Red Card to Your Heart: You Don't Deserve My Love Extra Time novel Chapter 29

I threatened to leave, so Salvatore imprisoned me in our villa, surrounding the perimeter with additional guards who answered only to him. My gilded cage grew smaller.

Then, as a twisted peace offering, he had Carina brought before me. Without a word, he left her fate entirely in my hands.

She appeared thinner than before, somewhat disheveled—her designer clothes rumpled, her perfectly styled hair now limp. Yet when she looked at me, her eyes still burned with the same venom. No true suffering had touched her soul.

I knew Salvatore hadn't allowed anyone to break her. People who have experienced genuine suffering lose that particular gleam of entitlement in their eyes.

I approached Carina with unhurried steps, my bare feet silent against the marble floor. With practiced calm, I withdrew my gun and pressed the cold barrel against her stomach—precisely where my child had been growing when I was shot.

"You owe me two bullets," I said, my voice soft as falling snow. "One for me, and one for my child."

Carina's jaw tightened. "You won't do shit," she spat, looking past me to where Salvatore sat. "You don't have the fucking balls. Everyone knows your precious husband won't let anything happen to me."

From my peripheral vision, I saw Salvatore lounging on the leather sofa, watching us with detached interest, his expression unreadable. He sipped his whiskey, offering neither encouragement nor restraint.

Once, I would have looked to him for permission.

Once, I would have waited obediently for his decree.

Not anymore.

I pulled the trigger with no hesitation.

The metallic click echoed through the room. Everyone flinched—even Salvatore, who lurched forward, hand outstretched as if to intervene.

The gun hadn't fired. I hadn't loaded it.

Carina's face transformed, arrogance draining away like water down a drain, replaced by naked terror. Her carefully constructed facade crumbled completely.

Salvatore's eyebrow arched slightly. The small movement told me he was considering intervention—the last flicker of his misplaced loyalty to her.

Before he could speak, I gently touched my stomach, my voice dropping to a fragile whisper.

"You know, Salvatore," I said, looking up at him with carefully measured vulnerability, "I've endured so much pain for you over the years that sometimes I wonder if I even remember what it feels like to be unbroken."

I took his hand and placed it over my still-healing wound. "If you truly can't bear to see Carina suffer, I understand. I'll take whatever punishment was meant for her." My voice caught deliberately. "I only grieve for our baby—that tiny heartbeat that so desperately wanted to meet its father."

Something shifted in Salvatore's expression—something primal and protective. He dropped to one knee before me, cradling my face between his hands as if I were made of porcelain.

"Isabella," he murmured, his thumbs brushing away tears I hadn't realized I'd shed, "whoever you want dead, I'll approve. Whatever you desire, it's yours."

His gaze flicked to Carina's prostrate form without emotion, as if she were merely furniture. "Your happiness is all that matters to me now."