The Meeting
Tony's POV
The knife blade whistled past my ear, missing me by inches.
I rolled to the side just as the stranger in black lunged at me again. His face was covered by a mask, but his eyes burned with killer instinct.
"Who are you?" I asked, grabbing his wrist before he could stab me.
He didn't answer. Just twisted in my grip and tried to slice my throat.
We crashed into Isabella's dresser, sending perfume bottles flying everywhere. The stranger was strong, but I was faster. I turned him around and slammed his back against the wall.
That's when Isabella Russo did something that shocked me more than anything in my entire life.
She picked up a heavy lamp from her nightstand and smashed it over the stranger's head.
CRACK!
The man dropped like a stone, his knife clattering across the floor.
I stared at Isabella in complete shock. She was breathing hard, still holding the broken lamp handle, looking like she'd just surprised herself too.
"You're late," she said, her voice perfectly calm.
"I'm... what?"
"Late," Isabella repeated, setting down the lamp pieces. "I expected you twenty minutes ago."
My brain felt like it was melting. "You knew I was coming?"
Isabella nodded like this was the most normal conversation in the world. "The question is, are you here to save me or kidnap me?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but no words came out. How could I explain that I'd come to kidnap her, but after hearing my uncle's phone call, I wasn't sure what I was doing anymore?
"Who is this guy?" I asked instead, pointing at the unconscious stranger.
"I was hoping you could tell me," Isabella said. "He was wearing clothes exactly like yours. Same mask, same everything."
That made me confused. Someone had been copying me. Someone had tried to get to Isabella first.
"Are you hurt?" I asked, checking her arms and face for cuts.
"I'm fine," she said. "But you're bleeding."
I looked down at my hand. The stranger's knife had cut me deeper than I thought. Blood was dripping onto Isabella's carpet.
"Here," Isabella said, grabbing a towel from her bathroom. "Let me see."
She took my hand gently and wrapped the towel around the cut. Her fingers were soft and warm. Up close, I could see that her eyes weren't just brown like I'd thought. They had little gold flecks in them.
"Why aren't you scared of me?" I asked quietly.
Isabella looked up at me. "Should I be?"
"Most people are."
"I'm not most people."
She finished wrapping my hand, but she didn't let go. "Tony, can I ask you something?"
Hearing my name from her lips made my chest feel tight. "How do you know my name?"
"I know lots of things about you," Isabella said. "Like how you sit on the roof across the street every night watching my window. Like how you lost your mother when you were nineteen. Like how your family thinks mine killed her."
"They did kill her," I said automatically.
"Did they?" Isabella asked. "Or is that just what you've been told?"
Those words hit me hard, They were almost exactly what Isabella had said in Roberto's vision. What if she was right? What if everything I believed was wrong?
"I have something to show you," Isabella said, walking to her bed.
She pulled out a small black bag and opened it. Inside were papers, photographs, and what looked like a recorder.
"What is all this?" I asked.
"Evidence," Isabella said. "About who really killed your mother. About why our families have been fighting. About what's really happening tomorrow at my wedding."
She handed me a photograph. It showed my mother sitting in a car with a man I didn't recognize.
"This was taken the week before she died," Isabella explained. "The man she's talking to works for my father. But he's not a killer. He's an accountant."
"I don't understand."
"Your mother was trying to make peace between our families," Isabella said. "She was working with my father to stop the war."
I stared at the photo. My mother looked happy in it. Not scared. Not angry. Happy.
"Someone found out about their meetings," Isabella continued. "Someone who wanted the war to continue."
"Who?"
Isabella pulled out another photo. This one showed a man I knew very well talking to strangers in expensive suits.
My uncle Roberto.
"No," I whispered. "That's not possible."
"Your uncle has been making money from this war for ten years," Isabella said. "Selling weapons to both sides. Taking payments from people who want us to keep fighting."
My legs felt weak. I sat down hard on Isabella's bed.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.
"Because tomorrow, I'm supposed to marry Michael Chen. And three days after that, I'm supposed to die."
"What?"
Isabella sat down next to me. "Michael's family doesn't want peace. They want all our families destroyed so they can take over everything. The wedding is just the first step."
"How do you know all this?"
"Because I've been listening," Isabella said. "Watching. Recording conversations. Gathering proof."
She pressed play on the recorder. Michael Chen's voice filled the room, talking about "eliminating the target" and "making it look like the Morettis did it."
I felt sick to my stomach.
"So when I heard you were planning to kidnap me tonight," Isabella continued, "I thought maybe we could help each other."
"Help each other do what?"
"Stop this war before everyone we care about ends up dead."
I looked at Isabella - really looked at her. She wasn't the spoiled princess I'd expected. She was smart and brave and trying to save people's lives.
"What do you need me to do?" I asked.
Isabella smiled for the first time since I'd climbed through her window. "Help me disappear."
"Disappear?"
"If I'm gone, there can't be a wedding. If there's no wedding, Michael's plan falls apart. And maybe, while everyone is looking for me, we can figure out how to expose the truth about what really happened to your mother."
It was a crazy plan. But it was also the first plan I'd heard in years that didn't involve killing innocent people.
"My uncle will never stop looking for me," I said. "When he finds out I helped you escape..."
"Then we make sure he doesn't find out," Isabella interrupted. "We make it look like you fought me. Like I got away from you."
Before I could ask how we were going to do that, we heard something that made both our hearts stop.
Footsteps in the hallway outside Isabella's room.
Heavy boots. Moving fast. Getting closer.
Isabella and I froze by the window, staring at each other in terror.
The footsteps stopped right outside her door.
The doorknob started to turn.
As the bedroom door began to open, I realized we were trapped with an unconscious assassin, a room full of evidence, and no way to escape.
And whoever was about to walk in was going to find us together.