WHEN THE LIGHT GETS COLD
Isabella Torrino - POV
The study door opens at exactly three o'clock, and darkness walks in wearing a perfectly tailored suit.
Marco Santangelo enters like shadow given human form, his presence shifting the very atmosphere until my pulse hammers against my ribs like a caged bird desperate for flight. He's taller than his photograph suggested, broader through the shoulders, and when his dark eyes sweep the room before settling on me, electricity crackles along my spine in ways that make my breath catch.
"Don Torrino." His voice flows like aged whiskey over broken glass as he approaches Papa's desk, each step measured and predatory. "Thank you for this opportunity."
Papa rises from his leather chair, satisfaction radiating from him like heat from summer pavement. "Marco. Welcome to our family."
Our family. The words taste strange when applied to this stranger whose cologne mingles sandalwood with something darker, something that makes me think of midnight confessions and stolen kisses in shadowed alcoves.
"Isabella," Papa says, gesturing me forward with the same hand that signed my protection order this morning. "Come meet your new shadow."
I slide off the desk where I've been perched since dawn, my bare feet hitting Persian rugs with barely a whisper. Marco's attention shifts to me, and the weight of his stare feels like hands on my skin, tracing patterns I don't understand but desperately want to learn.
When I extend my hand for introduction, his palm burns against mine—rough with calluses that speak of violence wrapped in gentleman's gloves, warm with promises my body recognizes before my mind can protest. For a heartbeat that stretches like eternity, the study disappears, and there's only this man whose eyes hold storms I want to chase away with my bare hands.
"Miss Torrino." My name on his lips tastes different than it ever has before—not like a title or a possession, but like a prayer spoken by someone who understands the weight of sacred things.
"Just Isabella," I manage, my voice steadier than it should be considering my pulse is drowning out Papa's approving chuckle.
But then I see it. Flash of gold in his jacket pocket, catching morning light like a guilty secret desperate to stay hidden. The breath leaves my lungs in a rush that tastes of copper pennies and betrayal.
Mama's wedding ring. The simple gold band that disappeared from my jewelry box an hour ago glints against dark fabric, and my world tilts off its axis as I realize this stranger—this beautiful, dangerous stranger—somehow has my mother's most precious treasure.
"How—" The question dies on my tongue as Marco's fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around mine, and I see something flash across his face. Recognition? Warning? Fear?
He releases my hand before I can decipher the message, stepping back with professional distance that feels like a door slamming shut.
"Perhaps we should discuss security protocols," he says to Papa, but his eyes never leave mine.
Papa nods, moving around the desk with the satisfaction of a chess master watching pieces fall into predicted patterns. "Isabella needs to understand the new reality of her situation."
"What reality?" I sink back onto the desk, suddenly needing its solid support beneath me. The ring burns in my peripheral vision like evidence of impossible things.
"The reality," Marco says, his whiskey voice taking on edges that could cut glass, "that your world has never been what you believed it to be."
He moves to the window, hands clasped behind his back in a pose that emphasizes the weapon-shaped bulge beneath his left arm. "Tell me, Isabella. When you leave this compound, how many exits do you count?"
The question catches me off-guard. "Exits? I don't know. The main gate, the—"
"Seventeen." His voice cuts through my uncertainty like a blade through silk. "Seventeen ways someone could extract you from any location you frequent. Your coffee shop in Lincoln Park has four emergency exits and a service tunnel that connects to the building next door. The art gallery where you volunteer has motion sensors that haven't worked in six months and a security guard who takes fifteen-minute bathroom breaks every hour."
Ice crystallizes in my veins. "How do you know—"
"Because I've been watching you for three weeks."
The confession hits like a physical blow. Papa's satisfied smile grows wider, and I taste bile mixing with the copper pennies on my tongue.
"Watching me?"
Marco turns from the window, and his eyes hold something that might be regret. "Background research. Standard protocol for high-value protection assignments."
High-value. Like I'm cargo to be transported rather than a person to be protected.
"Show her," Papa says, settling back into his chair like a man about to enjoy his favorite performance.
Marco reaches into his jacket—not the pocket holding Mama's ring, but an inner compartment—and withdraws a tablet. His fingers dance across the screen before he places it on the desk between us.
Security footage. Dozens of clips showing me moving through Chicago like an actress unaware of her audience. Leaving Starbucks, entering the gallery, walking through Lincoln Park with earbuds in and no awareness of how exposed I am to anyone watching from shadows I never thought to check.
"This is you last Tuesday," Marco says, his finger tracing my path on the screen. "Notice how you take the same route home every day, stop at the same red light, check your phone at the same intersection. Patterns, Isabella. Patterns that get people killed."
My hands shake as I watch myself live a life I thought was private, every movement catalogued and analyzed by this stranger who somehow holds my mother's ring like a talisman.
"And this." Papa leans forward, his voice taking on the cold authority that built an empire. "Is why you need protection from someone who understands exactly how vulnerable you've been."
The footage shifts to nighttime shots—my bedroom window from the street, the compound's perimeter, angles I never considered because I never thought I needed to. Someone has been studying me like a specimen under glass, learning my rhythms, my weaknesses, my blind spots.
"The men who left blood on your nightgown," Marco continues, his voice clinical despite the heat I saw in his eyes moments ago, "they knew exactly when the night guard changes shifts, exactly how long they had before motion sensors reset, exactly which window in your room doesn't trigger alarms when opened from the outside."
"Because they've been watching too," I whisper, understanding crawling up my spine like ice water.
"Because they've been planning." Marco's jaw tightens, and I catch a glimpse of something fierce and protective before his professional mask slides back into place. "This isn't random, Isabella. Someone wants you specifically, and they're willing to be very patient to get you."
Papa stands, moving to his bar cart with the casual grace of a man discussing stock prices rather than death threats. "Which is why Marco will be with you constantly. Sleeping outside your door, tasting your food before you do, breathing when you breathe until this threat is eliminated."
The weight of surveillance, of having every moment observed and analyzed, settles over me like a shroud. But it's not the loss of privacy that makes my chest tighten—it's the way Marco looks at me when Papa isn't watching, like he's seeing a ghost he wishes he could save.
His phone buzzes. The sound cuts through the study's heavy atmosphere like a gunshot, and I watch Marco's face drain of color as he reads the message.
"What is it?" Papa's voice sharpens with the instinct of a predator scenting danger.
Marco's hand trembles—barely visible, but I catch it—as he shows us the screen.
She has her mother's eyes. Pity she'll close them the same way.
The words hit like ice water in my veins. Not just because of the threat, but because of what they imply. Someone knows about Mama. Someone knows exactly how Elena Torrino died, and they're promising I'll follow the same path.
Marco's dark eyes meet mine across the phone's glow, and I see something that steals my breath. Not just professional concern, but personal terror. Like he has secrets about my mother's death that he's praying I'll never discover.
"Pack a bag," Papa says, his voice cutting through my paralysis. "You're moving to the safe house tonight."
But I can't look away from Marco's face, from the guilt written there like a confession he's not ready to make.