Breathe. I’ve Got You — Part 1
“Lower the weapons.”
Her voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
Forty men in tailored black suits stood along the walls of the Marquetti ballroom, pistols half-drawn, safeties already off.
At the center of the marble floor, the most feared man in three provinces was on one knee.
His name was Daario Marquetti.
His hand was pressed against his chest.
Blood spread beneath his fingers in a slow, dark bloom across his white shirt.
His breathing had become shallow.
Wrong.
The bride, still wearing her ivory gown and clutching a bouquet of red roses, dropped to her knees beside him without hesitation.
“Breathe,” she whispered.
She placed one hand against his face.
“I’ve got you.”
Something extraordinary happened.
Every gun in the ballroom lowered.
Not because she had commanded them to.
Because she had touched Daario Marquetti’s face…
And he had exhaled.
For one strange second, everyone in the room understood the same thing.
This woman mattered to him.
The woman kneeling beside the most dangerous man in the room was not his bride.
She wasn’t family.
She wasn’t even supposed to be important.
She was Isabella Ruiz.
Thirty-one years old.
Plus-sized.
Soft around the shoulders and hips.
Usually dressed in a simple black cardigan with her brown hair pinned back.
She was a wedding coordinator.
And until that moment, almost no one in the ballroom had bothered to remember her name.
But to understand how she had ended up cradling the head of a mafia boss who was supposed to marry another woman that afternoon, we have to go back six weeks.
To a cold morning in Milan.
To the day Daario Marquetti met Isabella Ruiz.
Chapter One: The Woman Under the Table
Isabella was on her knees behind a table when Daario first saw her.
She was trying to retape a fallen strand of ivy.
She had a clipboard beside her.
A headset around her neck.
Three rolls of tape in her cardigan pocket.
She didn’t look up when six men entered the ballroom.
She heard expensive shoes against marble.
She heard the sudden silence.
She heard someone whisper:
“That’s him.”
But she kept working.
A low, calm voice came from the doorway.
“The coordinator we requested.”
The hotel manager nearly tripped over himself.
“Don Marquetti.”
Daario stood in the entrance.
Tall.
Immaculately dressed.
Expressionless.
Two bodyguards stood behind him.
Another two waited outside.
The entire room seemed to bend around his presence.
Everyone knew who he was.
Everyone except the woman still kneeling beneath the table.
“Where is she?” Daario asked.
The manager swallowed.
“Under the table.”
Daario looked down.
Isabella finally finished taping the ivy.
She stood.
She had a strip of green tape in one hand and several clips between her teeth.
She removed the clips calmly.
Then she looked directly at him.
“Good morning.”
Daario waited.
“You must be the eleven o’clock.”
Silence.
Mateo, Daario’s longtime right-hand man, almost coughed.
Isabella reached into the cooler beside her and pulled out a bottle of water.
“Water?”
Daario stared at her.
No one had offered him water in years.
People offered him information.
Money.
Apologies.
Fear.
Not water.
He took the bottle.
“Thank you.”
Isabella nodded.
She opened her clipboard.
“Your name?”
Mateo looked horrified.
Daario’s eyes narrowed.
“You don’t know who I am?”
“No.”
She glanced at the manager.
“Should I?”
The manager looked as if he wanted the marble floor to swallow him.
Daario looked at Isabella for several seconds.
Then something unexpected happened.
He smiled.
Barely.
“Daario Marquetti.”
She wrote his name at the top of a fresh page.
“Fiancée?”
“Valentina Costa.”
Isabella wrote her name underneath.
“Three hundred guests?”
“Yes.”
“Any accessibility requirements?”
Daario blinked.
Nobody had ever asked him that.
“My aunt Rosaria has a bad hip.”
“Does she use a wheelchair?”
“No.”
“Would she?”
“She’d rather die.”
Isabella nodded seriously.
“Then I’ll put her at a table close to a door and a bathroom.”
Daario watched her.
“And I’ll ask the servers to look after her without making her feel like she’s being looked after.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“How did you know she’d pretend to be annoyed?”
Isabella looked at him.
“Aunts named Rosaria always do.”
Mateo looked down.
He was trying very hard not to smile.
The interview lasted forty minutes.
Isabella took nineteen pages of notes.
She never asked about Daario’s wealth.
Never asked about his reputation.
Never asked whether the rumors were true.
She simply did her job.
When the meeting ended, she stood and shook his hand.
Firm.
Brief.
Professional.
“I’ll send the proposal within seventy-two hours.”
She thanked the manager.
Then she thanked Mateo.
Then she thanked the two bodyguards by the door.
She had somehow remembered their names.
Then she disappeared through a service corridor.
