Chapter Twenty-Four
Isolde
The worst part was that Taddeo had found something real.
That was what made the violation so difficult to simplify.
Taddeo had not invaded her privacy because he was bored, jealous, or curious about what she said to her brother.
He had done it because the information could matter, because there were men looking for Corwin, because somebody inside Bellandi channels had leaked the museum operation, and because the freight yard Corwin had chosen might already sit inside the same network they were investigating.
Every justification was strong.
Isolde still hated him for choosing them over her no.
Taddeo's thumb stopped against the screen. “What private freight yard?”
A humorless laugh escaped her before she could stop it. “You read the conversation. Apparently you don't need me anymore.”
“He gave you coordinates west of Crownport.”
“Yes, Taddeo. I know what he gave me.”
“He told you he could get you out whenever you were ready.”
“Yes.” Isolde folded her arms tightly beneath her chest because suddenly she did not want any part of herself open to him. “That was also visible in the message you decided belonged to you.”
His jaw flexed. “Were you planning to go?”
“I hadn't decided.”
Taddeo stared at her. “You used an unauthorized communication route after he gave you an extraction point.”
“I used the museum platform because I was trying to understand 0617. Corwin told me I'd given him the number years ago, so I searched old museum correspondence from the period he was referring to.”
“And then you contacted him through the same channel.”
“Yes.”
“A channel outside the one we'd secured.”
“Because he thinks someone inside the Bellandis is compromised.”
“So you trusted his security judgment over mine.”
Isolde looked at him for several seconds, exhaustion beginning to overtake the anger that had carried her through the breach itself. “No. I trusted neither of you completely, which is apparently the most intelligent decision I've made all week.”
The answer hit him.
She saw it in the way his expression changed before he turned toward the windows and paced several steps away, one hand moving briefly across the back of his neck.
Taddeo was rarely physically restless. Even anger usually made him quieter rather than more animated, which meant whatever he had read frightened him enough that discipline was struggling to contain it.
When he turned back, his voice was controlled again. “That freight yard is less than half a mile from two abandoned warehouses used by companies connected to the network Silas flagged today.”
Alarm moved through her despite everything. “The Serevin-linked companies?”
“Yes.”
“You're certain it's the same area?”
“I know the location.”
“Of course you do.” Isolde rubbed her forehead, trying to separate useful information from the anger threatening to contaminate all of it. “What is actually there?”
“Western service access, three warehouses with layered ownership, private loading lanes, and enough traffic through Serevin-adjacent companies that I wouldn't send one of my men there alone without surveillance.”
The danger was real.
Again.
Isolde closed her eyes briefly because she hated the way every fact kept giving him another reasonable argument for what he'd done.
“I didn't say I was going.”
“You were considering it.”
“Yes.” She opened her eyes and met his. “I considered escaping from the man who kidnapped me. That should not be a shocking revelation.”
His expression hardened. “Not by walking into an uncontrolled freight yard while somebody is actively hunting your brother.”
“Considering something and deciding to do it are not the same.”
“You kept the coordinates from me.”
“Because I knew exactly what you'd do if I gave them to you.”
“I would investigate the location before you got yourself killed.”
“And then what?” Isolde stepped away from the dresser, unable to remain still anymore. “Would you show me what you found and let me decide whether the risk was acceptable? Would you offer to help me contact Corwin another way? Would you ask me not to go?”
Taddeo said nothing.
She nodded slowly. “Or would you lock down the gates, remove the phone, add more guards, and call every part of it protection?”
“That depends on what we found.”
“No, it doesn't.” Isolde's voice remained quieter than the emotion beneath it. “If you decided it was dangerous, that would become the end of the conversation because danger is the one argument you believe outranks anything I say.”
“Because sometimes it does.”
“For you.”
“For anyone with enough information to understand the risk.”
The words came out sharper than he probably intended.
Isolde stared at him.
Taddeo heard himself a second too late.
“That,” she said, “is exactly the problem.”
His expression tightened. “I didn't mean you were incapable of understanding it.”
“You meant you understand it better.”
“In this case, I do.”
“Because you know freight yards and organized crime and Serevin companies.”
“Yes.”
“And I know my brother.”
