Chapter Fourteen #3
“One annotation references L. Ardizzi with a question mark. It says the access window was inconsistent and calls the person a possible intermediary, not the source.”
She turned.
“Lelio?”
“Possibly.”
“And M.C.?”
Taddeo had expected her to notice immediately.
“Corwin wrote ‘check M.C. freight overlap before conclusion.’ Mauro Corsi fits the initials. That is not proof he meant Mauro.”
Isolde looked out toward the ocean again.
“So my brother stole eight point four million dollars, found almost twenty-five million being siphoned somewhere else, suspected at least one Bellandi capo, maybe another, hid evidence in a book he gave me, disappeared, and now somebody is sending armed men into my workplace.”
“Yes.”
“You make it sound very organized when you list it.”
“It isn’t.”
“No.” Her voice thinned slightly. “It really isn’t.”
Taddeo took one step toward her.
Then stopped.
He wanted to touch her. The impulse came with the same force that had driven him to cover her body at the museum and inspect her for blood three separate times afterward.
He wanted to put his hands on her shoulders, turn her toward him, tell her Corwin’s actions could still have a reason that was not greed, that the larger conspiracy changed what the theft meant, that nothing in the archive suggested Corwin wanted Isolde hurt.
Every comforting point available to him was also a way to shape the truth until it became easier for her to accept.
Isolde looked toward the space between them.
She noticed that he had stopped.
That almost made staying where he was harder.
“I want to be alone,” she said.
Every instinct in Taddeo objected.
He ignored them.
“All right.”
She did not turn around.
Taddeo crossed toward the door.
His hand had nearly reached the handle when she spoke again.
“Did you consider not telling me?”
He looked back.
Her face was still turned toward the windows.
“Yes.”
Her shoulders tightened.
Taddeo continued before silence allowed her to imagine a kinder version of the answer.
“I thought about waiting until we understood why he took the money. There were reasons I could have used. You were attacked yesterday. You barely slept. We know now that he was investigating something much larger.”
Isolde turned slowly. “Why didn’t you?”
The question held no sarcasm.
Taddeo could have made the answer sound principled.
He could have told her she deserved transparency or that withholding evidence would interfere with the investigation.
Both things were true.
Neither was the reason that mattered.
“Because deciding which version of your brother you were allowed to know would have been another thing I took from you.”
For several seconds, Isolde simply looked at him.
The hurt remained, but something changed around it.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition, perhaps.
She gave a small nod. “I still want to be alone.”
“I heard you.”
This time, the faintest movement touched her mouth despite everything.
Taddeo left and closed the library door quietly.
He remained in the corridor for several seconds afterward, one hand still resting on the knob, because respecting a boundary became considerably less abstract when every part of him wanted to cross it.
Then he went back to his office.
Orsino waited inside with Corwin’s annotation on the desk and his reading glasses low on his nose. He took one look at Taddeo’s face and set aside the folder he had been reading.
“How did she take it?”
“Badly.”
“I would have been surprised by anything else.” Orsino leaned back. “Did she ask you to leave?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Taddeo gave him a flat look. “I left.”
Orsino’s mouth curved. “I was only asking.”
“You were preparing commentary.”
“I usually am.”
“Keep it to yourself.”
“That seems unlikely.”
Taddeo picked up the printed annotation instead of answering.
The words had not changed.
L. Ardizzi?
A question mark.
Suspicion.
Not enough to accuse Lelio of anything, much less move against a capo who had served Cesare for years.
Below it sat the second note.
M.C. freight overlap.
Mauro Corsi fit as neatly as Lelio did.
Orsino removed his glasses. “We tell Cesare tonight.”
“Yes.”
“All of it.”
Taddeo looked toward the wall separating his office from the rest of the house, although the library was too far away for him to hear Isolde.
“Yes.”
Orsino heard the hesitation but, unusually, chose not to comment.
Taddeo slid the page back into the secure folder.
Corwin Dacre had become more guilty and more useful in the same morning.
The man had stolen $8.4 million from the Bellandis, but he had also uncovered evidence that someone inside their own structure had been siphoning nearly three times that amount before he ever arrived.
His notes pointed toward men Taddeo had known for years without proving either one had done anything, and the attack on the museum suggested whoever Corwin frightened was still close enough to Bellandi operations to learn where Isolde would be.
The investigation had become wider.
The danger had become closer.
And somewhere down the hall, Isolde was alone because she had asked to be.
For once, Taddeo understood that protecting her did not mean following.