Chapter 4 - The Harbor in MarseilleForty-eight hours later, the icy wind off the Gulf of Lion blew heavy sea salt and fine rain across the ancient stone piers of the Old Port of Marseille.
The harbor was a maze of weathered fishing trawlers, sleek private yachts, and towering commercial freighters docked against the rugged French coastline.
I walked down the wooden planks of Pier 4 alone, wearing a plain dark wool coat over my suit, my hands buried deep in my pockets—no armored Maybachs, no sixteen-man tactical escorts, and no broad-shouldered bodyguards flanking my shoulders. For the first time in eleven years, I walked not as the feared Don of the Moretti empire, but as a man searching for his soul.
At the end of the pier, docked beside an old stone lighthouse, sat The Meridian—a sixty-foot steel-hulled motor yacht with clean, classic lines and a French flag fluttering from its stern.
Sitting on a wooden bench on the lower deck, wrapped in a thick cream cashmere sweater, holding a steaming mug of black tea, was Isabella.
She looked healthy. The pale, exhausted shadow that had hung over her face in Manhattan was gone, replaced by a quiet, radiant color brought on by the sea air. Her dark hair blew softly in the coastal wind, her face devoid of any makeup or jewelry.
When my heavy leather boots clicked against the wooden gangway, she didn't jump. She didn't reach for a weapon. She set her teacup down gently on the deck table, turning her head slowly to look at me.
Her hazel eyes were calm, deep, and completely devoid of fear.
"You're forty-eight hours late, Dante," Isabella spoke softly, her voice carrying smoothly over the sound of waves slapping against the wooden hull.
I stopped ten feet away at the top of the gangway, my throat bone-dry, my chest expanding so hard against my ribs that every breath felt like swallowed glass.
"You knew I’d find you," I rasped out.
Isabella offered a small, bittersweet smile—a look of profound, aching familiarity that made my knees feel weightless.
"I knew you'd check the Red Hook manifests," she replied, wrapping her sweater tighter around her shoulders. "Because I left the blue sedan where Marco's scouts would spot it. I wanted you to come here alone."
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I stepped down onto the wooden deck, taking two slow, deliberate steps toward her, stopping three feet from where she sat.
"Isabella... please," I choked out, tears of pure, unadulterated self-loathing burning behind my eyes as I dropped onto my knees flat on the wooden deckboards before her. "Come home. I burned the penthouse. I severed the Russo alliance. I will give up the empire, Isabella. I will give up everything if you just come home."
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