The Enforcer's Jilted Princess

Isabella POV

The burning in my throat was so real I could taste the ash.

The metallic tang of my own blood mixed with the bitter trace of arsenic on my tongue. In the fading light of my nightmare, I saw my fiancé, Jason Brennan, standing over my agonizing body with a cold, triumphant laugh. Beside him stood Elena Vance—the orphaned girl my family had taken in, the girl I had treated like a sister—smiling sweetly as she watched me choke on my poisoned breath.

“We just needed the Falcone wealth, Bella,” Jason's voice echoed in the dark. “And the docks.”

Then came the gunfire. Even after my heart stopped in the dream, I was forced to watch the Gallos and the Brennans slaughter my father and my brother, tearing the Falcone family out by the roots.

I bolted upright in bed, gasping for air, my nightgown drenched in cold sweat. The silk canopy of my bed in the Falcone estate slowly came into focus. My wedding to Jason was tomorrow. But the terror vibrating in my bones wasn't pre-wedding jitters; it was a prophecy. It was a memory of a future I would burn the world down to prevent. A Vendetta waiting to be born.

I threw off the heavy covers. "Pearl!"

My maid rushed into the room, her eyes wide. "Miss Bella?"

"Where is Elena?" I demanded, my voice trembling with a dark, unfamiliar rage.

"She... she left an hour ago, Miss."

Perfect. I didn't bother changing. I threw a heavy velvet coat over my nightgown and marched straight down the grand staircase toward my father's study.

I burst through the heavy mahogany doors without knocking. The scent of expensive cigars and old leather hit me instantly. My father, Marco Falcone, the Don of Chicago, sat behind his desk. Beside him stood my mother, Sofia, reviewing the dowry and territory maps for tomorrow's alliance.

"Bella, what is the meaning of this?" my father demanded, his dark eyes narrowing at my disheveled state.

"If you love me, and if you care about the survival of this family, you will get the car ready right now," I breathed, stepping up to his desk. I met the Don's lethal gaze without flinching. "Take me to the West Loop. I am going to show you exactly what the Brennan alliance is truly worth."

The drive was a suffocating blur of tension. Now, standing in the dingy, dimly lit hallway of a cheap brick apartment building in the West Loop, the stench of stale cigarettes and cheap perfume was nauseating.

But it was the sound bleeding through the thin wooden door that made my father freeze.

Muffled moans. Elena's breathless voice. Jason's low grunt.

My father's face turned to thunder. He didn't need an explanation. The Don raised his heavy boot and kicked the flimsy door violently off its hinges. The wood splintered with a deafening crack.

I stepped into the room right behind him. There they were. My fiancé and my adopted sister, thrashing naked on a rusted iron bed.

Jason froze, the blood draining from his face. Elena let out a piercing scream, scrambling frantically to pull the stained sheets over her bare chest.

My mother moved faster than a striking viper. Sofia Falcone marched up to the bed, grabbed Elena by her tangled hair, and delivered a vicious slap that echoed like a gunshot in the tiny room.

"Puttana!"(Whore!) my mother hissed, her voice dripping with venom. "Your father was a loyal Soldier! He bled and died for Marco, and you repay our charity by spreading your legs for her fiancé?"

Ten minutes later, the initial chaos settled into a suffocating standoff in the cramped living room. Jason and Elena stood before us, hastily dressed in their wrinkled clothes.

But Jason didn't drop to his knees. He didn't beg the Don for his life. Like a fool who fundamentally misunderstood the iron laws of our world, he lifted his chin, trying to salvage his bruised ego.

"The wedding is off," Jason sneered, pulling a trembling Elena behind him. He looked at my parents, then glared at me with blatant disrespect. "I love her. Elena is sweeter, softer. She actually knows how to treat a man, unlike your ice-cold princess."

My father's hand drifted toward the gun inside his jacket, ready to wash this insult away with blood. But the nightmare had burned away any tears I might have shed. I stepped forward, looking dead into the eyes of the man who had murdered me in my dreams.

"If she is so sweet, Jason," I asked, my voice dropping to a dead, chilling calm, "then why did you agree to this marriage in the first place?"