Chapter 124: Freedom

The silence inside the cabin was total, soft and heavy like a blanket. The twin engines hummed a steady, low note beneath the floorboards, a quiet vibration that passed through the soles of Isabella’s shoes.

She sat by the window, her face turned toward the thick glass. She couldn’t see the sky.

She couldn’t see the sunlight catching the edges of the white clouds below, or the bright blue expanse stretching out endlessly above them. But she kept her forehead leaning near the cold pane anyway, listening to the rushing air outside.

Her hands rested in her lap, fingers loosely tangled together.

She was thinking about the baby.

It was a small, persistent ache right in the middle of her chest. She kept imagining what the little life might have looked like. If it would have had Kian’s light grey eyes, or if it would have inherited her own dark hair.

She wondered if it would have been a boy or a girl. She hadn’t even stayed pregnant long enough to find out.

And that hurt. It was a dull, quiet sorrow that made her throat feel tight every time she breathed in too deeply.

But as the hours ticked by, another realization began to form in the quiet corners of her mind. It was a cold thought, almost sharp, and it made her feel a sudden pang of guilt just for letting it take shape.

There was nothing left now.

The marriage was gone. The papers were signed. The pregnancy was over. There was no child, no shared blood, no legal connection. There was not a single string left holding her to Kian Carter.

In the first few days after the hospital, she had felt like the universe was tearing everything good out of her hands.

She had wanted that baby. She had wanted to hold it, to love it, to give it everything she had missed in her own life.

She had believed the child was entirely separate from Kian, a pure, clean thing that belonged only to her.

Now, sitting in the quiet cabin of a plane flying miles above the earth, the truth felt different.

If she had carried that baby to term, Kian would have never left her alone. He would have used that child like a hook.

He would have called under the guise of being a father. He would have turned up at her door, demanded visits, argued over schools and holidays, and inserted himself into every corner of her life.

And because the child would have been innocent, she would have let him. She would have answered his calls. She would have stood in the same room as him, talking, negotiating, letting him keep a tiny piece of her.

He would have stayed in her life forever. He would have found a way to draw her back into his shadow, little by little, until she couldn’t tell where her own life ended and his began.

Isabella closed her eyes. A single tear slipped down her cheek, warm against her cold skin.

She pressed her lips together and took a long, quiet breath. She didn’t know if she was asking the lost child to forgive her, or if she was trying to forgive herself for feeling a sudden, strange sense of relief.

It was a sad kind of freedom, but it was freedom.

Across the aisle, Aaron sat with his leather-bound folder open on his knees. His laptop sat on the small table beside him, its screen glowing softly, but he wasn’t typing.

He had a pen between his fingers, tapping it against his knee, his bright blue eyes fixed on the side of Isabella’s face.

He had watched her for the last hour. He saw the way her shoulders stayed stiff, the way her breath hitched every now and then, and the slow trail of water on her cheek.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask her if she was feeling better, and he didn’t offer her a tissue.

He just stayed there, quiet and present, letting her have the space to process whatever was happening inside her head.

A flight attendant walked quietly down the carpeted aisle, leaning down near Aaron’s shoulder. "Sir," the woman whispered, "we’ve begun our descent into Northern Italy."

Aaron nodded once. "Good."

At the sound of his voice, Isabella’s head turned slightly. "Northern Italy?"

Aaron looked over at her, a small line forming near the corner of his mouth. "You heard that?"

"I’m blind, Aaron. My ears still work fine."

He closed the folder on his lap and set his pen down. "Then yes. Northern Italy."

Isabella turned her full body toward him, her brows pulling together. "We aren’t going to Moscow?"

"No."

"Why?"

Aaron leaned back into his dark leather seat, resting his arms on the armrests. "Because I changed my mind."

She gave him a flat, unimpressed look, pointing her blind green eyes straight toward the direction of his voice. "You changed your mind."

"I did."

"About taking me back to Russia."

"Yes."

"Without mentioning it to me."

"Yes."

Isabella folded her arms over her chest, leaning back against her seat. "That sounds like you’re hiding something."

"It usually does when I do it," Aaron said easily.

She let out a small, tired sigh, though the edge of her mouth twitched just a bit. "Where are we actually going, then?"

"To a house near Lake Como," Aaron said, his tone turning a little more grounded.

"You’ve been through a car crash, a hospital stay, and a week of lawyers dragging you through the mud. The last thing you need right now is to be dropped into a house with Finn running down the halls and Freya staring holes into the back of your head."

