Isla POV
I tried to leave at 9 AM.
Just to get coffee. Just to breathe air that didn't smell like expensive cologne and danger.
The guard at the door stepped in front of me. "Where are you going, Miss Monroe?"
"Out. For a walk." I tried to sound confident. "Just around the block."
"Boss says you don't leave without permission."
My hands clenched. "I'm not a prisoner."
His expression didn't change. "Boss says you don't leave without permission."
I stood there for five minutes, staring at him. He stared back, stone-faced and immovable.
Finally, I turned around and walked back inside.
Prison. Beautiful, expensive prison.
Sophie called at noon.
I stared at my phone, her name flashing on the screen. My best friend. The only person besides Mom who actually cared about me.
I couldn't answer. Dominic's rules were clear: no contact with my old life.
The phone rang and rang until voicemail picked up.
"Isla, where are you?" Sophie's worried voice came through. "You didn't show up for work. You're not answering texts. Your landlord said you moved out? What's going on? Call me. Please. I'm scared something happened."
The voicemail ended.
I pressed my forehead against the cold window and tried not to scream.
Something had happened. Everything had happened.
And I couldn't tell her. Couldn't tell anyone.
Another call came. Sophie again.
Then texts started flooding in:
ISLA ANSWER YOUR PHONE
This isn't funny
If you don't call me back in one hour I'm filing a missing persons report
My heart stopped. If Sophie called the police, if they started investigating—Dominic would know. And he'd said anyone who betrayed him would die.
Would he hurt Sophie just for trying to find me?
Yes. He would.
I called her back with shaking fingers.
"Isla! Oh my God, where have you been?" Relief poured through the phone.
"I'm okay. I'm sorry I didn't call—"
"You moved? Without telling me? What happened?"
I closed my eyes, forcing the lie out. "I got a new job. Really sudden. Live-in position as an executive assistant. The pay is incredible, Sophie. Enough to cover Mom's treatment."
Silence. Then: "What kind of executive assistant job pays for stage-four cancer treatment?"
"A good one. The company has amazing benefits—"
"Isla." Her voice dropped. "You're lying to me. I can hear it. What's really going on?"
Tears burned my eyes. "I can't explain. But I'm safe. Mom's being transferred to Mount Sinai today. Private care. The best doctors. She's going to live, Sophie."
"At what cost?" Sophie whispered. "What did you do?"
"What I had to." My voice cracked. "I have to go. I'll call you when I can. I love you."
I hung up before she could argue.
The phone immediately rang again. I turned it off.
One more piece of my old life, gone.
The text came at 2 PM: Your mother's surgery went perfectly. She's in recovery. You can visit at 4. -Viktor
I should have felt happy. Relieved. Mom was alive. Getting better.
Instead, I felt numb.
Viktor drove me to the hospital in silence. Two more guards came along. They waited outside Mom's room while I went in.
She looked so small in the hospital bed, tubes and wires everywhere. But her face had color. Her breathing was steady.
She was alive because I'd sold myself to a killer.
"Isla?" Her eyes fluttered open. "Sweetheart?"
"I'm here, Mom." I grabbed her hand, tears spilling over. "How do you feel?"
"Tired. But good. The doctor said—" She paused, studying my face. "What's wrong? You look terrible."
"Nothing. I'm just worried about you—"
"Don't lie to your mother." Her grip tightened. "Something's wrong. This job you mentioned. This sudden change. What aren't you telling me?"
Everything. I wasn't telling her everything.
"The job is... intense," I managed. "Long hours. High pressure. But the money—"
"I don't care about money if it's hurting you." Her voice grew stronger despite the surgery. "Isla, look at me."
I met her eyes—the same hazel as mine.
"If you're in trouble, tell me. If someone's forcing you into something—"
"No one's forcing me." The lie tasted like poison. "I chose this. For you."
She studied me for a long moment. Then her expression changed—became almost afraid.
"What's your boss's name?"
The question came out sharp. Suspicious.
"Why?"
"Just tell me."
My mouth went dry. "Dominic. Dominic Volkov."
All color drained from her face. The heart monitor started beeping faster.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no. Not him. Anyone but him."
"Mom, what—"
"You need to run." She tried to sit up, machines beeping wildly. "Right now. Get away from him—"
"Mrs. Monroe, please calm down!" A nurse rushed in. "Your blood pressure—"
"You don't understand!" Mom grabbed my arm with surprising strength. "Isla, he'll destroy you. He'll destroy everything—"
"I'm giving her a sedative," the nurse said, injecting something into Mom's IV.
"Mom, how do you know Dominic?" My heart pounded. "Why are you—"
"His father," she slurred as the drugs took effect. "I knew his father. Dimitri. Before you were born. Before I came to America. I ran from him. Ran from all of them. But they found us anyway. They always find us."
Her eyes closed, and she went limp.
The nurse checked her vitals. "She needs rest. You should go."
But I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
My mother knew Dominic's father. She'd run from him. Run from the Bratva.
Which meant—
"Miss Monroe." Viktor appeared in the doorway. "We need to leave."
"My mother—she said—"
"I heard." His expression was grim. "We need to leave. Now."
He practically dragged me from the room, down the elevator, into the car. The whole time, my mind spun with impossible thoughts.
Mom knew Dimitri Volkov. The Bratva king. Dominic's dead father.
That's why she'd been so secretive about her past. Why she never talked about Russia. Why she'd taught me the language but nothing about her life before America.
She'd been running. We'd been running.
But running from what?
The car pulled up to the penthouse. Viktor escorted me inside, his hand on my back like he expected me to bolt.
Dominic stood by the windows, phone to his ear. When he saw me, his expression darkened.
"I'll call you back." He hung up. "Your visit went well?"
"My mother knows your father." The words tumbled out before I could stop them. "She said his name. Said she ran from him. How did she—why did she—"
"I know." He cut me off. "I just got off the phone with someone very interested in that connection."
My blood turned to ice. "What does that mean?"
He walked toward me slowly, predator approaching prey. "It means your mother has been keeping secrets. Important secrets. Deadly secrets."
"I don't understand—"
"Your father, Isla. Who was he?"
"I don't know. Mom never told me. She said he left before I was born—"
"She lied." He stopped inches away, those green eyes burning into mine. "Because I just received your genetic test results. The ones I ordered three days ago when something about you felt familiar."
The room tilted. "Genetic tests?"
"The doctor who examined you. I had him run your DNA." His jaw clenched. "Want to know what we found?"
I couldn't speak. Couldn't move.
"You carry Volkov markers. Specific genetic traits that only run in one bloodline." He leaned close, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "You're Bratva royalty, Isla. You're one of us."
"That's impossible—"
"Your father was Dimitri Volkov." Each word felt like a bullet. "My father. Which makes you—"
"No." The word came out broken. "No, that's not—we can't be—"
"My half-sister." His face twisted with something between horror and rage. "You're my half-sister. And I've been keeping you here. Sleeping in my home. Planning to parade you around as my girlfriend."
The floor disappeared beneath me.
Sister. We were brother and sister.
And everything—the deal, the arrangement, the way he looked at me sometimes—it was all wrong. Twisted. Impossible.
"I think I'm going to be sick," I whispered.
But before I could move, alarms started blaring throughout the penthouse.
Viktor burst through the door. "We've been breached! Armed men in the building! It's—"
Gunshots exploded from the hallway.
Dominic grabbed my arm. "Stay behind me."
"What's happening?"
His face went cold. Empty. The killer from the alley returned.
"Someone wants you dead, little sister. And they're willing to start a war to make it happen."