“Your brother stole eight point four million dollars to provoke a criminal conspiracy into reacting.”
“I know.” Her voice rose despite her effort to keep it level. “Do you think I have somehow forgotten that because he's related to me?”
“No.”
“Then stop talking to me as though I'm choosing between your superior judgment and blind faith in Corwin. I don't trust his decisions either.”
Taddeo came closer, then stopped well outside touching distance. “If you go to that yard and Corwin's wrong, somebody can take you before I have time to reach you.”
The fear beneath the words was unmistakable now.
Not Bellandi fear.
Not concern about the money.
Her.
Isolde felt it, and some part of her softened automatically because she cared about him enough for his fear to matter.
That made the next part harder.
“You keep saying things like that as though fear gives you permission.”
His brows drew together. “It gives me responsibility.”
“No. It gives you fear.”
The distinction silenced him.
Isolde swallowed against the pressure in her throat. “You can be afraid. You can tell me you're afraid. You can show me the evidence and tell me you think I'm making a terrible decision. You can ask me not to go, and if I go anyway, you can be furious with me.”
Taddeo's eyes remained fixed on hers.
“What you cannot do,” she continued, “is use the fact that you're frightened to turn my no into a temporary inconvenience.”
Something in his face changed.
Isolde gestured toward the phone in his hand. “That is what you just did.”
“I believed the messages contained information that could keep you alive.”
“I know.”
“That isn't an excuse.”
“No.” The agreement came so quickly that it almost interrupted her anger. “It's a reason.”
Taddeo looked down at the phone.
For a moment neither of them spoke, and Isolde wished he would argue.
She wished he would become arrogant enough to let her hate him cleanly, explain why she was wrong, tell her she did not understand his world, or hide behind the security language that had carried him through so many previous conflicts.
Instead he said, “I knew what you were asking me not to do.”
Her chest tightened.
“Yes.”
“I knew you meant it.”
“Yes.”
“And I did it anyway.”
The words were quiet.
They hurt more than denial would have.
Isolde looked away because her eyes had begun burning. “Then there isn't much left to debate.”
“There is.”
“I don't think there is.”
“You bypassed security.”
“I know.”
“You withheld information that could affect your safety.”
“I know that too.”
“You should not have done either.”
She looked at him again. “There. That's the difference between us.”
Taddeo's expression sharpened. “What difference?”
“I can admit I did something risky without believing that makes what you did acceptable.”
“I didn't say it did.”
“You keep putting them beside each other.”
“Because both matter.”
“They do.” Isolde drew a slow breath before continuing. “If I trusted you enough to tell you about Corwin's coordinates, maybe I should have. Maybe withholding the existence of more evidence was dangerous. Maybe using the museum platform was reckless, especially when I knew you had restricted it.”
Taddeo remained silent.
“But none of those things turn my privacy into something you can revoke.”
“No.”
The answer stopped her again.
She laughed softly, though nothing about it was amused. “You know what is almost unbearable about arguing with you now?”
“I can guess.”
“You understand me just enough to make this worse.”
Taddeo lowered the recovered phone to the dresser.
Isolde watched him do it.
“The old version of you would have told me you were right,” she said. “You would've explained security until I either stopped arguing or exhausted myself, and then you would've gone downstairs and added three more guards to whatever system you already had.”
“I may still add surveillance to the freight yard.”
Despite everything, a disbelieving sound escaped her. “That is not the point.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
His eyes closed briefly.
When they opened again, he looked tired in a way she had rarely seen. “All right.”
That should have felt like a victory.
It did not.
Isolde reached for the edge of the dresser and steadied herself against it. “I have spent days wondering if maybe I was wrong about you.”
Taddeo went very still.
“Not about Mercer Street,” she continued. “You kidnapped me. That remains true. Not about the gates either, because they're still there. But about us.”
His gaze did not move from her face.
“You gave me privacy with Corwin. You let me speak to Linnea without listening.
You started asking instead of deciding when you wanted something from me.
When I said I wanted space, you gave it to me, and when I came back, you didn't treat coming back like it erased the fact that I could leave the room again.”
“Those things were real.”
“I know.”
The answer hurt them both.
Isolde's throat tightened, but she kept going. “The sex was real too. Everything I gave you was real.”