Chapter Two #2
The gate closed behind them.
Her mouth tightened.
The drive wound through dense trees before Northglass emerged above the coastline, pale stone and dark glass rising across several connected wings, exterior lights warming the walls without disguising the scale of the place.
Beyond the terraces, the Atlantic stretched black beneath the cloud cover, waves breaking white against rocks far below.
Isolde stared through the window. “Please tell me this isn't where you live.”
“It is.”
“You've got to be kidding.”
“No.”
“This is where you're keeping me.”
“For now.”
She gave a quiet laugh without humor. “I think part of me expected a warehouse.”
“There are warehouses.”
“That doesn't help.”
“I wasn't trying to help.”
“I know. You're remarkably consistent about that.”
The sedan stopped beneath the front portico.
Luca came around to open Taddeo's door, but by the time Taddeo stepped out, Isolde had already reached for her own handle as soon as the locks disengaged.
She pushed the door open before anyone could touch it and stepped onto the drive, pulling her coat more tightly around herself as wind came hard off the sea.
Taddeo walked around the car and found her looking up at the house.
She didn't appear impressed.
Most people reacted to Northglass with some combination of admiration, envy, curiosity, or calculation.
Isolde looked unsettled by it. Taddeo understood why.
A basement cell would have preserved the categories she expected.
Concrete walls, chains, guards, violence—those things made captivity easy to identify.
Northglass complicated the appearance without changing the fact.
The front door opened before they reached the steps.
Elettra Viani stood inside the entrance hall wearing charcoal trousers and a gray cardigan, her silver-streaked hair pulled neatly back.
She had managed Northglass for nearly sixteen years and possessed the rare ability to respect Taddeo's authority while making her disapproval of his decisions obvious enough to qualify as conversation.
Her gaze went first to Isolde.
Then to the pull in the shoulder of her coat.
Then to Taddeo.
He knew that look.
He gave her one in return that meant not now.
Elettra ignored it.
“You must be Ms. Dacre.”
“Apparently.” Isolde stepped into the warmth of the hall and looked around before returning her attention to Elettra. “And you are?”
“Elettra Viani. I manage the house.”
Isolde glanced toward Taddeo. “Are you also being kept here against your will?”
One of Elettra's eyebrows rose.
Taddeo looked away briefly.
“No,” Elettra said, taking Isolde's coat when she finally removed it. “I'm very well compensated.”
“That's reassuring for at least one person.”
“It has its advantages.”
The exchange came too easily.
Taddeo decided immediately that this was going to become inconvenient.
“Your room is upstairs.”
Isolde looked toward the staircase. “My room.”
“The room you're sleeping in.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
She followed him without pretending willingness. Her attention moved constantly as they crossed the hall—doors, windows, corridor intersections, the camera above the western arch. She registered everything and tried not to make the observation obvious.
Taddeo let her.
The east guest suite had been prepared that afternoon with clean linens, water, toiletries, and enough clothing to keep her from needing anything immediately. He stepped aside as Elettra opened the door.
Isolde entered several feet, looked once around the bedroom, then toward the partly open dressing room.
The clothes were visible from where she stood.
Her body became very still.
She turned slowly. “How do you know my size?”
There was no useful lie.
“We estimated.”
“From what?”
“Information we collected.”
Her eyes hardened. “You researched my clothing size.”
“We researched you.”
Elettra gave Taddeo a look that suggested she had several opinions about that sentence.
Isolde looked toward the dressing room again. “So while I was at work, someone was buying clothes because you'd already decided I wasn't going home tonight.”
“Yes.”
“That's deeply fucking creepy.”
“I'm aware.”
“Good. I was worried we might disagree about that too.”
Taddeo almost smiled.
She caught it.
Her glare sharpened enough to make him regret the impulse.
“What happens now?” She crossed farther into the room and leaned one hip against the desk beneath the window, folding her arms loosely.
“Tonight, you sleep.”
“That seems optimistic.”
“It's still what I'd recommend.”
“And tomorrow?”
