Chapter 20
Izzy
We've been back in Brooklyn for three days—long enough to establish that Matthew's surveillance is dead, not long enough to feel safe.
"Your mother's at her townhouse. Alone."
Wesley's voice through the phone. Three words that make my fingers tighten around the mug of coffee I'm not drinking.
I'm standing in Sergei's kitchen, wearing his shirt from yesterday and absolutely nothing else, staring at my laptop screen. Bank transfers. Hotel receipts. Phone records spanning fifteen goddamn years.
My mother and Uncle Matthew.
Fifteen years of hotel rooms while Dad worked late, completely oblivious.
"She’s alone as in 'Matthew just left' or alone as in ‘staff dismissed, about to flee the country?'"
"First one. He left an hour ago. Staff's still there." Papers rustle—Wesley's always rustling papers like he's auditioning for a noir detective film. "Izzy, I found the smoking gun. The Cayman account I told you about—the one that paid Olegov?"
"Matthew's shell company. I remember."
"It's not just Matthew's." He pauses, letting that land. "Joint account. Both their names. Catherine Davenport and Matthew Ashford. Two million bucks wired to Ivan Olegov five days before the explosion."
I set down the mug before I drop it.
I've known Matthew killed Dad since Wesley traced the Olegov payment weeks ago.
I've known Mother was sleeping with him since I watched them at Circo, her hand on his arm like she had every right to touch him.
I thought she was complicit in the cover-up—guilty of betrayal, guilty of choosing her lover over her daughter.
But I thought she was a bystander. Willfully blind, maybe. Morally bankrupt, definitely.
Her name on that account changes everything.
She didn't just cheat on my father. She helped fund his assassination.
"I'm going to talk to her."
Silence. The kind that screams, this is a spectacularly bad idea.
"Isabelle—"
"I have enough to bury Matthew. But this?" I stare at the evidence on my screen—my mother's signature next to a wire transfer that paid for my father's death. "I need to know if she knew. Not suspected. Knew. I need to hear her say it."
"Then take your husband. The man who literally kills people professionally—"
"This is between her and me." I'm already moving toward the stairs, needing real clothes, needing armor. "Mother to daughter. Woman to woman. Accomplice to the person who's about to prove it."
The recording device Wesley's tech guy gave me yesterday sits heavily in my jacket pocket. Sophisticated enough that even Bratva sweeps wouldn't detect it. I don't just need a confrontation—I need her confession. On tape. Undeniable.
"You're going to get yourself killed."
"Only if she's faster than I am."
I hang up before he can list all the ways that this is suicidal.
Footsteps on the stairs. Sergei appears in the doorway, silver-threaded hair still messy from sleep, wearing nothing but grey sweatpants.
The universe has terrible timing.
"Where are you going?" His voice is rough with sleep, but his eyes are sharp, already reading my expression.
"Mother's townhouse." I don't stop moving, pulling a bra from the drawer with more violence than strictly necessary. "Wesley found the proof I needed. Her name is on the account that paid Olegov. She didn't just know about the murder—she helped fund it."
"Okay."
I freeze, bra halfway on. "Okay?"
"Not alone, but okay." He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. "You want to confront the woman who helped murder your father, I'm not letting you do that solo."
"She's my mother. She won't—"
"She's sleeping with the man who put a sniper on my daughter." His voice goes cold. That particular cold that means The Wolf is awake. "She doesn't get the benefit of maternal instinct."
He's right. I hate that he's right.
"Fine. You come. But you stay in the car." I yank on jeans, trying to look less like I rolled out of bed and more like I'm capable of psychological warfare. "She sees you, she'll use it. Say I'm being controlled, manipulated."
"Thirty minutes. If you're not out—"
"You come in, I know." I cross to him, press up on my toes, kiss him fast and hard. "I'll be careful."
"You've never been careful in your life, kotyonok."
Fair.
The drive takes forty-five minutes through midday traffic. I spend every second reviewing the evidence on my phone.
The joint account. The wire transfer. Her signature next to his.
My mother helped kill my father, and I'm about to make her admit it.
The lighter's warm in my palm. I flip it open, closed, open, closed. Marco doesn't comment on the fact that I'm playing with fire in his back seat.
He's worked for my family long enough to know when silence is kindness.
