Anastasia remained still as if she was made of ice, staring at Isabella as if the woman were a curiosity rather than a threat.
She saw the desperation beneath the leather and red paint, it was frantic. Slowly she was realizing that she had become a memory erased.
"What? You are pregnant? So? You want a welcome party?" Anastasia's voice was void of emotion. "It still has nothing to do with me, or the fact that you are in my bedroom."
Isabella expected a breakdown. She expected a girl from the suburbs to crumble. She didn't realize she was facing a woman who had spent the last hour scrubbing the scent of gun and steel out of her skin.
Isabella stepped closer, trying to reclaim the ground she was losing.
"I knew Matteo before he was this shell of a man," Isabella hissed.
"I knew him in the apartment on Via Giulia. I knew him when he was a boy, before the scars, before the crown, and long before you were even a debt that had to be paid."
Anastasia didn't flinch.
