The Golden Cage

Isabella's POV

I slammed my fist against the bedroom door for the tenth time in five minutes.

"Let me out!" I screamed, not caring if the whole building heard me. "You can't keep me locked in here like some kind of animal!"

The door was solid wood and didn't even shake when I hit it. My knuckles were already bleeding, but I didn't care. I'd been trapped in this room for three hours, and I felt like I was going crazy.

The room was bigger than my entire apartment back home. It had a bed that could fit six people, a walk-in closet, and a bathroom with a tub the size of a small swimming pool. Everything was perfect, expensive, beautiful.

It was also my prison.

I heard footsteps in the hallway outside. Then a voice I recognized as Marco's: "Isabella, please stop hitting the door. You're only hurting yourself."

"Good!" I yelled back. "Maybe if I hurt myself enough, you'll feel guilty and let me go!"

"That's not how this works."

"Then how does it work? You kidnap me, you threaten my best friend, you tell me my father was murdered, and now you lock me up like I'm the criminal?"

There was a pause. Then I heard a key turning in the lock.

The door opened, and Marco stepped inside. He looked tired, older than he had just a few hours ago.

"We're not trying to punish you," he said quietly. "We're trying to keep you alive."

"By making me a prisoner?"

"By keeping you away from people who want to kill you." Marco sat down in the chair by the window. "Isabella, do you understand what's happening here?"

"You want money my father stole. I get it."

"It's not just about the money anymore." Marco ran his hands through his hair. "Word is already spreading through the city that we have Vincent Cross's daughter. Every family that lost money when your father disappeared is going to come looking for you."

"Then let them have me. Get it over with."

Marco's eyes flashed with something that might have been anger. "Don't say that."

"Why not? It's true, isn't it? I'm going to die anyway. Why drag it out?"

"Because you're not going to die." The voice came from the doorway. Dante stepped into the room, his green eyes fierce. "Not while we're protecting you."

"Protecting me? Is that what you call this?"

"Yes," Dante said simply. "Even if you're too stubborn to see it."

I turned away from both of them and walked to the window. The city spread out below us, millions of lights twinkling in the darkness. Somewhere down there was my real life, my real world. A world where I served coffee and studied for tests and worried about paying rent.

A world that seemed impossible to reach now.

"I want to call Elena again," I said.

"You called her two hours ago," Marco pointed out.

"I want to call her again."

Dante pulled out his phone. "Fine. But make it quick."

Elena answered on the first ring. "Izzy? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Are you still at your sister's place?"

"Yes, but Izzy, something weird happened today. I went back to our apartment to get some clothes, and there was a man watching the building. When he saw me, he followed me for six blocks before I lost him in the subway."

My blood turned cold. "What did he look like?"

"Tall, blond hair, expensive suit. He had this scar on his left cheek, like someone had cut him with a knife."

I looked at Dante, whose face had gone hard.

"Elena, listen to me very carefully," I said. "Don't go back to the apartment. Don't go anywhere alone. Stay with your sister and don't trust anyone you don't know."

"Izzy, you're scaring me."

"Good. Being scared will keep you alive."

After I hung up, Dante was already texting someone.

"Kozlov family," he said grimly. "They're still looking for you."

"But I'm here. Why would they bother Elena?"

"Because they think she might know something," Marco explained. "Or because they want to use her to get to you."

"I have to warn her."

"We already are," Dante said. "My people will watch her sister's building tonight. Elena will be safe."

"Your people?"

"We have contacts everywhere," Marco said. "Security guards, police officers, cab drivers. People who owe us favors."

I sank onto the bed, feeling overwhelmed. "This is insane. A week ago, my biggest worry was whether I could afford textbooks for next semester. Now you're telling me I need armed guards to protect my best friend."

"Welcome to our world," Dante said, but his voice was gentler now.

"I never asked to be part of your world."

"Neither did we," Marco said quietly. "But here we are."

There was a knock on the door. Luca entered without waiting for permission.

"We have a problem," he announced.

"What kind of problem?" Dante asked.

