Chapter 7

"You can't!"

"Isabella, I'm your fiancé! What does this make me if you do this?!"

Sebastian gripped Isabella's hand tightly, his eyes filled with unwillingness.

"You said it yourself, you're just the fiancé."

"What I, Isabella Blackwood, choose to do is none of your business to manage."

"And, you better pray those thugs have nothing to do with you, or else..."

Isabella's tone was colder than he had ever heard it. She shook off his hand and strode into the hospital room.

Sebastian stood in the corridor, jaw clenched, watching through the glass as Isabella sat beside my bed, adjusting my blankets with hands that were almost tender.

He pulled out his phone and made a call.

"We have a problem. She knows about the warehouse."

A pause.

"No, she doesn't have proof yet. But she's suspicious. And the boy — he's alive."

Another pause.

"I'll handle it. Just make sure nothing traces back to me."

Inside the room, Isabella was reading my medical chart for the twentieth time. Each entry was a knife to her conscience.

"Bilateral rib fractures, healed. Renal extraction scar, left side. Malnutrition-induced bone density loss. Extensive soft tissue scarring..."

She set the chart down and looked at me. I was sitting up now, staring at the wall.

"Jacob. I need you to tell me everything that happened on Devil's Island."

"Why?"

"Because I sent you there. I'm responsible."

"You sent me there to be punished. You got what you wanted."

She flinched as if I'd slapped her. "I sent you there to learn discipline. I never authorized—"

"You sent your ring," I said quietly. "You told them to 'keep me alive.' That's all you said. Alive. Not safe. Not unharmed. Just alive."

Isabella's breath caught.

"They interpreted that very creatively."

She stood up abruptly, pacing the small room. Her heels clicked against the floor like a metronome counting down to an explosion.

"Names. I want every name. Every guard, every warden, every person who laid a hand on you."

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"It matters to me!" Her voice cracked, and for a moment, the mob boss's daughter looked like a woman carrying a guilt she couldn't bear.

I studied her face — this woman who had been my entire world since I was fourteen. Who had fed me, clothed me, educated me, and then, on a whim, destroyed me.

"The warden's name is Briggs. He took the kidney — said he could sell it for enough to retire. Your ring got me special treatment, alright. Special punishment."

Isabella's face was stone, but her hands were shaking.

"There was a guard named Torres. He was the one who came up with the recordings — playing your voice on loop. Said it was 'aversion therapy.'"

"And the rats?"

"First night tradition. Everyone goes through it. But mine lasted three nights because Briggs wanted to test how serious your orders were."

Isabella pulled out her phone and dialed. Her voice, when she spoke, was the voice of the Blackwood heir — cold, precise, and absolutely terrifying.

"I want a team on Devil's Island within the hour. Briggs, Torres, and every staff member who was on rotation during the past year. Bring them to the basement. Alive."

She hung up and turned back to me.

"This won't undo what happened. I know that. But I swear to you, Jacob — they will pay for every single thing they did."

I wanted to feel something — gratitude, vindication, relief. But I felt nothing. I had been empty for so long that even justice felt like a concept meant for someone else.

"And Sebastian?" I asked.

Her eyes narrowed. "What about Sebastian?"

"The kidnapping at the warehouse. Ask your men to check who hired those thugs. Really check."

Isabella studied my face for a long moment.

"You've been saying this since the warehouse. That Sebastian was behind it."

"I'm not saying anything. I'm just asking you to look."

She was quiet for a while, then nodded once.

"I'll look."

She turned to leave, then stopped at the door.

"Jacob. I know I have no right to ask you for anything. But please — don't run again. Not until you're healed."

I said nothing.

She took that as an answer and left.

That night, alone in my hospital room, I pulled out the crumpled piece of paper from my sock. My mother's address, barely legible now, smudged with sweat and blood.

I smoothed it out on the bedside table and stared at it for a long time.

Then I folded it carefully and put it back.

Not yet. But soon.