Mother's townhouse rises ahead—five stories of white stone and money so old, it's practically inherited guilt.
Sergei's SUV idles at the curb. He taps his watch through the window.
Thirty minutes.
I nod and climb the steps.
I check the recording device one last time—activated, running, ready to capture everything—before I push open the unlocked door.
The foyer echoes. No Charles. No staff. Just expensive silence and the distant sound of—
Is she crying?
I follow it to the drawing room.
Mother's not on her usual throne. She's at the window, her back to the door, shoulders shaking in a way I've never seen. She's wearing cream Chanel, but her hair's down. Loose.
Catherine Davenport doesn't do loose hair.
"Mother?"
She spins. Mascara streaked. Eyes swollen. Lipstick chewed off. She looks like she's aged a decade since last week.
She looks human.
I almost feel sorry for her.
Almost.
"Isabelle." Her voice cracks. "I wondered when you'd come."
"You knew I'd figure it out."
"You're Richard's daughter." She laughs, wet and broken. "Of course you figured it out. You're relentless when you want answers."
"Fifteen years. You and Matthew." I move closer, watching her face. "That I knew. I watched you two together at Circo. Saw the way you touched him. The way he looked at you like he owned you."
Her face pales further. "You were at Circo?"
"Your name on the Cayman account. That's what I didn't know until this morning." I let the words land like bullets. "Joint account. Your signature on the wire transfer that paid Ivan Olegov two million dollars to murder my father."
She sways slightly, gripping the back of the settee.
"You weren't just having an affair. You weren't just complicit in the cover-up. You helped fund the hit, Mother. Your money. Your signature. Your hands are just as bloody as Matthew's."
"You don't understand—"
"Then help me understand." I close the distance between us, forcing her to either hold her ground or retreat.
She retreats. "I knew Matthew killed Dad.
I've known for weeks. But I thought you were just a coward who looked the other way.
This proves you were a partner. So explain it to me.
Explain how you signed your name to my father's death warrant. "
"It wasn't like that—the account was Matthew's idea—I didn't know what it would be used for."
"Bullshit." I pull out my phone, queue up the bank records. "Your signature. Dated three months before the explosion. You helped set up the account that would later pay for Dad's murder. You knew what Matthew was planning."
"I didn't—" She presses her hand to her mouth. "I didn't want him dead. Not at first. You have to believe that."
"Not at first." I let the words hang between us. "But eventually?"
Her silence is its own confession.
"When did you find out, Mother? Before the boat? After? When did you realize your lover had killed your husband and decide to keep your mouth shut?"
"He found out." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Richard. About us. Two weeks before—" She stops.
I sink into the nearest chair, letting the weight of it settle. This is what I came for. This is the missing piece—why Matthew moved when he did.
"Dad found out about the affair. That's why Matthew killed him."
"Richard was going to destroy everything. Not just the affair—he found discrepancies in the books. Money Matthew had been skimming. The affair would've been scandal, but the embezzlement?" She laughs bitterly. "That would've meant prison. For both of us."
"You were stealing from Dad's company."
"We were protecting our future. Matthew said Richard was going to give it all away—his ridiculous philanthropic fantasies, funding shelters and programs instead of building the legacy—"
"So you stole from him. And when he found out, you let Matthew silence him permanently."
"I didn't let anything!" She rounds on me, real emotion cracking through the perfect facade. "I told Matthew to leave you alone, that we could find another way, that Richard might be reasoned with—"
"But he couldn't be reasoned with, could he?
Because Dad had integrity. Something you've never understood.
" I stand, squaring off with her. "So Matthew made the call.
And you—you signed the account that made it possible.
Then you stood at the funeral wearing black Chanel and pearls, and you held my hand, and you never said a goddamn word. "
"What was I supposed to say? That I suspected my lover had killed my husband? That I'd helped set up the account without knowing what it would be used for?"
"You knew, Mother. Maybe not the details. Maybe not the date. But you knew Matthew was capable of this. You knew he was planning something. And you did nothing to stop it."
Her eyes narrow suddenly, some survival instinct finally kicking in. "You're recording this conversation."
"Every word." I don't bother denying it. "From the moment I walked through your door."