"The kind that involves someone taking pictures of our building two hours ago." Luca held up his phone, showing a grainy photo of a man with a camera standing across the street. "Security caught him on the roof cameras."

"Kozlovs again?" Marco asked.

"Worse. FBI."

The room went dead silent. I felt like someone had punched all the air out of my lungs.

"The FBI is watching me?"

"They're watching all of us," Luca said. "But yes, they're particularly interested in you."

"Why?"

"Because they think you have the same information we're looking for," Dante explained. "Your father's files could put dozens of criminals in prison. The FBI has been trying to build cases against these families for years."

"So everyone wants me." I laughed, but it came out sounding crazy. "The Romano family wants me, the Kozlov family wants me, the FBI wants me. Anyone else I should know about?"

"Actually, yes," Luca said. "We intercepted some communications earlier today. The Castellano family put out a contract on you this afternoon."

"A contract?"

"A price on your head," Marco explained. "Fifty thousand dollars to whoever brings them Vincent Cross's daughter."

I buried my face in my hands. "This keeps getting worse."

"It gets worse before it gets better," Dante said. "But it will get better."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because we're going to end this," Luca said firmly. "Tomorrow, we retrieve your father's box. We find out exactly what information he had and what money he took. Then we negotiate with the other families."

"What if the box is empty? What if there's nothing important in it?"

The three brothers exchanged glances.

"Then we have a much bigger problem," Marco admitted.

I looked up at them. "What aren't you telling me?"

Luca sat down on the edge of the bed. "Isabella, your father didn't just work for us occasionally. He was our primary accountant for three years. He handled every major transaction, every money transfer, every financial deal we made."

"So?"

"So he knew everything," Dante said. "Every source of income, every business partner, every family we worked with or against. If that information got into the wrong hands..."

"It would destroy you," I finished.

"It would destroy everyone," Luca said. "Including innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

I stood up and walked back to the window. "You want me to help you find information that could hurt innocent people?"

"We want you to help us find information that could save everyone," Marco corrected. "Including you."

"And if I refuse?"

"You don't get to refuse," Luca said coldly. "This isn't a choice anymore, Isabella. This is survival."

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window. "How long have you been watching me?"

"What do you mean?" Dante asked.

"Before all this started. How long have you known who I am?"

The silence behind me stretched too long.

I turned around. All three brothers were looking at the floor.

"How long?" I repeated.

Finally, Luca looked up. "Six months."

The words hit me like a physical blow. "Six months?"

"Since your father died," Marco said quietly.

"You've been watching me since my father's funeral?"

"We had to make sure you didn't have the information," Dante explained. "We had to know if you were dangerous."

"Dangerous?" My voice came out as a shriek. "I serve coffee for a living!"

"You're Vincent Cross's daughter," Luca said. "That makes you dangerous whether you know it or not."

I thought about all the times I'd felt like someone was watching me. All the moments when I'd looked over my shoulder and seen nothing. All the nights when I'd felt uneasy walking home from work.

"The man at the diner," I said slowly. "You've been coming in every Tuesday for a month."

Luca nodded.

"And the other times? The times when I felt like someone was following me?"

"That was me," Nico's voice came from the doorway. I hadn't even heard him come in.

"How many times?"

"Every day," he said simply.

I stared at him. "Every day for six months?"

"We had to make sure you were safe," Dante said. "We had to make sure no one else got to you first."

"Safe?" I laughed, but it sounded hysterical. "You call stalking me for six months keeping me safe?"

"Yes," Luca said without hesitation. "Because you're still alive."

The room spun around me. Six months. They'd been watching me, following me, studying me for six months. While I'd been grieving my father, struggling to pay bills, trying to build a normal life, they'd been there. Invisible. Waiting.

"What else?" I whispered. "What else have you been doing that I don't know about?"

The brothers looked at each other again.

"Isabella," Marco said carefully, "maybe you should sit down."

"What else?" I screamed.

Dante stepped forward, his green eyes full of something that might have b

een guilt.

"We know about your job interviews. We know about your grades. We know about your medical school applications." He paused. "We know you cried yourself to sleep every night for two months after your father died.”