Page 53 of Accidental Alliance

Years of training have made it easy to hold my face still. My hands do not curl even though I can feel the tendons in them wanting to fist tightly together. The squirrel disappears higher into the branches and out of view just as quickly as it had come.

I have just seen a small snippet of exactly what Isabella will do for that boy if harm comes to him. If someone threatened his life, she would talk.

Love, as my father and brother have always preached, make even the strongest people weak. The right threat aimed at the right pressure point can force open almost any door if you press hard and long enough on it.

Alessio is right about one thing. We can no longer hesitate.

Her presence here is already a weakness.

Every minute she remains close by, every second I stand outside that reinforced door instead of doing what must be done, the weakness within me deepens and the more certain I become that I will not let anyone, not my brother, not the syndicate, not even my own father, take her from me again.

That is exactly why it has to die.

Even if it means becoming the monster she already believes I am.

I glance down the hallway without meaning to, toward the locked room where the woman I once fantasized leaving everything for now rests.

The memory of that fantasy feels almost laughable now in its innocence.

Burning it all down for love… as if love has ever built anything in my world except softer targets.

“I’ll get the truth out of her,” I hear myself say, my voice sounding distant even to me. “To confirm your suspicions.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I find my brother studying me. He knows me too well. Better, maybe, than anyone still alive. Better than I would like, actually. I turn my head slowly to meet his gaze.

“Make sure you’re actually looking for the truth. Not an excuse to avoid what it really is,” he says at last.

I stand without another word. If I stay another thirty seconds alone with him, I may put my fist through his throat and turn this room into a different kind of problem entirely.

His mouth curves upward, but there is no humor in it. “Good luck.”

10

ELIO

I step into the small alcove just off the main room where one of the secondary terminals mirrors the feeds from the secured main rooms and rest my hand on the keyboard before I let myself think too hard about what I am doing.

The screen washes my skin in cold blue light. My fingers move with muscle memory. A few keystrokes is all it takes to disable the cameras inside Isabella’s room.

On the monitor, the room freezes for half a second on an image of Isabella standing near the wall with her arms folded, then it drops completely, replaced by a signal interruption icon that will look like a routine technical failure rather than sabotage.

I stare at the darkened square for a long moment. In hindsight, I already know what this will become the second Alessio notices. A problem. One question will soon multiply into ten.

Why disable the feed?

What are you hiding?

Why create privacy for a woman I keep insisting may be tied to Bianchi?

What conversation do you not want me to know about?

My brother will keep at it until whatever answer I give him finally satisfies him, or until he decides no answer exists that he trusts. Alessio not trusting me will not be some small inconvenience I’ll have to deal with for the time being.

He has lived his whole life waiting for the slightest proof that love makes men weak and weakness makes them disposable. If he smells either one on me where Isabella is concerned, he will not just question my judgment.

He will rid me of what he finds a distraction altogether.

Yet no matter how much of a pain in the ass that will be to deal with, it still doesn’t convince me to turn the feed back on.