"You set me up." Her laugh is hollow. Broken. "My own daughter set me up."
"You helped murder my father." I meet her gaze without flinching. "Setting you up seems like the least I could do."
She collapses onto the settee, suddenly boneless. All the fight draining out of her.
"I loved him once," she whispers. "Richard. Before Matthew. Before everything got so complicated. I did love him."
"Not enough. Not enough to stay faithful. Not enough to let him live. Not even enough to protect your daughter when your choices came back to haunt her."
"Isabelle, please—" She reaches for me, but I step back, putting the furniture between us. "Whatever you think you know—"
"I know you helped kill my father." I pull out the lighter, Dad's presence solid in my palm.
"I know you've been sleeping with his murderer for fifteen years.
I know you tried to force me into marriage with Cal Reznick to keep me controllable.
And I know you've been helping Matthew try to kill me because I'm the only threat left. "
"I never wanted you hurt—that was all Matthew—"
"Was it? The men at the Plaza. The attacks on the safe house. The sniper that almost killed my stepdaughter. You're telling me you had no idea?"
Her silence stretches too long.
"That's what I thought." I flip the lighter open, watching flame catch in the dim room.
"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to stay away from me, from Sergei, from Mila.
You're going to pray the evidence I have—including this recording—doesn't end up with Detective Fraser before you can flee the country. "
"You wouldn't." But her voice wavers. "I'm your mother."
"My mother died the day she helped kill my father." I close the lighter, pocketing it. "You're just the woman wearing her face."
I turn toward the door.
"When he hurts you," she calls after me, voice raw with desperation, "and he will, they always do—don't come crying to me."
"If Sergei wanted to hurt me, I'd already be dead.
" I stop at the doorway, looking back one last time.
"And when the evidence convicts you both?
When your affair and conspiracy become public record?
When every society friend you've cultivated for thirty years turns their back on you?
" I let my smile turn cold. "Don't come crying to me either. "
Her face crumbles completely. Real tears tracking through foundation, pearls clutched in white-knuckled hands.
"I was trying to protect you. In my own way. I was trying—"
"You were trying to protect yourself. That's all you've ever done." I step through the doorway. "Goodbye, Catherine. I hope prison teaches you something about consequences."
I don't wait for her response. Instead, I leave, firmly closing the door behind me.
The girl who wanted her mother's approval died with Richard Davenport.
What's left is someone sharper. Harder. Dangerous.
The drive back to Brooklyn is silent, except for rain pattering against the windows. Sergei's hand finds mine on the center console, squeezing once before releasing.
"Got what you needed?"
"Everything. On tape." I touch the recorder in my pocket, proof of betrayal captured in digital silence. "She admitted knowing about Matthew's plan. Admitted the account. Admitted she suspected what would happen and stayed silent anyway."
"That's enough to bury her."
"More than enough." I stare out at grey streets blurring past. "She tried to justify it. Said Dad was going to destroy everything—expose the affair, the embezzlement, all of it."
"So Matthew killed him to protect their secrets."
"And she let him. Helped him, even if she wants to pretend she didn't know exactly what that account was for." My hand finds the lighter in my pocket, seeking comfort in familiar metal. "She's not the victim here. She keeps trying to play that role, but she made choices. Every single one led here."
"What are you going to do with the recording?"
I consider the question. Part of me wants to send everything to Detective Fraser immediately—watch Mother led away in handcuffs, watch her perfect world crumble. But that's revenge, not strategy. And I've learned the difference from the dangerous man beside me.
"Not yet." I turn to face him. "She's leverage now. She knows I can destroy her. That keeps her docile while we handle Matthew. Once he's finished, once the trials are over—then I decide what to do about Catherine Davenport."
"Smart." His eyes meet mine briefly before returning to the road. "You're thinking three moves ahead."
"I learned from the best."
His mouth curves slightly. "The Wolf's been teaching his wife bad habits."
"The best habits." I lean across the console, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "Take me home. I need to decompress before we plan the next move."
Home. The word feels right now. Not my penthouse with its cold marble and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a park I can't enjoy. Sergei's fortress in Brooklyn, with its hidden security and warm rugs, and a little girl who calls me Mom.
That's home.
And I'll burn down anyone who threatens it.
Including the woman who gave me life.
Especially her.