Ernesto Toscano was a wealthy business man and was once an old friend of Victor Kiriakis and he was the father of Marina Toscano, and hid a dark secret about his other daughter Isabella.
In a plot to destroy the life of his arch-nemesis Victor Kiriakis and try to recover his wife's diary, Ernesto kidnapped Bo Brady. Ernesto had planned to trade the identities of Bo Brady and renegade ISA agent Johnny Corelli. Bo, however, had other plans. Bo convinced Johnny not to go along with the plan. Bo was released and sent to Salem to recover the diary. Johnny Corelli, who everyone thought was the real Bo, managed to escape Ernesto and also fled to Salem.
Still without the diary of his late wife Loretta, Ernesto planned a cruise in which he plotted to pay back all his enemies and recover the diary. Ernesto invited Roman II/John Black, Isabella, Victor Kiriakis, Julie Willaims, Jack Devereaux, Jennifer Horton, and Bo and Hope Brady. Onboard the ship, Ernesto was reunited with his daughter Isabella. Their host was a mystery to all but Victor, who knew Ernesto well. Deciding that the truth had to be known, Jack returned the missing pages of Ernesto's diary to Isabella. Isabella learned that she was Victor's child. Isabella told this to her father and then confessed to killing Marina. Ernesto claimed he did not love her any less, but secretly he despised her and felt she truly was the daughter of Kiriakis. Ernesto escaped his ship with Isabella and fled to a nearby Island. There he held Isabella prisoner and slowly poisoned her as he had done to her mother. A bomb exploded aboard the cruise ship and miraculously the passengers found their way to the island. On the island, Jack and Jennifer made love. Roman II/John Black sought to find Isabella because he knew she would be in grave danger. John and Bo set out to search the island and Hope followed Bo against his wishes. John made it to Toscano's house and rescued Isabella. However, Ernesto had captured Hope and was holding her prison. Everyone was lured to a cave where Ernesto held Hope with him in a cage that suspended a vat of acid. Ernesto offered Bo the chance to save Hope if he could convince him that she should be spared. Bo made a moving speech to Hope, but it failed to move Ernesto. Suddenly and explosion occurred which sent the cage crashing down into the vat of acid. Both Ernesto and Hope vanished and were declared dead after hours of searching the island. Shane eventually arrived and everyone was escorted back to Salem.
Loretta Toscano was the wife of Ernesto and mother to Marina and Isabella. Loretta had and affair with her husbands dear friend Victor Kiriakis, and as a result became pregnant with his child. She wrote about all this in her diary, but after Isabella was born her jealous husband Ernesto slowly poisoned her with arsenic. After she was dead Ernesto raised Isabella as his own and hid his wife's diary so nobody would ever know the truth.