Belrum Moren reached the grand hall again, shaking, his hands clutching a heavy suitcase.
Stacks of money were neatly packed inside, everything he had gathered in those frantic minutes. His chest heaved, heart pounding against his ribs as he stepped through the double doors.
But the hall was empty.
The chair where Leonardo Romano sat just a few moments ago — empty.
The air still carried his presence, though-that sharp, suffocating weight of a predator who'd just been there.
"Mr… Romano?" Belrum called softly, voice cracking. "You— you asked for this…"
Only silence greeted him in response.
He looked around, his throat dry. Now the ticking of that old clock on the wall sounded much louder, and it echoed through the room. Something wasn't right.
Where was he?
Where was Alex?
And then—
A sound.
Ghungroo bells.
Faint. Soft.
A rhythmic jingle that didn't belong to this house's dread.
Belrum froze; his gaze darted toward the far corridor.
The song cleared, and a soft humming of the sitar began.
Smoke-like, the notes floated in the air, beautiful in their way, haunting, almost sacred.
The kind of music that was never to be heard by the devil himself.
His stomach twisted.
That sound-he knew it anywhere.
Isabella.
His pulse spiked in terror.
She must have started her practice again, probably unaware of the danger lurking in their house.
The thought alone made his knees weak.
"No… no, not her," he muttered under his breath, voice breaking. "Please, God, not her…"
The suitcase slipped from his hands, falling to the marble floor, the money scattering on the ground like autumn leaves. He didn't look back.
He ran.
His shoes, nicely polished, echoed in frantic rhythm against the white marble floor. Curtains swayed as he rushed past the windows; the wind carried the faint melody towards him - a cruel reminder of what he stood to lose.
The closer he got, the louder the bells became-those delicate silver ghungroos, singing with every step of her feet.
He could see the soft light spilling from the half-open door at the end of the hall — the warm flicker of a lamp, the glint of gold and silk.
And through the carved marble screen that lined the wall of the corridor he saw him.
Leonardo Romano, Tall, composed, dangerous — standing still behind the intricate pattern of the marble lattice, his grey eyes fixed through one of the openings.
Watching
Belrum's heart stopped.
He followed the direction of that gaze — and his world shattered.
Isabella was dancing inside the room.
Barefoot on smooth marble, wrapped in flowing silks, ghungroos gleaming at her ankles.
Her curtains fluttered with the wind, framing her like a vision carved out of light and grace.
Her hair cascaded down her back, chestnut brown with a hint of gold, catching the light every time she spun.
Her hands curved through the air like poetry — fluid, expressive, alive.
And Leo… Leo watched her as if the time itself had bowed before her movement.
He hadn't blinked.
Didn't breathe.
Every sound, every flicker of her form burned into his mind — feeding that dark, wordless obsession already grown within him.
The breath caught in Belrum's throat as his chest tightened painfully. He could almost feel the fire of those grey eyes through the marble — the hunger, the danger, the destruction waiting to be unleashed.
"Isabella…" he whispered, almost inaudibly.
And then louder, breaking the trance of the moment —
"Isabella!"
The music stopped. The ghungroos fell silent.
She turned in shock, her chest rising and falling, eyes wide. "Papa?"
In an instant, he reached her, his hand closing around her wrist, pulling her close to himself almost protectively. His eyes were wide, desperate.
"Don't dance anymore," he said, voice shaking, the words tumbling forth in panic. "Not now, not—" But his voice faltered when he felt it-that gaze upon them, heavy and sharp.
Through the carved wall, Leonardo stood still, his face unreadable, his pupils blown wide as realization hit him like a blade. Isabella. That name, now spoken by Belrum, seemed to ring in his head like a curse.
Belrum's daughter.
The woman who had haunted his thoughts, whose reflection had burned into his mind, whose song had stilled his rage — She was the bloodline of the man he'd sworn to destroy.
Leo's jaw clenched. The air between them thickened, vibrating with something dark—a hunger tangled with fury, with disbelief, and with something far more dangerous.
Belrum pulled Isabella closer, his body shielding hers as though that would save her from the inevitable. But Leonardo didn't move closer. He merely shifted his head, his steel-grey eyes glinting through the marble screen. And in that silence, with ghungroo bells still faintly echoing in the air, he whispered under his breath— "Isabella Moren…" The name tasted like sin