted into a freezing, suffocating stillness.
“Listen to me very carefully, Isabella,” Alessandro whispered, leaning down until his dark eyes were inches from hers. “If you ever raise your voice to that child again, if you ever look at her mother with disgust, or if you ever cross the threshold of that kitchen without my permission… I will personally send you back to Chicago in a pine box, and your father will thank me for saving him the embarrassment of your funeral.”
Isabella froze. The color drained completely from her face, leaving her pale as bone. For six months, she had seen Alessandro as a stoic, business-minded Boss who treated their engagement as a necessary transaction. She had never seen the devil beneath the suit.
She took half a step back, her chest heaving, her arrogance cracking under the weight of his absolute, unhinged threat.
“You’re insane,” Isabella breathed, her voice trembling. “My father will hear about this.”
“Call him,” Alessandro replied, straightening his back and adjusting his cuffs with terrifying elegance. “Tell him Don Moretti has re-evaluated the terms of our agreement.”
Without another word, Isabella turned on her heel and fled back up the staircase, her silk robe billowing behind her like a dark banner.
Alessandro turned back to Rosa. His eyes softened instantly, the cold killer vanishing as he stepped back toward his daughter.
“Mr. Bruno,” Alessandro called out into the quiet hall.
The old butler stepped out from behind a arched doorway immediately, as if he had been waiting for the command. “Yes, Don Alessandro?”
“Move Rosa and Lily into the east wing suites on the third floor,” Alessandro ordered smoothly. “Assign four of my personal security guards to their door. No one enters without my written clearance. Not Isabella, not her bodyguards, not the family lawyers.”
Rosa’s eyes went wide with alarm. “Alessandro, no! The servants will talk—the other families will know!”
“Let them talk,” Alessandro growled softly, reaching out to gently touch his daughter’s soft cheek with the pad of his thumb. “My daughter will never sleep on a pantry floor again.”
