"You what?" Maria screamed, her voice echoing past the living room and into every corner of the house.
It hardly mattered—everyone was already gathered there, their faces shifting between shock and fear. Everyone, that is, except Rossi.
He looked calm, detached, as though none of it concerned him. And in truth, it didn't.
"They were going to—"
"You should have let them take it!" Maria cut in, her fury rising, her arms pulling Elisa closer in a protective grip.
"Over my dead body am I giving her to such a nasty old man!" she hissed, her voice dropping into a harsh whisper for the latter part—because even in her rage, she knew what the old man was capable of.
"He is a Mafia Don, Maria!" Luca shot back, panic twisting his voice. "He could have her kidnapped off the street and kill us before the police can do anything!"
"Merda! Luca! I hope you drop dead!"
"How could you piss off someone with that many bodyguards and you know the city we live in!" Maria, his wife continued shouting.
"Father!" Elisa cried, clinging to Maria. "Don Tiberio is known for doing bad things to women! He's an old pervert!"
"Father, you can't mean to actually give Elisa to him!" Isadora finally spoke from where she stood, her expression unsettled, her voice trembling as she tried to process everything she had heard.
"Elisa?" Luca repeated, confusion creasing his brow. "When I bragged about the most beautiful daughter, I meant you!" he said, looking at Isadora.
For one long moment, the room went silent. Then laughter spilled from Maria—high, sharp, shaking her from head to toe, half relief and half cruel jest.
"You meant her? Her? Good!" she sighed, shoulders easing as Elisa stepped back, visibly stunned but visibly relieved as well.
"Me… me?" Isadora asked, her hand trembling as she adjusted her glasses, as if it help her hear better or change her father's words.
"Yes! You're the spitting image of your mother and—"
"Can we not bring the dead into this?" Maria snapped, cutting him off, her patience long gone. She had heard enough about her husband's dead wife to last a lifetime.
"When does she have to leave?" Maria asked coldly. She no longer opposed the bargain—because it wasn't her daughter being served up like a lamb to slaughter.
Tears filled Isadora's eyes, reflecting the ones building in her father's.
"He gave us twenty-four hours," Luca said softly, his tone defeated. "So you probably have until tomorrow evening."
"No…" Isadora broke down into violent sobs. "Can't we go to the police?"
Maria's fury flashed. She looked ready to strike the girl, and she would have if she'd been closer.
"Are you dumb? Tell the police he threatened us—and then what? He owns the police!"
"Maybe I can find someone powerful—someone who'll help us!" Luca tried desperately, staring at Isadora as her tears fell.
"…Really?" Maria's voice dripped sarcasm. "Because they'll help us for free? Because they won't sell us all out? Because they're so kind, they won't ask for the shares of your company, and Elisa too?"
Luca had no answer. Tears spilled down his face as he wrapped his arms around Isadora, who sobbed harder, wiping at her swollen eyes.
"Like father, like daughter!" Maria spat, turning on her heel.
"Spineless!" she hissed, her disgust echoing as she dragged Elisa away—though the younger girl, who, like Isadora, was also in her twenties, resisted, clearly unwilling to go.
Rossi stayed behind, silent, watching his father and step sister collapse into each other's grief. Only after a long moment did he speak, his tone calm, detached, as always.
"I'll go with her. Or take her there."
He turned and walked off without another glance, ignoring Luca's weak words of thanks and rolling his eyes as he went back to his room.
'As long as he wasn't roped into anything else!'
It was Saturday—his one free day—and yet, once again, he found no rest.
"Father!" Isadora sobbed, trembling in Luca's arms.
"It'll be alright," Luca murmured, his voice breaking. "I'll ask him to be kind to you! I'll even give him half my shares!"
His dead wife would have hated him for this weakness, but he knew no other way. Maria had called him spineless, and she was right. What terrified him more was knowing that Isadora had inherited his gentleness, his softness.
"You'll be fine," he promised, though his voice shook. "I won't allow anything to happen to you."
Isadora nodded faintly, but for the first time in her life, she heard her father's words and didn't believe them.
Back in her room, the moment the door closed behind her, she collapsed, tears flowing freely once again. She grabbed her phone with shaking hands.
"Llara…" she gasped into the receiver before breaking down in heavy sobs, her wailing so fierce the friend on the other end could hardly understand her.
"Wait, wait—I can't hear a thing!" came the muffled response.
"I—I'm being sold!" Isadora cried out at last.
Llara's sigh crackled through the line. "I'm coming over."
Half an hour later, she was perched on Isadora's bed, listening with grim patience as her friend poured out the story between sobs, pauses, and desperate gasps.
"Yeah," Llara said flatly when the tale ended. "You are being sold. And you love your dad too much to say no."
She ran her fingers through her long black hair, much different from Dora's hair which had been cut. Dora's hair barely brushed her chin, and paired with her glasses, it gave her a nerdy, awkward look.
"It's practical!" Dora had always argued. "I needed to concentrate on graduating!"
Now her voice was barely a whisper. "What am I going to do? Become the mistress of an old man?"
Her swollen eyes searched Llara's face desperately.
Llara stared back, her expression severe, her voice carrying the weight of inevitability.
"I'm going to tell you the only thing you can do… but you're not going to like it."
"…But you're going to make me do it regardless?" Isadora asked, a flicker of hope in her gaze.
Slowly, Llara shook her head.
She stared into Isadora's wide, naive eyes—eyes as innocent as the pink, flowery room surrounding them. An innocence she would have to shatter tonight, before something far worse shattered it tomorrow.
"For what we have to do… you're going to have to do it yourself."