The Arrival

The car smelled like leather and someone else's cologne. Isabella pressed her forehead against the cold window and watched New Jersey scroll past in a blur of leafless trees and stone walls. She had not slept on the plane. She had not slept the night before, either, lying awake in her bedroom while Marco breathed softly in the next room, Carla's phone number burning a hole in her pocket.

They found me.

She had typed the words with shaking fingers, then added the second message before she could lose her nerve. About the baby.

Carla's response had come within minutes. I'll keep him safe. Go handle it. Come back to him.

Come back to him. As if it were that simple. As if a woman could walk into the lion's den, smile at the lions, and stroll back out unchanged.

The driver, a thick-necked man who had introduced himself only as Sal, took a left turn onto a private road. The pavement gave way to gravel. Isabella straightened in her seat, her palms suddenly damp against her thighs.

The Caruso compound rose from the New Jersey landscape like something that had been there before the trees, before the road, before the state itself. Stone and iron and dark windows. A mansion built to intimidate, with wings sprawling in every direction and a circular driveway dominated by a fountain that had been drained for winter. Armed men stood at intervals along the perimeter, their coats flapping in the November wind.

Isabella's stomach lurched.

The car stopped. Sal killed the engine and got out, but Isabella remained frozen in the backseat, her fingers curled around the strap of her purse. She had prepared for this. She had rehearsed the lies, the demure smile, the distant-cousin act that would keep her alive long enough to find a way out. None of it felt like enough now that the stone walls were rising in front of her.

Sal opened her door. "Miss Rossetti."

She stepped out. The wind cut through her thin cardigan. She had packed in a hurry, grabbing whatever her hands touched first, and nothing she owned was warm enough for this.

The front door opened before she reached the steps.

He was standing on the porch.

Isabella's breath caught in her chest, sharp and sudden as a blade. Five years, and yet she would have known him anywhere. The same dark hair, the same broad shoulders, the same way of standing that suggested he owned the very ground beneath his feet. Dominic Caruso. The man she had spent one desperate, terrifying night with in an Atlantic City safe house. The man she had not been able to forget, no matter how many miles she put between them.

He was watching her with an expression she could not read. Not surprise. Not anger. Something else entirely, something that made her skin prickle with unease.

"Miss Rossetti." His voice was exactly as she remembered it. Low. Controlled. "Welcome to my home."

She forced her legs to carry her up the steps. "Mr. Caruso."

Their eyes met. For one electric moment, the world narrowed to just the two of them, the wind and the guards and the massive stone house all falling away. He knew. She could see it in the slight tightening of his jaw, the way his gaze dropped to her left hand, bare of rings, then back to her face.

Then the moment broke.

"Dominic, don't keep the girl standing in the cold." A man appeared in the doorway, silver-haired and impeccably dressed, his smile warm in a way that did not reach his eyes. "Isabella Rossetti. Welcome, welcome. I am Enzo Caruso. Please, come inside."

Isabella stepped over the threshold and into the lion's den.

The foyer was enormous, with a marble floor that gleamed under a crystal chandelier. A grand staircase curved upward into shadow. The air smelled of wood polish and cigars and something floral, as if someone had recently replaced a vase of lilies.

Don Enzo took her hand in both of his. His grip was firm, his skin warm. He was not what she had expected. No wheelchair, no frailty. At sixty-two, he stood straight and tall, his eyes sharp with intelligence, his smile practiced and paternal.

"Cousin Isabella," he said, and the title made her stomach clench. "You look just like your grandmother. The same dark hair, the same proud chin. She was a remarkable woman."

Isabella had never met her grandmother. She doubted Enzo had either. "Thank you, Don Enzo."

"Please, call me Enzo. We are family, after all." He released her hands and gestured toward a doorway to the left. "Come, sit. You must be exhausted from your journey. I'll have someone bring coffee."

He led her into a parlor filled with antique furniture and heavy draperies. A fire crackled in the hearth. Isabella sat on a velvet settee, her back straight, her hands folded in her lap. Dominic followed them in but did not sit. He took up a position near the window, his arms crossed, his face unreadable.

Enzo settled into a wingback chair across from her. "I imagine this is all very sudden for you."

"Sudden is one word for it," Isabella said carefully.

He laughed, a rich sound that echoed off the high ceiling. "I like you already. Direct. My Dominic needs a woman who speaks her mind." He leaned back, studying her with those sharp eyes. "Tell me, how is the bakery in Santa Fe?"

Her blood ran cold. "How do you know about the bakery?"

"I make it my business to know about family." His tone was pleasant, but there was steel beneath it. "You've done well for yourself. Built something from nothing. That takes determination. I admire determination in a woman."

Isabella forced herself to breathe. "Thank you."

"Of course, it will need to be sold now. A wife's place is at her husband's side, not three thousand miles away." He waved a hand dismissively. "But we can discuss the details later. For now, you should rest. The next few days will be busy."

"The next few days?"

"Your wedding is in three days. Saturday. I've arranged everything." He smiled as if he were bestowing a gift. "You'll have fittings for your dress, a rehearsal dinner, and of course time to become acquainted with Dominic before the ceremony."

Three days. The words rattled around in Isabella's skull. Three days until she was bound to a man she barely knew, a man whose world she had fled five years ago. Three days until her life in Santa Fe, her bakery, her quiet existence with Marco, became nothing but a memory.

