Chapter 1
The sterile scent of the hospital brought me comfort. While most people linked it to illness and despair, I saw it as a place of quiet purpose. Every three months, like clockwork, I, Isabella Rossi, would sit in a worn pleather chair with a needle in my arm, watching my dark crimson blood fill the donation bag. It was a small act, a quiet contribution to a world that often felt overwhelmingly loud and cruel.
My blood type, Rh-null, was so rare that it earned the nickname "golden blood." The nurses treated me like a celebrity. Their gratitude was clear. “You’re a lifesaver, Bella,” they’d say. I would smile and shrug. It cost me nothing but about an hour.
“All done,” the nurse said, skillfully removing the needle and pressing a cotton ball to my arm. “Juice and cookies are waiting for you.”
I had just started to slide off the chair when the calm of the donation center broke apart. The double doors swung open and a team of frantic doctors and nurses rushed by, pushing a gurney. A man lay on it, his face ghostly white and his expensive suit torn and bloodstained. The heart monitor beeped in panic, matching the chaos.
“Multiple GSWs, massive hemorrhaging! We’re losing him! We need O-neg, now!” a surgeon shouted.
Another doctor, checking a chart, muttered a curse. “He’s not O-neg! He’s Rh-null! Get the reserves, check the registry, do something!”
My blood ran cold. Rh-null. The same as mine.
Maria, the head nurse from the blood bank, heard the urgency. Her eyes widened as she focused on me. The unspoken question hung in the air. The man on the gurney was dying. My blood—circulating in my veins—was likely the only thing in the whole city that could save him.
Before she could ask, I was nodding. “Yes. Whatever you need.”
There was no time for paperwork or protocols. They rushed me into a private room, and within minutes, another needle was in my other arm, this time for an emergency transfusion. I didn’t know who the man was, but as I lay there, listening to the frantic voices from the operating theater down the hall, I prayed for him. I hoped this small gift from a stranger would give him a second chance.
An hour later, drained but steady, I walked out into the corridor. The frantic energy had faded into a tense silence. Leaning against the wall by the operating room was a man who seemed carved from stone. He was tall and broad, dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit that could not hide the sheer strength in his build. His jaw was tight, and his expression unreadable. Yet, his presence was so powerful that it seemed to suck the air from the hallway. He looked like a guardian, watching over everything. Our eyes met for a fleeting second, and a strange shiver ran down my spine. I averted my gaze quickly and hurried toward the exit, the image of that stoic man etched in my mind.
For the next three days, I faced a study in anxiety. It was not about the man in the hospital; it was all about my best friend, Aria Valenti. She was gone.
It started subtly. I missed her morning text. Then she skipped our Jurisprudence lecture. I called her phone, but it went straight to voicemail. I told myself she was busy; maybe she had spent the night at the library or with that art student she’d been flirting with. But when I returned to our small off-campus apartment that evening, her bed was untouched. Her textbook lay open on her desk, a pen marking her place mid-sentence.
Aria wouldn't just leave without a word. We weren’t just roommates; we were sisters in every way that counted. We met in our first year, two foreign students—me from South America, her from a quiet corner of Italy—lost in a new country. We bonded instantly over late-night study sessions, cheap wine, and our mutual disdain for the city’s most notorious billionaire, Dante Moretti.
His face was on every magazine cover; his name was whispered in classrooms and boardrooms with a mix of awe and fear. He was a ruthless titan, a predator who built his empire on the remains of his competitors. We had spent countless hours debating his latest hostile takeover, with me venting about his lack of ethics and Aria listening thoughtfully, sometimes looking almost sad. She hated what he represented as much as I did.
By the fourth day, worry turned into pure, gut-wrenching fear. I called her family back in Italy—the number she had given me for her “aunt”—but it was disconnected. I filed a missing person’s report, but the police brushed me off. "She's 22, miss," the officer said, exasperated. "She's probably on a weekend trip. She'll turn up."
I knew better. Something was wrong.
I was walking back from the police station, my mind racing with worst-case scenarios, when a sleek black sedan pulled up beside me. The engine purred softly. The back window rolled down, and my heart stopped.
It was the man from the hospital. The stone-faced guardian.
“Isabella Rossi,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. It wasn’t a question.
I tightened my grip on my bag. “Who are you? Are you following me?”
He ignored my questions, his gaze steady. "My boss would like to see you."
I scoffed, anger bubbling up. “Your boss? I don’t know you or your boss. Leave me alone.”
I turned to walk away, quickening my steps. I expected him to get out of the car, to grab my arm, to do anything. But he didn’t. The car just followed me silently.
“He knows you’re looking for Aria Valenti,” the man called out.
I froze, my back to him. Every muscle in my body tensed. How did he know that? How did he know Aria’s name?
I turned back slowly. My fear fought with a sliver of hope. “What do you know about Aria?”
The man’s face remained impassive, but his eyes held a flicker of something—maybe pity. “My boss has the answers you need. He is waiting.”
I hated this situation. I hated the feeling of powerlessness, of being manipulated. But the thought of Aria, alone and possibly in trouble, overshadowed everything else. Swallowing my pride and fear, I walked to the car and got in. I had no idea that I was stepping into a world of gilded cages and dangerous secrets, a world ruled by the very man I despised most.
