Chapter One

Isabella POV

The car drives into the family compound and I frown when I catch my dad’s car parked haphazardly in front of the house.

“Did Dad mention anything about coming home early?” I ask frowning at the sight, it looks like it was parked in a rush also.

“No mam, he frowns also, Mr Rufus was meant to exchange with me though,” he says referring to my Dad’s driver, he parks the car behind my dad’s car.

My eyes meet with a horrible sight, my father on the stairs leading to the door, choking on his blood, his eyes are swollen, his suit thorn in many places and covered in sand and mud, his body filled with open wounds, a scream erupts from my throat, my eyes filling with tears, my heart beat slows down and it feels like I’m about to pass out.

“Call the Ambulance!!!” I scream, running to him, my purse falling to the floor, I hold his head in my lap, my eyes filled with tears to the brim, my heart pounds hard in my chest, and my view becomes blurry with more tears as I turn to him, “Daddy Daddy please wake up!!” I cry shaking his shoulders.

“He’s alive, I hear the driver say into the phone, his fingers around his wrist checking his pulse, “please calm down mam”

“Daddy!! who did this to you?” More tears drop from my eyes, I cuddle him in my lap, my once clean dress is covered with mud and blood

“I’ll call Mr Rufus," the driver says to me trying to calm me down, but I’m still stuck in confusion, in heartache,

The ambulance makes it to us and they are fast, placing him in the ambulance a note falls from behind his suit, I pick up the paper following them into the ambulance “PAY UP YOUR DEBT”

He is stabilized when we get to the hospital, I sit in the waiting room of the hospital, tears streaks dried on my face, covered in blood and mud, the note in my hand, I stare down at it for what I believe is minutes but hours go by and I’m still confused, Debts? “how much money will require for debtors to go this far? And my family owes money to someone? An organization?” It seems like the most far-fetched idea, “what did Daddy involve himself in?”

I’m pulled out of my thoughts by the Doctor and my driver walking towards me.

“How is he?” I stand up, anxiety running through my veins.

“He will be fine, he had a few injuries on his wrist, his legs, and his face, and a bit of bleeding in his eyes but it will tamper down soon, we put him on fluids and pain medications, are you the only family member he has,” the doctor says looking at me with concern on his face.

“Her mother will be here soon Doctor,” the driver says

“Thank you,” I say gratefully to the Driver, I don’t know what I would have done if I were on my own, I even forgot to call my mother, she would have been so devastated, I fold the paper, squeezing it in the palm of my hands, “When is he going to wake up?” I turn back to the doctor

“He should be up soon, he is currently in room 108, if there's an issue, you can meet the nurse,” he smiles down at me, trying to get me to be less worried.

I nod, “Thank you doctor, and please I would like to transfer him to a VVIP room please, he needs the best of care”

He nods, “you can fill out a form, I’ll instruct the nurses to transfer him as soon as he’s awake”. he says and quickly leaves us to attend to other patients.

I quickly fill out the form and find his room, seeing him in this position fills my eyes with more tears, wrapped in a blue hospital gown, bandages wrapped around his body, his eyes closed, machines attached to him reading out his vitals and a drip hanging from a drip stand attached to him, I take a sit on the couch next to his bed, still in confusion, I can only ask questions when he’s awake.

My mother shows up a few minutes later, and she immediately pulls me into a hug, “he’s fine,” I whisper into her ears as she cries into my shoulders.

“I told him, I warned him” she whispers taking a seat next to him, rubbing on his fingers lovingly.

“Warned him about what Mom? I saw this from his jacket,” I hand her the note, “what does it mean? No, I can read I know what it means, but who does he owe? Are they dangerous people? Why are we owing people in the first place? What's going on?” I throw questions after questions at her.

“Only your father can answer you my dear,” she shakes her head in disappointment, sighing, “But recently, he went back to his old ways again” she says bowing her head down in shame, “And we spoke about it, he said he was going to stop but he had a very big deal that would double our family fortune, or so as he said, I guess it didn’t go as planned” she wheezes, tears dropping from her eyes.

