Dante's final pronouncement draped over me like a funeral shroud. You, Isabella, are the living truth. This was the end of the argument, the end of my past, the end of everything I once was. He looked at me one moment longer, his eyes reflecting a chilling satisfaction, and then he turned his attention to Sofia.
"Your work is done for today," he said in a commanding voice that dismissed his lieutenant. "Return tomorrow. We will begin to build the wardrobe." Another piece of my costume. Sofia acknowledged him with a stiff and respectful nod as she let herself out, leaving me alone in echoing silence with my captor and the ghost of his mother. Dante never spoke to me again. He merely waved me away toward the hallway, a silent royal command to return to my room. My assignment for the day was complete.
I walked out like an automaton, my legs moving, but my mind was numb. I didn't close the door to my room this time. Why bother? The entire penthouse was a cage, and he was the keeper. I floated into the center of that room and just stood there for hours, going through images from Sofia's words, venom pouring from her eyes, triumph carved into Dante's face. My entire life was built on lies by my parents to cover a lie more sinister beneath. I had no history. I had no one. The immense, terrifying solitude was almost a physical entity, crushing my chest to the point I felt I would suffocate.
The dusk settled over the sky, and orange mix of bruised purple adorned the city. Something shifted within me. The numbness was replaced by a cold sharp flame. This was different from the roaring sea of fury; it was something deeper, quieter, and more dangerous-the scholar, the historian, the girl who believed truth was the most potent of all weapons. Dante and Sofia threw their polished, weaponized version of the truth at me with the intention of breaking me. But every story has its authors, and every author has their biases. For me to live through this, I could not bank on their history. I needed my own. I needed to know who Isabella Moretti really was, outside of the glorified martyr they had fashioned.
I started from the bookshelf. Classic literature, poetry, and art history. All plausible, but impersonal. I continued toward the closet, tracing my hands over cold, empty silk and cashmere. A ghost's wardrobe. Then my attention was diverted to an antique-looking jewelry box that was, by all standards, heavy. It had an ornate silver finish with an almost greenish tinge of tarnish, which had nothing to letter the modern aesthetic of the room. That must have been hers. I opened it up. Empty, save for fading velvet lining. I contemplated closing it with disappointment when suddenly my fingers brushed against something that seemed to be the back panel of the box. It felt... loose. My heart started racing. With trembling hands, I pried the thin piece of wood. It came off with a soft crack and revealed a small hidden compartment beneath.
And inside, darkened by the shadows, was a small, slender volume bound in worn dark green leather.
A diary.
It began to tremble in my hands as I lifted it. It was real. A graspable fragment of her past, of her. I opened the cover. On the first page, in a swirling, elegant script somewhere between delicate and firm, was the following inscription: Property of Isabella Elena Moretti.
This was it. A direct line to the specter. The girl's own words, her own ideas, untouched by Sofia's spin or Dante's rage. A truth bomb landed in my hands. I just sat on the edge of the bed, my heartbeat thumping loudly in my ears, and let the book flip open to one of the last pages. Faded blue ink, and the date in the corner was a mere two weeks before the car crash that put an end to her life. I drank in the words.
The weather has been beautiful, but dread oppresses me when I look at the sea these days. The drives along the coastline that I used to adore have become terrifying. He insists on going. He grins and says that the sea air will do wonders for my nerves, that I've been overwrought ever since Claudia's... episode. He smiles; it is, however, a cold smile. His eyes are different now. They are cold. They watch me when he thinks I am not looking.
I went on reading, and my blood turned to ice.
He knows. I know it for sure. My husband knows about the letters. He found them. He came into the library yesterday while I was reading and asked me about my correspondence with the cousin in Sicily. Not an innocent question. That look, the look he gave me, was the look of a man who has found a betrayal much more profound than he ever thought. I tried to lie, but I am a very poor liar, and he saw through me immediately then. He said nothing further, but the silence since has been unbearable.
My breath suddenly caught. Husband. She wasn't referring to my father. She was speaking about Dante's father. I hurriedly turned to the last entry dated only two days before her death. My palms were sweaty.
I fear for my life. More than that, I fear for my son. My husband speaks of securring the Moretti legacy, of cutting out any weakness, any hint of betrayal... He looks at Dante with a new hardness, as though assessing his purity, his loyalty. I feel like a disease he is determined to eradicate before it can infect his heir. I must get the real letters to a safe place. I must find a way to protect my son from his own father. God help me, he is taking me for another drive today.
The diary fell to the floor from my numbed fingers. The entire Moretti narrative, one of the pillars on which my life was built and a cause for Dante's lifetime vendetta, was all a lie. Isabella had not died in tragic accident from grief over Lorenzo Romano's betrayal. She had been terrified of her husband. Murdered. Dante's father had murdered his mother to conceal a secret and framed my father for it. Dante was not the avenger. He was the pawn of the real monster, manipulated all his life.
I had just discovered a truth which might set me free. Or it might be a loaded gun that would backfire and send me down with Dante.