Chapter 3 - The Cold War in the West Wing
Upstairs in the luxurious west wing suite, Isabella Romano was pacing across the imported Persian rug like a caged tigress.
Her white silk robe trailed behind her, whispering against the floorboards. Her face was flushed with a mixture of humiliation and blinding, uncontrollable rage. She had lived her entire life knowing her worth was measured in territory and bloodlines. Her father, Vincent Romano, had raised her to be a queen, not a disregarded decoration in a marriage of convenience.
"A maid," she hissed to the empty room, her fingernails digging into her palms. "A common, dirt-scratching scrubber and her bastard brat."
The door swung open without a knock.
Isabella whipped around, expecting her personal maid, but instead found her reflection in the gilded mirror as the heavy oak door clicked shut. She grabbed a crystal perfume bottle from the vanity and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall, raining heavy glass shards over the skirting board.
"Calm yourself, Isabella," a voice drawled from the doorway.
Her father’s top enforcer, Marco, stepped into the suite. He wore a sharp black suit, his expression as blank and unyielding as a tombstone.
"Calm myself?!" Isabella shrieked, whirling on him. "Did you see what happened downstairs? Alessandro humiliated me! In front of the entire household! He knelt—actually knelt—before a servant's child while looking at me like I was garbage on his shoe!"
"Your father sent me to ensure the alliance remains stable," Marco said smoothly, stepping further into the room. "Not for you to throw tantrums over kitchen help."
"It's not just help, Marco. There's something between them," Isabella snarled, her eyes narrowing as a dark, venomous plan began to form in her mind. "The way he looked at that little girl... the way Rosa spoke to him without a shred of fear. If there's history there—if that child belongs to him—our entire position in this merger is compromised. My father didn't agree to marry me off to a man who already has a hidden heir waiting in the pantry."
Marco’s eyes narrowed slightly. The political implications were vast. A illegitimate child of Alessandro Moretti carried no legal weight in the old-world syndicate rules unless recognized, but sentimentality made dangerous men do unpredictable things.
"What do you propose?" Marco asked quietly.
May you like
Isabella walked slowly toward the window, looking down at the gravel drive winding through the rose bushes below. A cold, wicked smile touched her lips.
"A servant who doesn't know her place needs to be taught a lesson," Isabella murmured, her voice dripping with poison. "And a stray child wandering the halls of a dangerous estate... well, accidents happen in big houses all the time."