Daario stood there watching the door.
Mateo waited.
Finally, he said:
“Boss?”
“What?”
“You didn’t tell her yes.”
“I know.”
“Are you going to?”
Daario picked up the bottle of water she had given him.
“I already have.”
Chapter Two: The Woman Who Wouldn’t Adjust
Three days later, Isabella met the bride.
Valentina Costa was twenty-six.
Beautiful.
Elegant.
Thin in the way that required maintenance.
She arrived forty minutes late with two assistants, a small dog, and her mother.
Her mother was worse than the dog.
Isabella had already prepared the linens.
The centerpieces were arranged.
The seating charts were ready.
She had even placed a chair beside the mirror because Valentina’s mother seemed like the kind of woman who needed to sit down before insulting people.
Valentina looked Isabella over once.
“You’re the coordinator.”
“Isabella Ruiz.”
“Congratulations on the engagement,” Isabella said.
Valentina didn’t respond.
Her mother did.
“I assumed Daario would hire someone more…”
She paused.
“Visible.”
Isabella didn’t blink.
“The best coordinators aren’t visible, Señora.”
She smiled politely.
“That’s the job.”
Silence.
Valentina’s mother looked at her daughter.
Then back at Isabella.
Valentina tried another approach.
“Have you ever managed an event of this scale?”
“Sixty-two events this year.”
Valentina’s eyebrows lifted.
“Sixty-two?”
“Sixty-two of this scale or larger.”
Isabella checked her clipboard.
“I coordinated the Bianchi anniversary last month. Four hundred and eighty guests, three diplomatic delegations, two last-minute security changes.”
“And?”
“It went smoothly.”
She smiled.
“I would provide references, but the families involved prefer discretion.”
Valentina opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Isabella had already turned back to her clipboard.
“Now, about the ceremony entrance…”
A man’s voice came from the doorway.
“Sixty-three.”
Isabella looked up.
Daario stood there.
He wasn’t supposed to be at the fitting.
Grooms didn’t usually attend.
Daario Marquetti especially didn’t.
Valentina’s expression immediately brightened.
“Amore, you came.”
“I wanted to see the preparations.”
He looked at Isabella.
“Sixty-three?”
She nodded.
“Today makes sixty-three.”
Daario smiled.
“Impressive.”
Valentina stepped closer to him.
“Darling, I’d like Miss Ruiz to leave the fitting to us. It’s very personal.”
Daario looked at Isabella.
Isabella was already gathering her things.
“Of course.”
She walked toward the door.
Then Daario spoke.
“Isabella.”
She stopped.
He held her gaze.
“Your proposal was excellent.”
“Thank you.”
“You anticipated the rain.”
“The forecast gives us a thirty-one percent chance of rain.”
“You planned for it.”
“I plan for what could happen.”
Daario watched her.
“Not what should happen?”
“Exactly.”
She left.
Daario watched the door close.
Again.
Chapter Three: Reasons to Stay Close
Twelve days later, Daario Marquetti began inventing reasons to see Isabella.
The first was a security walkthrough.
He arrived at seven in the morning with two bodyguards and a clipboard.
He told Isabella that advanced perimeter assessments were routine in his line of work.
She simply handed him coffee.
“Then you’ll want to see the loading dock first.”
She led him around the venue for two and a half hours.
She showed him three service exits.
Four camera blind spots.
A faulty wall socket.
A delivery entrance that could be accessed from an alley.
She wasn’t showing off.
She was working.
Mateo watched his boss listen.
Daario Marquetti did not listen to people.
He waited for people to finish talking so he could tell them what he had already decided.
But with Isabella…
He listened.
The second reason was a menu tasting.
Grooms did not attend menu tastings.
Daario attended.
The chef was so nervous that he nearly dropped the first plate.
Isabella quietly refilled his water.
Then she asked him about the sauce.
The chef relaxed.
Later, between the fifth and sixth course, Isabella looked at Daario.
“You don’t like the salt on the fish.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You drank twice as much water during the fish as you did during the beef.”
Daario put his fork down.
“Are you always paying this much attention to what people eat?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s how I know if they’re happy.”
Daario looked at her.
“Am I happy?”
She considered the question.
“You’re not unhappy.”
“That’s different.”
“Very.”
He stared at her.
“You should be a diplomat.”
“I already am one.”
The third reason was a floral consultation.
This one went badly.
Daario didn’t know the difference between a peony and a hydrangea.
He admitted it within four minutes.
Isabella didn’t laugh.
Instead, she handed him gardening scissors and several stems.
“Build a centerpiece.”
He looked at her.
“Seriously?”
“Any way you want.”
