Silent Vows (Bonds of Betrayal): Chapter 2

The scotch burns going down, but I welcome the pain. Twenty-four hours since Giovanni’s death, and the weight of unspoken promises sits heavy on my shoulders like a burial shroud. From behind my mahogany desk, I stare at the Manhattan skyline through bulletproof glass, watching my city glitter like broken glass in the darkness.

The crystal tumbler in my hand is my third of the night—or maybe my fourth. I’ve lost count, though I never lose control.

Control. It’s what separates men like me from common thugs. It’s what’s kept me alive for fifteen years as the head of this business, what’s built the DeLuca empire into what it is today. But watching my best friend die in that hospital bed, seeing the light fade from his eyes while I could do nothing … well, some things you can’t control.

The ice in my glass clinks as my hand tightens. I shouldn’t have let him go alone to that meeting. I knew something was wrong—the way he insisted on meeting the fucking Calabreses without backup, how he’d been making arrangements these past few weeks. Like he knew what was coming.

“Another report, Boss.” Antonio materializes from the shadows of my office, silent as always. My most trusted captain places a manila folder on the desk, his lined face grim. “Surveillance footage confirms it was the Calabrese family.”

My jaw clenches until I taste copper. I’d warned Gio about this three fucking weeks ago, laid out the intelligence showing the Calabreses were making moves. But he’d been stubborn, convinced he could handle them alone. “I’ve dealt with their kind before,” he’d said, waving away my concerns.

Now he’s dead, and his daughter …

Christ. Isabella.

The image of her in the hospital haunts me—all wild dark hair and devastated hazel eyes, looking so much like her mother had twenty-plus years ago, before Cher turned into the society-obsessed harpy she is now.

But where Cher’s beauty was always calculated, Isabella’s hits like a punch to the gut. Raw. Real. Dangerous in a way she doesn’t even understand.

“What’s our exposure?” My voice is granite, betraying none of the turmoil beneath. A lifetime of practice makes it easy to hide the way my hands want to shake, the way grief and rage war in my chest.

“They’re making moves on all the Russo territory. Without Giovanni …” Antonio hesitates, choosing his words carefully. “Carmine’s already fielding offers for alliances. Some families think the Russos are vulnerable now.”

“They are.” I stand, walking to the window. My reflection stares back at me—at thirty-eight, I’m in my prime, silver threading through my dark hair at the temples only adding to my authority. The same authority that had failed to save my best friend. “And Isabella’s safety?”

The slight shift in Antonio’s stance tells me everything before he opens his mouth. “There’s been chatter.” He clears his throat. “Johnny Calabrese … he’s been asking questions about her. Some say he plans to force a marriage, secure the Russo assets that way.”

The crystal tumbler shatters in my grip, shards embedding in my palm. Blood drips onto my imported carpet, but I barely feel it. The rage I’ve been suppressing all day roars to life at the thought of Johnny Calabrese anywhere near Isabella. The man is a sadist, known for breaking his toys—two dead wives in five years, both ruled “accidents.”

A marriage to him would be Isabella’s death sentence.

My phone buzzes. A text from Carmine.

We need to discuss Isabella’s future. The vultures are circling.

Blood trickles down my wrist as my hand clenches. The last conversation I had with Gio plays in my mind like a film I can’t stop watching. We’d been sharing cigars on the terrace of the DeLuca compound just days ago—the kind of quiet moment rare in our violent world. The sweet notes of aged Cuban tobacco had mingled with the autumn air, our glasses of thirty-year-old Macallan catching the setting sun.

Gio had seemed … calm. Like a man who’d made his peace with what was coming.

“If anything happens to me, Matteo,” he’d said, staring into the gathering darkness, “protect her. Isabella … she’s everything good I ever did in this life. Don’t let our world destroy that.”

“You know I will,” I’d promised, not knowing how soon I’d have to make good on those words.

Not knowing how much that promise would cost us both.

Antonio clears his throat, drawing me back to the present. He gestures to my bleeding hand, but I wave him off. Physical pain is easier to deal with than the weight of failure crushing my chest.

A soft knock interrupts my dark thoughts. “Mr. DeLuca?” My assistant peers in, her professional mask slipping slightly at the sight of the blood. “The funeral home is ready for you to review the arrangements. And … Miss Russo is here.”

My head snaps up. “Isabella?” Her name tastes different on my tongue now—heavier, more significant. “Send her in.”

I quickly wrap a handkerchief around my bleeding hand, straightening my tie as the door opens. The moment Isabella steps in, the air changes. My carefully constructed world of dark woods, leather, and power shifts on its axis.

The fluorescent lights from the hallway illuminate her for a moment in the doorway, and Christ help me, she takes my breath away.

She’s traded her paint-splattered clothes for a simple black dress that makes her pale skin glow like porcelain in the dim light of my office. Her dark hair falls in waves past her shoulders—so like Gio’s in color but with her mother’s wild curl. Everything about her is a study in contradictions: the artistic soul subdued by mourning, the girl becoming a woman before my eyes, the innocence wrapped in unconscious sensuality that makes my blood burn with shame.

