Chapter Eighteen #2
He reminded her of the afternoon she got her first period at twelve and locked herself in the upstairs bathroom because two girls from school had noticed blood on her skirt.
Corwin had gone to the pharmacy, bought three completely different kinds of pads because he had no idea what he was doing, and left a Crunch bar outside the door while informing her through the wood that Anna Keller's eyebrows were uneven enough to invalidate any opinion she had about anyone else's body.
Isolde covered her mouth.
She had never told anyone the full story. Not Linnea. Not their father. Their mother had known only that Corwin helped her that afternoon, not the ridiculous details that had made humiliation eventually become funny.
Only Corwin knew.
Tears blurred the screen.
She wiped them away with the heel of her hand and typed, Where are you?
His answer took longer.
Alive. Safe enough. Can't tell you where yet.
Relief hit so hard it hurt, immediately followed by anger strong enough to keep her from dissolving completely.
You disappeared.
The typing indicator appeared and vanished twice before his reply arrived.
I know. I'm sorry, Izzy. I should never have left you without knowing I was alive.
Isolde laughed once through the tears, a broken sound she barely recognized.
You also shouldn't have hidden criminal evidence inside a book you gave me.
The typing indicator stopped.
When Corwin finally answered, the words were careful.
You found the Pilot.
Yes.
A moment later: Did Malfatti find it too?
The phrasing irritated her immediately.
Taddeo was there.
The answer arrived almost before she finished reading her own.
Get away from him.
Isolde closed her eyes.
Of course.
Some part of her had known they would reach Taddeo within the first several minutes. Corwin had spent his entire life approaching problems by identifying danger and then reorganizing everybody around what he believed would reduce it.
Corwin.
I'm serious. Whatever they've told you, you can't trust Bellandi leadership.
Isolde drew a slow breath and pushed herself toward facts before the conversation became an argument about a man Corwin had never met.
We know about the $24.8 million.
This time the delay lasted long enough that she thought the connection might have dropped.
Finally: How much did they show you?
Enough. We also know you moved the $8.4 yourself.
The typing indicator disappeared.
Nothing came for nearly a minute.
Then:
I did.
The admission hurt differently in Corwin's own words.
Taddeo had shown her evidence. She had seen authentication records, transfer notes, and the message Corwin left himself about moving enough money to force a response. Intellectually, the question had already been answered.
Emotion apparently required its own proof.
Why?
Corwin's explanation came in several messages, more direct than she expected.
He had discovered the larger diversion months earlier, scattered through development accounts, freight companies, property structures, consulting payments, and internal approvals that should never have intersected.
Every time he followed one path, another appeared.
Records changed after he accessed them. Permissions shifted.
One person he quietly questioned about a vendor became frightened and then stopped coming to work.
He had begun to believe somebody inside Bellandi leadership was involved.
Cesare? Isolde asked.
I don't know how high it goes. That's the problem.
Cold moved across her skin.
The museum attack suddenly felt even closer. Seven men had known their movement plan. Armed attackers had still been waiting outside the exact room where she opened the Harbor Pilot.
Taddeo already knows there's a leak.
Corwin answered quickly.
Taddeo is Bellandi leadership.
Isolde stared at that.
That doesn't make him the leak.
The pause before Corwin's answer was longer.
What has he told you about why you're there?
Her fingers stilled.
What do you mean?
Why did he take you?
Isolde almost typed to keep me safe and stopped before the lie existed.
Whatever Taddeo felt now did not rewrite Mercer Street.
Because he wanted you to come back.
Exactly.
The next message followed immediately.
Taddeo Malfatti isn't protecting you. He's using you to get to me.
The accusation hurt because it had once been entirely true.
Taddeo had never pretended otherwise. He had taken her from Mercer Street, carried her to Northglass, and called her leverage before she understood enough about the Bellandis to know how frightened she should be.
Everything since then existed on top of that foundation.
The museum attack.
The book.
The work in the library.
Taddeo walking out of his own bedroom minutes ago because she demanded privacy.
His body beside hers the night before.
None of it erased the beginning.
He told me that from the first night.
Corwin took several seconds.
He admitted you were leverage?
Yes.
And you're still there?
Anger rose again.
I'm still here because he won't let me leave.
She regretted sending it almost immediately, not because it was untrue but because she could practically hear Corwin's response before it arrived.
Jesus Christ, Izzy. He kidnapped you and won't let you leave.
I am aware.
Then why are you defending him?
I'm not defending him. I'm correcting you.
Corwin's typing indicator flashed several times.
Are you safe with him?
Isolde stared at the question.
Safety had become one of those words that meant less every time somebody used it without qualification.
She was physically safer inside Northglass than she had been in her museum when bullets entered the conservation laboratory.
Nobody in the house had deliberately hurt her.
Taddeo had become almost obsessive about asking before touching her whenever intimacy blurred the lines he did not trust himself to interpret.
She still could not walk through the front gate because she wanted to.
No one at Northglass has hurt me. Taddeo stopped the men at the museum from taking me.
Corwin's response was immediate.
After he took you first.
Isolde's jaw tightened.
Yes. I know.
Then why are you talking like there are two sides?
That finally exhausted her patience.
Because there are two sides to almost everything, Corwin. You should understand that better than anyone considering you stole $8.4 million while investigating someone else for stealing money.
Nothing appeared for almost a full minute.
Then:
Fair.
A wet laugh escaped her.
It was painfully, infuriatingly Corwin.
Another message followed.
I fucked up. I thought moving enough money would force whoever was behind the siphoning to react. They'd either try to recover it before Cesare saw the larger pattern or start changing things I could track.
Isolde stared at the screen.
You deliberately stole from the mafia to bait the people secretly stealing from the mafia.