Five minutes later, he presented his creation.
It was crooked.
Dense.
And objectively terrible.
Isabella stared at it.
“It’s terrible.”
“I know.”
“You’re very calm for someone who’s this bad at flowers.”
“You’re very rude for someone paid to be polite.”
“I’m not being rude.”
She adjusted one of the stems.
“I’m being accurate.”
Daario almost smiled.
That night, when he dropped her near her apartment, Isabella refused the car.
She walked down the sidewalk wearing her black cardigan, clipboard tucked beneath one arm.
The fluorescent light from a bakery made a soft halo around her brown hair.
Mateo watched her disappear around the corner.
Then he looked at his boss.
“Boss.”
“I know.”
“This is a problem.”
Daario stared through the windshield.
“Yes.”
He paused.
“The problem is that I don’t want it to stop.”
Chapter Four: The Cousin Who Was Too Kind
The problem became worse the following Thursday.
A man named Andres Vtori arrived at the venue.
He was Valentina’s cousin.
Thirty-four.
Unmarried.
Pleasant.
And, most dangerously of all, genuinely kind.
He asked Isabella if she’d sit with him at the hotel bar and go through the guest list over a drink.
She agreed.
Not because she knew he was interested.
She didn’t.
She agreed because it was efficient.
Because Andres was a Costa family principal.
And because after a fifteen-hour workday, doing paperwork at a bar instead of behind a desk meant one glass of wine she could nurse for two hours.
At 8:04 p.m., Daario Marquetti walked into the hotel bar.
He had no reason to be there.
At least, none that made sense.
He had told Mateo he was checking the venue’s adjacent facilities.
Mateo had wisely said nothing.
Daario stopped in the doorway.
Isabella was laughing.
Andres was leaning slightly toward her.
His hand rested casually against the edge of her sleeve.
Something changed in Daario’s face.
Mateo had seen that expression twice in twenty-two years.
Neither time had ended peacefully.
“Boss,” Mateo said quietly.
“Don’t.”
“You’re doing something with your jaw.”
Daario crossed the room.
Isabella looked up.
She smiled.
It was her usual professional smile.
“Don Marquetti.”
“Isabella.”
She gestured toward the empty chair.
“Would you like to join us?”
“We’re working through the Costa table assignments,” Andres explained.
Daario looked at him.
“Yes.”
He did not sit.
Instead, he asked Isabella whether the seating plan was on schedule.
She said yes.
Whether there were complications.
No.
Then he looked at Andres.
“Will you be staying in Milan long?”
“Only through the wedding.”
“Good.”
Andres smiled politely.
Daario did not.
He left five minutes later.
Once outside, he turned to Mateo.
“Call the hotel.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Arrange for Andres Vtori to stay at the family villa.”
Mateo blinked.
“For the duration of his visit?”
“Yes.”
“That’s two hours from the venue.”
“Then he’ll enjoy the countryside.”
Mateo looked at his boss.
“Of course.”
Daario walked away.
Mateo allowed himself a tiny smile.
He had just watched a wall come down.
And he knew better than to point at the dust.
Chapter Five: Aunt Rosaria Sees the Truth
Four days before the wedding, Isabella met Aunt Rosaria.
She was seventy-eight.
Sharp-tongued.
Stubborn.
And carried a cane she used as punctuation.
She had refused a wheelchair.
She had insisted on personally inspecting the ballroom.
“Someone in this family has to have taste,” she had announced.
Isabella met her at the entrance with a folding chair.
A bottle of water.
And a small cushion.
“For your hip, if you’d like it.”
Rosaria stared at her.
“If not, I’ll pretend I never mentioned it.”
The old woman sat.
Then she took Isabella’s hand in both of hers.
She examined it as if looking for evidence.
“Your name?”
“Isabella Ruiz.”
“Where are your people from?”
“My mother is from Naples. My father was from Cadiz.”
“Was?”
“He died when I was nine.”
“What did he do?”
“He was a butcher.”
“A good one?”
“The best.”
Rosaria nodded.
“And your mother?”
“She still cleans houses.”
“She refuses to stop?”
Isabella smiled.
“She refuses.”
Rosaria looked at her for a long moment.
Then she squeezed Isabella’s hand.
“Daario tells me you’re the reason his hotel didn’t burn down last November.”
Isabella blinked.
“The electrical short?”
“Yes.”
“I asked the electrician to reroute the sconces.”
“You saved him three million euros.”
“I did my job.”
Rosaria shook her head.
“That is not the same thing.”
Daario was standing in the doorway.
He had stopped moving.
His aunt did not hold hands with people she didn’t trust.
And she hadn’t looked this awake in six years.
