Chapter 3 - Isabella’s Last Request
Isabella stayed in the diner for forty-two minutes.
Lydia remembered because she watched the clock the entire time.
Isabella ordered black coffee she never drank.
She kept one hand over the sapphire necklace and one hand inside her coat pocket.
Finally, she slid a folded napkin across the table.
On it was a name.
Marco Bellini.
A phone number.
And three words.
If I disappear.
Lydia stared at the napkin.
“You need the police.”
Isabella smiled sadly.
“You think I haven’t tried?”
Lydia swallowed.
“What happened?”
Isabella looked toward the window again.
“My husband believes loyalty means silence. The people around him have used that against him.”
“Your husband is Vincent Romano.”
“Yes.”
Lydia lowered her voice.
“Then why come to me?”
“Because everyone close to me belongs to someone.”
That sentence sat between them like a warning.
Isabella leaned forward.
“There is a man named Silas Mercer. Vincent trusts him like a brother. He should not.”
Lydia had heard the name.
Everyone had.
Silas was the smooth one.
The polite one.
The man who handled problems before they reached Vincent.
Isabella continued.
“Silas has been moving money through Vincent’s businesses. Not just stealing. Preparing to take control.”
Lydia shook her head.
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me.”
“Because I found proof. And because if I bring it to Vincent without protection, Silas will make me look paranoid or disloyal.”
“Would Vincent believe him?”
Isabella’s face tightened.
“That is what scares me.”
Outside, a black car rolled slowly past the diner.
Isabella stopped speaking.
Her hand went to the sapphire.
Then she unclasped it.
Lydia stepped back.
“No. I can’t take that.”
“You must.”
“I don’t want anything to do with this.”
“You already do,” Isabella said gently. “Because I came here. And because I am asking.”
Lydia’s eyes filled with panic.
Isabella placed the necklace into her palm.
“It is not a gift. It is a key.”
“A key to what?”
“A file Marco Bellini will open only if this necklace returns after October 14.”
Lydia looked down at the sapphire.
It was cold.
Heavy.
Beautiful in a way that felt dangerous.
Isabella took Lydia’s hand and closed it around the pendant.
“If I am alive, I will come back for it. If I am not, you bring it to Vincent only when there are witnesses.”
“Why?”
Isabella’s voice trembled.
“Because grief makes him violent before it makes him wise.”
Lydia thought of Vincent’s reputation and nearly handed the necklace back.
Then Isabella said one final thing.
“If anyone says I died because I was weak, don’t believe them.”
Two days later, Isabella Romano was dead.
The news called it a private tragedy.
Lydia watched the broadcast from her basement apartment, the sapphire necklace hidden inside a coffee tin under her sink.
She did not sleep that night.
May you like
Or many nights after.
👉 Lydia wanted to give the necklace to the lawyer immediately, but Silas found her before she could reach him.