“We talk about Corwin.”
“You question me about Corwin.”
“If that's how you want to describe it.”
“I want to describe things accurately.”
Taddeo stayed near the doorway. “Then let's be accurate about the rest too. There are rules you need to understand.”
Isolde looked toward the hall as though confirming the exit remained open. “Go ahead.”
“You don't leave the property without me or someone I authorize. You don't contact police. If Corwin reaches you, you tell me. You don't try to contact him secretly. My office and any locked rooms are off-limits, and if security tells you an area is restricted, you stay out of it.”
She listened without interrupting, then let her arms fall. “So they're prison rules.”
“Yes.”
That answer reached her more deeply than the rules had.
He saw it.
She had expected him to soften the language. To insist she was a guest, or say she was here for her protection, or wrap captivity in enough comfort that they could both pretend the word no longer applied.
Taddeo wasn't going to do that.
She was not a guest.
She was leverage.
Isolde looked toward the ocean beyond the windows before returning her attention to him. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“No.”
“Your men?”
“No.”
“What happens if somebody decides I'm more useful frightened?”
“No one here will harm you.”
She studied his face carefully. “You realize you've already harmed me.”
Taddeo said nothing.
She gestured vaguely toward the doorway, the house, perhaps the entire night. “You took me off the street. You brought me somewhere I can't leave. You don't get to define harm as only the things you personally consider unacceptable.”
The criticism was accurate.
Arguing with it would only make him dishonest.
“I understand the distinction.”
“I'm not sure you do.”
“That doesn't change the answer.” He held her gaze. “No one here is permitted to hurt you.”
For several seconds she looked as if she might push the argument farther, then seemed to decide there was nowhere useful to take it tonight.
Elettra crossed to the small table near the windows and adjusted the water carafe. “There's food downstairs if you want something. I can bring a tray up instead.”
“I'm not hungry.”
“You may be later.”
“I probably won't be.”
Elettra shrugged. “Then you can ignore it later.”
Some of the strain left Isolde's posture. “Thank you.”
“I'll leave water either way.”
Elettra stepped into the hallway.
Taddeo remained where he was.
After several seconds, Isolde looked at him. “Do you need something else?”
“No.”
“Then why are you still here?”
He should have left.
Instead, he found himself looking at the exhaustion beginning to show beneath the anger, the way one hand rested against the desk as though needing something solid beneath it.
“Your brother is alive as far as we know.”
Her expression changed immediately. “How would you know?”
“We haven't found evidence otherwise.”
“That isn't the same thing as knowing.”
“No.”
She looked down briefly. “Have you actually looked?”
“Yes.”
“How hard?”
“Very.”
The answer seemed to take something out of her. Isolde moved toward the window and stared at the dark ocean, one arm folded across her middle while her other hand touched the edge of the curtain.
Taddeo watched her for a moment, then turned toward the door.
“Taddeo.”
He stopped.
It was the first time she'd used his name.
When he looked back, she remained near the window with the Atlantic behind her, dark enough to blur into the sky. Her anger hadn't disappeared, but exhaustion had stripped some of its sharper edges.
“What happens if Corwin never comes back?”
Taddeo had answers for most problems that entered his life.
Money could be recovered. Territory could be defended. Betrayal could be punished. Failed plans could be replaced with better ones.
The answer to this should have been equally simple.
If Corwin never returned, the leverage failed.
Failed leverage was useless.
But Isolde was not an account or a shipment being held until someone met a condition. She was a woman standing inside a room she had not chosen, asking whether he intended to keep her indefinitely because someone else had disappeared.
He could have lied.
A week. A month. Until they confirmed something about Corwin. Until Cesare decided otherwise.
Any of those answers might have made the night easier for her.
None would have been true.
“I don't know.”
Isolde held his gaze for several seconds. Then she nodded once and turned back toward the sea.
“That,” she said quietly, “is what I was afraid you were going to say.”
Taddeo stepped into the hallway and pulled the door mostly closed behind him.
He didn't lock it.
He already knew she would check.