Rosaria slowly turned toward him.
“You are marrying the wrong woman.”
Isabella’s hand went still.
Daario sighed.
“Zia…”
“I am not talking to you.”
“You are talking about me.”
“I am talking about the roses.”
She pointed her cane toward the centerpiece.
“The color is wrong.”
Daario glanced at Isabella.
She remained silent.
“She knows it,” Rosaria continued.
“She’s too polite to say.”
Isabella had, in fact, flagged the rose color three times.
Valentina had rejected her suggestion three times.
Rosaria pushed herself upright.
“Fix them.”
Isabella nodded.
“I will.”
Rosaria began walking away.
At the doorway, she stopped.
“Isabella.”
“Yes, Señora?”
“When my nephew makes a mistake…”
She looked directly at Daario.
“And he will.”
She turned back to Isabella.
“Do not fix it for him.”
Isabella swallowed.
“I understand.”
Rosaria nodded.
“Good.”
Then she left.
Silence remained.
Daario cleared his throat.
“About the roses.”
“I’ll change them.”
“Not the roses.”
He looked at her.
“The other thing.”
Isabella met his eyes.
She knew exactly what he meant.
“Don Marquetti, please don’t.”
Daario stared at her.
For the first time in his life, he wanted something he had no right to have.
And for the first time, he was beginning to understand that wanting it might not be enough.
Chapter Six: The Private Table
Two nights later, Daario asked Isabella to meet him at a private dining room in Milan.
He told her it was about the final vendor list.
She knew it wasn’t.
She arrived wearing a burgundy dress.
It was the first dress she had bought for herself in three years.
Daario noticed.
He stood when she entered.
He pulled out her chair.
He poured her wine.
He asked about her day.
And he listened.
Isabella had spent her working life around men who didn’t stand up.
Men who didn’t pour wine.
Men who didn’t listen.
So she knew exactly what was happening.
“This isn’t about vendors,” she said.
“No.”
“You’re marrying Valentina Costa in eleven days.”
“I know.”
“Then whatever this is…”
She placed her glass down.
“It cannot be.”
Daario was quiet.
Then he said:
“I know.”
He took a breath.
“I need you to listen anyway.”
Isabella folded her hands.
He began.
“I’m marrying Valentina because the marriage was arranged between our families when I was twenty-four.”
He looked down at the table.
“Breaking it now would be an act of war.”
Isabella said nothing.
“I don’t love her.”
He swallowed.
“She doesn’t love me.”
“She loves the idea of being my wife.”
He looked at Isabella.
“That’s different.”
Isabella’s expression remained calm.
Daario continued.
“In six weeks, you have never once treated me like my name meant anything.”
He smiled faintly.
“You gave me water at eleven in the morning because I looked warm.”
“You taped ivy beneath a table with your back to me.”
“You told me I was rude.”
“You told me I was terrible at flowers.”
“You’ve made me stand in a boutique and be dismissed by my own fiancée.”
He paused.
“And you didn’t enjoy it.”
His voice softened.
“Which is somehow worse.”
Isabella looked away.
“I am not asking you to stop the wedding.”
He leaned back.
“I’m not asking you to run away with me.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
He looked directly into her eyes.
“So when you stand at the back of that ballroom on the eighteenth and hand my aunt her cushion and my bride her bouquet…”
His voice became almost a whisper.
“You’ll know that I know what you are.”
Isabella’s heart beat faster.
“And what am I?”
Daario answered immediately.
“The only person I’ve met in years who doesn’t want anything from me.”
Silence.
Isabella looked down at her hands.
“You should not have told me.”
“I know.”
“It would have been kinder not to.”
“I know.”
She stood.
Smoothed the burgundy dress.
Then looked at him.
“Daario.”
His head lifted at the sound of his first name.
“Marry her.”
He stared at her.
“Give her the wedding.”
She took a breath.
“Give her the years.”
“Be kind to her.”
She stepped toward the door.
“And if, in ten years, you are still the man who told me this tonight…”
She looked back.
“Write to me.”
Daario said nothing.
“Not before.”
She left.
The door closed.
Daario sat alone beneath the candlelight.
For several minutes, he didn’t move.
When Mateo eventually entered, he found his boss sitting with both hands covering his face.
Mateo said nothing.
He simply poured himself a glass of wine and sat across from him.
After a long silence, Daario lowered his hands.
Mateo looked at him.
“She’s right.”
Daario stared at the table.
“I know.”
“The wedding is in six days.”
“I know.”
And for the first time, the most feared man in three provinces looked completely helpless.
Because he had finally found the woman he wanted.
And she was the one woman he could not allow himself to take.