Isabella quieted. "I can handle Russia, Aaron. I’m not made of glass."

"I know you aren’t," Aaron replied. "Handling something isn’t the same thing as needing it. You need a few weeks where nobody is asking you for anything."

Isabella looked away, her fingers tightening on her sleeves. She hated how easily he saw through her, but she didn’t have the energy to fight him on it.

"What about my eyes?" she asked quietly after a moment. "The specialists in Moscow... were they supposed to see me this week?"

"They reviewed the files from the hospital," Aaron said.

"The doctor said the surgery is still fully possible. The damage from the crash didn’t ruin the nerves. But your body took a heavy hit, Isabella. You lost blood, and you’re weak. They won’t touch you until your body has recovered from everything else."

Isabella rested her chin in her hand, staring at the floor of the cabin. "More waiting."

"You’ve waited a long time already," Aaron said softly. "Another month won’t change the outcome. It just means you’ll be strong enough when it happens."

Isabella didn’t answer, but her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch, the tension slowly draining out of her back.

...

When the jet touched down and the cabin doors opened, the air that drifted inside was completely different from the stale, cold breeze of the tarmac in America. It was warm, carrying the thick scent of mountain pine, damp stone, and wild grass.

A dark car was waiting right at the bottom of the stairs.

The drive took them through winding roads that climbed steadily upward. Isabella kept her window cracked open, listening to the sound of tires rolling over smooth pavement and the distant, rushing noise of water somewhere far below.

When the car finally slowed and turned down a long gravel driveway, the sound of the tires changed to a heavy crunch.

The estate near Lake Como wasn’t a sprawling fortress like the main property back in Russia. It was an old, restored villa built from pale grey stone, nestled against the side of a steep green hill.

The gardens smelled of blooming orange trees and wet earth, and the wide stone terrace at the back looked out over the still, dark water of the lake.

The moment the car stopped, the doors were opened by waiting staff.

Rows of house servants and groundskeepers stood near the wide double doors of the villa, standing straight, heads bowed slightly as Aaron stepped out of the vehicle.

There was no fuss, no frantic rushing, just a quiet, absolute order. Wherever Aaron Kazarov went, the world around him smoothed itself out to suit his pace.

Aaron reached back into the car, offering his hand to Isabella.

She took it, letting him steady her as her shoes hit the gravel.

"Welcome," Aaron said softly, his fingers warm around hers for just a second before he let go to let her balance herself.

Isabella stood still for a moment, tilting her head back. She couldn’t see the mountain peaks towering behind the house or the deep blue of the water, but she could feel the sun warming her face, and she could hear the clear, crisp call of birds in the trees nearby.

There were no reporters shouting questions. There was no noise of city traffic. There were no lawyers waiting with folders full of demands.

It was just quiet.

Before they could even walk up the front steps, one of Aaron’s security men stepped forward from the shadow of the doorway, holding out a dark mobile phone.

"Sir," the man said in a low voice. "It’s Chernov."

Aaron paused, his brow furrowing slightly. He looked over at Isabella. "Go inside with the housekeeper. I’ll be right behind you."

Isabella nodded, letting an older woman in a dark dress guide her toward the cool stone entryway.

Once she was out of earshot, Aaron took the phone and brought it to his ear. "Talk."

"We found the driver," Niko’s voice came through the speaker, rough and clipped. "The one from the truck."

Aaron’s eyes narrowed. "Where is he?"

"Dead," Niko said flatly. "The boys found him in a drainage ditch two miles outside the city limits. Bullet in the back of his neck. He’s been there at least two days."

A cold, hard silence settled over Aaron. His fingers tightened around the phone until his knuckles turned white.

He had wanted that man alive. He had wanted to sit across from him in a dark room and make him regret the fact that he had nearly killed Isabella.

Now the thread was cut.

"Who did it?" Aaron asked, his voice dropping an octave, dead and low.

"We’re looking into it now, boss. Whichever crew set it up cleaned their mess before we could get to him."

Aaron looked toward the open doors of the villa, where Isabella’s dark hair was disappearing around the corner of the hallway.

"Keep digging," he ordered calmly, though the heat behind his eyes was dangerous.

"Find out who paid his family, find out who bought his phone, and don’t come back to me empty-handed."

He hung up without waiting for a reply, slipping the phone back into his pocket, his face completely smooth again before he stepped inside.