“Is this what he wanted to speak to me about? He was gambling again?” my lips shaking as the words left my lips, “My God, I thought he fixed this? What happened? When did he relapse? Why didn’t you say anything, mum? We would have stopped this!” I turn away in anger, taking a seat on the table, the sound of beeping from the machines is the only sound accompanying my anger.

“Isabella,” I hear his voice, his eyes slightly open, his eyes still a dark red color.

I can't help myself “Daddy” I immediately head to his side, “What happened who did this to you? We need to report this to the police” I frown.

“NO,” he says sternly, barely sitting up, “water,” he says to my mom and she immediately attends to him, handing him a cup of water.

He sighs, looking around the room, “I was attacked on my way to work, kidnapped and driven off to some warehouse he explains, I was beaten,” he wince, “and given an offer”, he turns to me, tears? Pity in his eyes? I don’t know.

“what offer?” I frown

“My dear daughter, my darling daughter, he cries I’m so sorry, I went back into my gambling ways, I lost a lot of money, the company, he choked on his tears, the house, everything, we are going to lose everything, we are broke,” he lays his head on the pillow staring up at the ceiling.

“We still have some savings daddy, we can get out of this,” I say trying to be sympathetic, I can castigate him later about the gambling, “we can fix this alright,” I look up at my mother, tears in her eyes, her lips in her mouth, it looks like they aged by a few decades, “we have mom’s boutique, I have personal savings, my trust fund account also, we can fix this, how much is the money? 10 million? 20?”

He bites his wounded lips, wincing and turning to me, “My baby girl, it’s a lot of money, it runs into hundreds of millions of dollars” he cries.

My heart sinks in my chest, being in charge of our finances in the company I can already guess we will not be able to afford to pay off that sort of loan, even if we were to sell the company and the house, we would not be able to come up with the money.

“Okay Daddy calm down, who do we owe? Maybe I can speak to them? Come to some sort of an agreement?”

He turns to me, “We owe a few organizations, but the biggest amount was taken from the Deluca empire, and they ask for only one thing and all our debts will be paid, everything will be fixed, we can go back to how it was before, I’ll go for therapy again”, he promises, squeezing my fingers in his hands.

I cut him off my heart pounding in my chest “What was the offer, Daddy?”

He breathes in, slightly wheezing, a guilty look on his face, pursing his lips he turns to my mom and then me “To clear the debts he wants to marry you my Isa, I’m so sorry he chokes, crying into his palms, “He wants to marry you, Isabella, Dominic DeLuca has requested for your hand in marriage.”

“Marriage? To the DeLuca”s, NO Daddy, I don’t think I can”, I step back in shock, my heart pounding in my chest, all the adrenaline of getting him to the hospital, the fear, the anxiety leaving my body, I turn around ready to run through the doors when my mother stops me, placing her hand on my shoulder,

“Isabella darling, please, this is the only way to save this family, your father, your brother,” she says her voice shaking in fear.

I turn around looking at my father, his eyes swollen, bandages crossed over his body, his eyes red from blood pooling in his eyes from the beating he received, right in our ancestral home, I turn to my mother, her eyes filled with tears, my socialite mother, always happy and cheerful, but all I can see in her eyes right now is fear of the unknown, the future, what more could they possibly do to us?

“I’ll think about it, but I have to go,” I whisper into the silent room. The drive back to the house is silent, the sky is now dark, the city lights are on, and people are happily moving through the streets, bar hopping, and businesses are still booming, an internal sadness bubbles in my stomach, I pull out my phone, opening my browser, “Dominic DeLuca” I browse out

Numerous links pop up, I open the top one but all he speaks about is his late father, and their business, and not much about him, only, he is known as a very big business mogul, I click other links and I read more about him and his family.

The car pull up to the house, I immediately take a quick bath so Matteo doesn’t see me like this, sitting on the couch on my balcony, I pull open my phone again deciding on what to do.

I’ll book an appointment to see him tonight or tomorrow morning and somehow convince him to let us pay him off in batches, or maybe buy out a few shares in our company.

I bit my lip in nervousness, making a few calls to the company to get his contact and address.