"I understand this is a lot to process," Enzo continued, misreading her silence for overwhelm. "But I assure you, you will want for nothing. The Caruso family takes care of its own."

And crushes anyone who tries to leave, she thought.

"I'm very grateful," she managed.

Enzo smiled again, patting her knee with an avuncular air. "Rest now. Dinner is at seven. Dominic will show you to your room."

Dominic pushed off from the window. "This way."

She followed him out of the parlor and up the grand staircase. The second-floor hallway stretched in both directions, lined with closed doors and framed paintings of landscapes she didn't recognize. Dominic walked several steps ahead of her, his posture rigid, saying nothing.

Her room was at the end of the hall. He opened the door and stepped back to let her pass.

The room was beautiful in a cold, impersonal way. Cream walls, a four-poster bed, a vase of white roses on the dresser. Her suitcase had already been placed at the foot of the bed. The windows overlooked the back gardens, dormant and gray in the November light.

"Bathroom's through there." Dominic nodded toward a door on the far wall. "If you need anything, ask one of the staff."

He turned to leave.

"Dominic."

He stopped, his hand on the doorframe.

"Thank you," she said. "For showing me to my room."

He turned slowly. His eyes met hers, and this time there was no mistaking the look in them. Recognition. Certainty. And something darker beneath.

"We need to talk," he said quietly. "Later. After my father is asleep."

Her heart hammered against her ribs. "About what?"

"About Marco."

The name dropped between them like a stone into still water. Isabella's knees went weak. She gripped the edge of the dresser to steady herself, her mind racing, her lungs refusing to fill.

"What did you say?"

Dominic stepped back into the room and closed the door behind him. The click of the latch was deafening.

"You have a son," he said. "His name is Marco. He's five years old. He lives with you in Santa Fe, above the bakery on Canyon Road." He paused, his jaw tightening. "He has my eyes."

The room tilted. Isabella sank onto the edge of the bed, her legs no longer able to hold her. "How long have you known?"

"Three days." His voice was flat, controlled. "My father showed me your photograph three days ago. Told me he'd found me a wife. A distant Rossetti cousin, no male heirs, easy to control." A bitter smile flickered across his lips. "He had no idea I already knew your face."

"Three days," she repeated. "You've known about Marco for three days."

"I've known you were alive for three days. I've known about the boy for longer."

She stared at him. "How?"

"I have people." He moved closer, stopping at the foot of the bed. "I've had people watching you for years, Isabella. Waiting for you to slip up, to make a mistake, to lead me somewhere I could find you." His voice hardened. "You vanished. One night in Atlantic City, and then nothing. No name, no address, no trace. It took me two years to find you."

"Two years." Her voice came out a whisper. "You've known where I was for three years, and you never—"

"Never what?" He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the footboard. "Never showed up at your door? Never demanded to meet my son? I thought about it. Every day, I thought about it." His knuckles whitened against the wood. "But you ran from me. From what I am. I didn't think you'd welcome a visit from a man like me."

Isabella's throat constricted. "I didn't run from you."

"Then what would you call it?"

She had no answer. The truth was too complicated, too tangled with fear and survival and the desperate need to protect the child she had not yet known she carried. She had left Atlantic City before she knew about Marco. By the time she found out, she was already hiding, already building a new life under a new name. Telling Dominic would have meant dragging him into her world, or being dragged into his.

Neither option had felt survivable.

"How did your father find me?" she asked instead.

Dominic straightened. "He doesn't know it's you. Not really. He thinks you're some distant cousin from the old country, a Rossetti with no living male relatives. A convenient bride." He ran a hand through his hair. "But his surveillance found Marco. He knows about the boy. He doesn't know who the father is."

"Yet," Isabella said.

"Yet," Dominic agreed.

The word hung in the air between them. Somewhere below, a clock chimed the hour. Isabella pressed her hands together in her lap to stop them from shaking.

"What happens now?"

Dominic studied her for a long moment. "You marry me. Saturday, like my father planned. And then we figure out how to keep our son alive."

"Our son." The words felt strange in her mouth. "You've never even met him."

"I know." Something flickered in his eyes, something almost vulnerable. "But I will."

A knock at the door made them both tense. A woman's voice called out, "Miss Rossetti? Don Enzo asked me to bring you some refreshments."

Dominic moved to the door and opened it. A maid entered carrying a silver tray with a teapot and small sandwiches. She set it on the dresser and left without meeting anyone's eyes.

The interruption had broken whatever spell had held them. Dominic walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob.

"Rest," he said. "I'll come for you tonight. We have more to discuss."

"Dominic—"

But he was already gone.

Isabella sat alone in the beautiful, cold room, listening to the wind rattle the windowpanes. She thought of Marco, probably sitting at Carla's kitchen table right now, coloring with the crayons she'd packed in his backpack. She thought of the bakery, dark and empty, the dough she'd left rising in the refrigerator.

She thought of Don Enzo's pleasant smile and sharp eyes, and the way he had called her family as if the word meant something to him.

Three days until the wedding. Three days until her son became a Caruso heir, whether she wanted it or not.

Her phone buzzed in her purse. She pulled it out with shaking hands.

A message from Carla. Marco asked when you're coming home. I told him soon. Be careful.

Isabella typed back, Always.

She deleted the message before sending it. Some promises she couldn't make.