Isabella POV
My eyes opened slowly. Too slowly.
The white ceiling was still above me. It looked like it was spinning, even though nothing in the room was moving. My tongue felt thick. My arms did not even feel like they belonged to me.
The medicine was still inside my body. I could feel it pulling me down every time I tried to think.
Then I heard it.
Shouting.
At first, the sound was far away, like it was coming through water. I blinked many times and forced my eyes toward the door.
More voices joined the first one. Footsteps. Fast. Many of them.
I turned my head toward the noise, but the room tilted, making me feel dizzy.
Someone was running down the hallway.
My heart started beating fast, but my body could not move as quickly. I tried to sit up. My elbow gave out beneath me and I fell back against the pillow with a soft, useless thud.
Another patient, I thought. Someone else is fighting them tonight. Not me. Not tonight.
I had no strength left to fear for myself.
Somewhere inside my cloudy mind, I felt sorry for the person screaming outside.
Sorry…
And a little thankful it was not me this time.
The shouting became louder.
A woman cried out.
“Sir! You can’t go in there! Sir….”
Then a man answered her. I could not hear his words. But something about his voice made the tiny hairs on my arms stand up.
Low. Steady. Like her panic meant nothing to him.
Heavy boots stopped outside my door. More than one person.
I looked at the door again.
Then it opened.
Not slowly. Not the careful way the nurses always opened it.
It was pushed open. Hard. The door slammed against the wall with a loud bang.
I flinched.
Men filled the doorway.
Tall and dressed in black. The way they stood, the way their eyes searched every corner of the room…
They were not doctors. Not security guards either. Even through the medicine, I knew that.
Then…
He walked in.
I forgot how to breathe.
He walked into the room like a king entering his own palace.
Slow and confident. Like if he command the wall to move, it will move.
Without fear.
Dark eyes and sharp jaw. A man I had known after only one night. And spent months trying to forget.
Lorenzo.
The medicine had slowed my mind. But it could not erase him. I knew him the moment I saw him.
My chest became tight.
My eyes burned.
Even though I had no tears left.
It’s you.
My lips moved, but no sound came out.
Everyone else in the room looked terrified.
The doctor stood frozen beside the window, holding his folder tightly against his chest.
A nurse covered her mouth with both hands.
Even the security guard who had rushed in stood still, his hand close to his radio but too afraid to touch it.
I was the only person there who was not afraid of Lorenzo.
“Who let you in?” the doctor asked.
He sounded confident. He failed. “This is a restricted area. You cannot simply…”
“I can do whatever I want,” Lorenzo said.
His voice was quiet. Too quiet.
The doctor took one step back without noticing.
Lorenzo never looked at him.
He only looked at me.
He crossed the room in a few long steps and stopped beside my bed. Now I could see him clearly.His jaw was tight.
His hands were closed into fists by his sides, like he was trying hard to control himself.
“Isabella.” He said my name so softly.
It sounded like it hurt him.
I tried to speak. Only a whisper came out. “You… found me.”
Something moved behind his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or anger. Maybe both.
“I should have found you sooner,” he said quietly.
That was when I saw her.
Standing behind Lorenzo’s men was my nurse.
The kind nurse.
The one who still called me Isabella when nobody else did. The one whose hands shook when I begged her to take my letter.
Our eyes met. She said nothing. She did not dare.
She quickly looked at the doctor.
Then back at me.
Her lips moved.
Thank you. You’re safe now.
I blinked. At first, I did not understand. Then I did. She was not thanking me.
She was thanking me for believing in her.
For trusting that she would take my letter to someone who still cared about me.
My throat became tight.
I wanted to tell her thank you. I wanted to tell her she had saved my life. But my body was too weak. Before I could move my lips, she lowered her head and quietly disappeared behind Lorenzo’s men.
The doctor found his courage again. He stepped forward and held up the folder.
“Sir, this patient is under my care. She is dangerous to herself. If you are not family, you have no legal right to….”
“Hand the file over.”
The doctor blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“The file.”
Lorenzo held out his hand. “Now.”
I watched fear slowly spread across the doctor’s face. The same fear I had lived with every day inside this place.
One of Lorenzo’s men stepped closer.
That was enough. The doctor’s hand shook as he handed over the folder.
Lorenzo opened it.
He read every page carefully. The longer he read…
The harder his face became. His breathing changed. Slow. Controlled.
That scared me more than shouting ever could.
“Psychosis,” he read aloud. “Delusions. Paranoid episodes.” He looked up.
“Who wrote this?”
The doctor opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
“I… I evaluated her myself. Based on her symptoms, and the family’s concerns, we determined that….”
“Family,” Lorenzo repeated the word like it tasted wrong in his mouth. “Matteo Edoardo is not her family.”
The doctor’s face went pale.
Lorenzo looked at the papers again.
Without another word…
He tore them in half.
The ripping sound filled the room.
He tore it again. And again. Pages fell around his feet like broken wings, some of them landing on the floor near my bed.
I stared at them.
Those papers had stolen my name.
My life.
They carried lies dressed up as medical records.
“You cannot do that,” the doctor said panicking. “That is an official medical record. That is….”
“A manipulated one,” Lorenzo said. “Now it’s paper on the floor. Do you have a problem?”
He turned to the men behind him.
“Get her discharge papers ready. She’s leaving tonight.”
“You have no authority here,” the doctor said, though his voice had lost all its earlier confidence. It came out thin. Desperate. “I will call the authorities. You will regret this.”
“Call whoever you want,” Lorenzo said quietly. “But she is leaving this room in the next five minutes. With or without your paperwork.”
I lay there watching everything. It felt like I was dreaming. The medicine still made my body heavy.
But inside my chest…
Something came back to life.
Hope.
It felt strange. Almost painful. Like feeling returning to a numb arm.
Lorenzo turned back to me. For a moment, his hard face softened. He looked at me lying there in the thin hospital gown.
Weak, pale. Barely able to move.
“I’m getting you out of here.”
His hand stopped just above mine. He looked afraid of hurting me.
“Do you trust me?”
I did not know. Not completely. Too many people had betrayed me. Too many lies.
Too much pain.
But when I looked into his eyes…
I saw something steady. Something real.
I nodded.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He gave a small nod. It was enough.
He turned to one of his men and quickly gave orders.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Use the side entrance.”
“Bring a blanket.”
Then…
New footsteps. Heavier than the nurses’. Heavier than the doctor’s. A rhythm I somehow recognized without knowing why, boots striking the floor in perfect time, like men trained to move as one.
I had heard that sound before. Late at night, sometimes, in the hallway outside my old room. I had always assumed it was hospital security doing rounds.
I had been wrong.
Four men appeared in the doorway behind Lorenzo’s men.
They wore dark suits. Simple. Plain. The kind that helped them blend in anywhere. But their eyes were cold. Their hands were already moving inside their jackets.
I had never seen their faces before. Not once, not clearly, in all my weeks in this place.
But I understood, with a cold drop in my stomach, exactly who had sent them.
“Isabella Hart is not permitted to leave this facility,” one of them said. His voice was flat. Rehearsed. “Mr. Edoardo’s orders.”
Lorenzo went very still.
Slowly, he turned around. For the first time since he entered the room. I saw something even more frightening than anger.
It was quiet. Cold and deadly.
“Matteo,” he said softly.
“As I thought…”
“You’ve been very busy.”
The man in the doorway lifted one hand. It was only a small signal. Three more men stepped into the light behind him.
There were holding guns.
I heard them click their gun ready to shot.
Lorenzo stepping in front of my bed, shielding me with his own body, as Matteo men were ready to shot at any point.