A few minutes later, the address of the hotel and two phone numbers come in as a message, I waste no time, pulling on blue boyfriend jeans and a t-shirt, staring into the mirror as I prepare, my new blonde bangs cover my forehead, my eyes are slightly swollen from all the crying today, but I dust that thought away and place my hair in a ponytail, grabbing my purse I head downstairs, calling on the driver we head to the car.

“ Where would you like to go, miss?” The driver turns slightly to me

“La’Luxe hotel please,” I say, the drive is short, taking about 20 minutes and I finally make it to the hotel.

“Good evening mam, would you like a room?” She smiles at me widely

“No I send her a smile, I want to see, Mr. Dominic DeLuca,” I say nervously, will they let me speak to him just like that? I mean if he wants to marry me then he should know my name, he should know I’ll come and find him.

“What's your name please?” she picks up her phone dialing a number.

“Isabella Mariano,” I say biting my lip. Hoping it will work

“Good evening sir, Mr DeLuca has a visitor, Miss Isabella Mariano. Hmm, okay sir”, I'll do that immediately” she responds nodding her head, she grabs a piece of paper writing out a room number, room 400 (penthouse suite) it reads out, and she adds her signature at the bottom followed by a stamp, ending the call and turning to me with a smile.

I grip my purse tightly in my hand, my confidence dwindling by the minute, on my right is a swirly staircase that leads to the top part of the penthouse, I move to the couch, taking a sit but not feeling comfortable, my heart is practically in my mouth, I don’t know how I got here, I was just celebrating my birthday a few hours ago only to find out my family is broke and a dangerous man I have no idea about is proposing to marry me to clear my father debt, my life did a complete 360 in a few hours and now I’m sitting in the same man’s penthouse waiting to see if I can beg him enough to let us go.

“And who is this? I hear a voice from the bottom of the staircase, a deep voice calls out, I stand up immediately turning to the voice, but I’m shocked to see two men one leaning on the balcony, and the one that spoke, at the bottom of the staircase.

The one that replied to me, an olive-toned tall man, with a muscular build covered by a white t-shirt and black jeans, light long brown hair pulled into a bun at the top of his head, and bright brown eyes, a sharp jawline, thin lips pulled into a friendly smile.

Before I can speak the other man, who is an olive-toned man with a sharp jawline that could probably cut through metal, piercing bright blue eyes that reflect brightly in the slightly dark room, deep black hair cut averagely that frames his face, a height of 6’9 feet I guess since he seems very tall, wide shoulders and a muscular body build covered by a cooperate white shirt slightly unbuttoned at the top and his legs covered by cooperate trousers, I would drool and be shy in a room with two hot men but I try to speak up “I’m” I say but I’m cut off.

“Rafaelle, meet my Wife,” the man leaning by the balcony says, the words sliding through his lips smoothly, turning away, and walking towards him at the bottom of the stairs.

I swallow my words, “I came to speak to you, Mr DeLuca”

“So this is the lady who will finally tie Dominic down,” he smirks coming towards me , he stops in front of me, stretching his hands out, doing the right thing I stretch mine out and he grabs my fingers in mine looking me straight in the eyes as he places a kiss at the back of my hands, “It’s good to finally meet you Isabella, I have a feeling, we will be good friends, just like your Husband” he smirks, mischief in his eyes.

“He’s not my husband, I grit out, turning to look up at Mr DeLuca.

Raffaelle chuckles deeply like I just signed a death wish “Not yet”, he smirks letting go of my hand and turning to Dominic, “See you later Dom, don’t let this one go” he chuckles again walking away and out the door leaving me alone with Him.

“I have dealings with your father, not you, his deep voice drawls echoing around the vast room”

“But yet it’s me you want to marry? What a misogynistic thing to say” I frown

“He frowns like he has never been spoken to like that before, “I’ll be in touch with your father Isabella, I have nothing to do with you” he repeats turning around.

“I don’t want to marry you,” I say surprised at my boldness, anger already boiling in my veins.

He halts in his steps turning, “You don’t have much of a choice, Dear” he says mockingly walking away and leaving me in the dark.