I’ve watched her grow up, keeping my distance, protecting her from our world without letting her know she needed protection. But somehow that little girl with scraped knees and paint-stained fingers has become this woman who makes my heart race like I’m some goddamn teenager instead of the most feared man in New York.

She looks lost in my massive office, like a dove that’s wandered into a hawk’s nest. The space around her is all dark wood and leather, weapons disguised as decoration, power masquerading as taste.

There’s only one photo in the room—a group shot of the DeLuca men. My father, Giuseppe DeLuca stands central, imperious, one hand on my shoulder. God, I couldn’t have been more than fourteen there. I keep the frame turned slightly away from my desk, but I notice her artist’s eye cataloging it along with everything else.

I wonder what she sees—the calculating display of wealth and influence, or the emptiness beneath it all? Does she notice how my father’s hand on my shoulder looks less like pride and more like possession?

There’s steel in her spine as she meets my gaze, and for a moment, I see Gio in the set of her jaw, the quiet strength she probably doesn’t even know she possesses. It makes my chest ache with something dangerously close to tenderness. Her hazel eyes, though red-rimmed from crying, still flash with that inner fire that draws me like a moth to flame.

“Mr. DeLuca,” she says formally, my body betraying me as she moves closer—heart pounding, muscles tensing like I’m bracing for a fight. But the only battle here is with myself.

She perches on the edge of one of my leather chairs, her posture perfect thanks to years of her mother’s training. The dress rides up slightly, and she tugs it down revealing a small artist’s callus on her thumb where she holds her brushes. Such a delicate thing, that small imperfection.

Such a dangerous thing, how much I notice it.

“My mother said you’re handling the funeral arrangements.” Her voice is husky from crying, and it does things to me that will surely damn my soul. Gio would kill me if he could see inside my head right now.

“Your father would have wanted—” I begin, but she cuts me off.

“My father would have wanted to see me graduate in the spring.” Her voice cracks slightly, and the sound hits me harder than any bullet ever has. “He would have wanted to walk me down the aisle someday. He would have wanted to grow old and spoil his grandchildren. But what he wanted doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

The accusation in her tone is a blade between my ribs. She’s right—I failed to protect her father. My best friend died because I wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t smart enough, didn’t see the betrayal coming until it was too late.

But I won’t fail to protect her. Even if it means making her hate me.

Looking at her now, I see flashes of the past like photographs: her sixth birthday party, where she showed everyone her first “real” painting; her high school graduation, where I watched from the back row because Giovanni thought my presence would draw too much attention; last month’s art show that I attended in secret, proud of her talent even as I worried about her vulnerability in our world.

The sun has fully set now, casting my office in shadows. A strand of her hair falls across her face, and my hands itch to brush it back. Instead, I clench my fist, letting the pain from the glass cuts ground me. I’m almost twice her age. Her father’s best friend.

The man about to destroy her carefully constructed world of art and innocence.

My phone buzzes again. Another message from Carmine.

Johnny Calabrese is making his move tonight. Time’s up.

The rage that fills me at the thought of Johnny touching her surprises even me with its intensity. I’ve killed men for less than the thoughts I know he’s having about her. The protectiveness I feel goes far beyond my promise to Gio, and that’s another sin to add to my growing list.

She’s almost half my age. My best friend’s daughter. The one pure thing in our corrupt world.

I look at Isabella, really look at her. So young and fierce and unknowing of the dangers closing in around her. Paint still stains her fingers—midnight blue, like the bruises that will mark her skin if Johnny gets his hands on her. She has no idea what men like him do to beautiful things, no concept of the violence waiting to swallow her whole.

But God help me, I can’t stop my treacherous mind from noticing how she’s changed. The slight tattoo peeking out from her shoulder—when did she get that? The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous, exposing the graceful line of her neck. The shadow of her lashes against her cheeks when she looks down, trying to hide her tears.

I’ve spent years protecting her from afar, making sure she never knew how many threats I eliminated before they got near her. Like her father, I wanted to preserve her innocence, her ability to create beauty in a world full of ugliness.

She shifts in her seat, and a hint of jasmine reaches me—her signature scent, the one she’s worn since she was eighteen. I remember when she first started wearing it, how it softened her edges and highlighted her transition from girl to woman. How it made me start seeing her differently, much as I tried not to.

In that moment, I make my decision. I think of my promise to Gio, of Johnny Calabrese’s sadistic reputation, of the vultures circling the Russo empire.

I’m about to change everything for her. About to drag her from her world of light and color into my shadows. The thought makes me sick, but not as sick as the alternative.

Isabella might hate me for what I’m about to do, but she’ll be alive to hate me.

Better she hate me than end up another one of Johnny’s broken women.

“Sit down, Isabella,” I say softly, my tone making it clear it’s not a request as I sit down at my desk. “There’s something we need to discuss about your father’s last wishes.”

The sun has fully set now, casting my office in shadows. In the darkness, I can almost pretend I don’t see the fear that flickers across her face, the way her hands tremble slightly as she takes the seat across from me. I’ve spent years protecting her from our world, just as Gio wanted. But now, to keep her safe, I’ll have to drag her right into the heart of it.

God forgive me for what I’m about to do.