Chapter Twenty-Nine
Taddeo
The drive to Bellandi House took twenty-three minutes, and Isolde spoke to Taddeo for fewer than thirty seconds of them.
She sat beside him in the rear of the armored sedan rather than across from him, the temporary phone closed inside her hand and her attention fixed on Crownport passing beyond the darkened glass, while Marco drove and Luca followed in the security vehicle behind them.
The physical distance between Isolde and Taddeo amounted to less than a foot of leather seat, but it felt larger than it had when she moved back into her own bedroom after he violated her privacy, because this time there was no clear wrong he could apologize for and no simple boundary he could promise to respect.
Corwin had made an offer, Cesare had accepted a meeting, and Taddeo had already admitted that he could not promise to disobey his boss if the exchange became an order.
When the car stopped at a light near the river, Isolde finally looked away from the window. “Is Cesare expecting me in the meeting?”
Taddeo considered the answer before giving it because he had stopped treating precision as something that mattered only in negotiations. “He asked for both of us at Bellandi House. I don't know whether he intends you to remain for the leadership discussion.”
“That sounds like a diplomatic way of saying probably not.”
“Probably not.”
Isolde nodded and returned her attention to the window. “At least you're getting better at saying what you don't know.”
The comment carried no warmth, but neither did it carry the detached politeness that frightened him more than anger, and Taddeo took the small distinction for what it was worth. “I am trying.”
“I know.”
He almost told her not to use his own phrase against him, but the impulse died before becoming speech. Nothing about the drive needed lightening, and he had no interest in manufacturing normality merely because the tension made him uncomfortable.
Bellandi House looked unchanged when they arrived, which Taddeo found irritating in the irrational way familiar places could become offensive when a man's life was rearranging itself inside them.
The same limestone facade rose behind iron gates, the same two men watched the vehicle court from positions meant to appear casual, and the same muted activity moved through the ground floor as accountants, soldiers, lawyers, and family members crossed between rooms where legitimate business and criminal business routinely occupied adjacent desks.
Taddeo had entered the building thousands of times since Marcello's death, sometimes summoned, sometimes expected, eventually with enough authority that most men moved when they saw him coming without waiting to be asked.
Today Isolde walked beside him.
People noticed.
Nobody stared openly, because surviving inside the Bellandi organization required understanding when curiosity became disrespect, but Taddeo saw the glances anyway. Isolde saw them too. She always did.
Cesare's assistant met them outside the secondary office and asked Isolde to wait in the private sitting room while Cesare spoke with Taddeo and Orsino.
Isolde's expression hardened slightly, though before she could object the assistant added that Cesare wanted to speak with her personally once the operational discussion was finished.
“Convenient,” Isolde murmured.
Taddeo stopped beside the sitting-room door. “You don't have to answer questions you don't want to answer.”
Her eyes moved to his. “Will Cesare agree with that?”
“No.”
A faint, humorless smile touched her mouth. “Still getting better.”
Taddeo almost reached for her hand.
He did not.
Isolde opened the door herself and stepped into the sitting room. “Go do what you came here to do.”
The words followed him down the corridor.
Cesare was already seated at the head of the conference table when Taddeo entered, with Orsino to his right, Mauro Corsi farther down, and two senior operations men whose crews controlled portions of Bellandi transport and western-harbor security occupying the remaining chairs.
Lelio's absence was conspicuous only because his rank would ordinarily have placed him inside any discussion involving twenty-five million dollars, an internal theft, and a proposed recovery operation.
That absence was intentional.
Cesare waited until the door closed before looking toward Taddeo. “Is she settled?”
“In the sitting room.”
Mauro leaned back in his chair. “You brought her here and then put her in another room while we decide whether to trade her.”
Taddeo's eyes moved toward him. “Careful.”
Mauro raised both hands slightly. “I'm not insulting her. I'm pointing out that the arrangement has a certain irony.”
Orsino looked toward Cesare. “We could have this conversation without provoking the underboss in the first thirty seconds.”
“I am not provoked.”
Mauro's eyebrows lifted. “Then apparently your face has become more expressive.”
Taddeo ignored him and took the chair opposite Orsino.
Cesare opened the printed copy of Corwin's proposal.
“We are discussing one thing first, and Lelio remains outside it until I say otherwise. No calls, no questions through crews, no sudden interest in Ardizzi accounts or properties. If he is responsible for what we think he is responsible for, the worst thing we can do is let him know we have moved from suspicion to structure.”
Mauro's mouth tightened at Lelio's name. “He used my companies to make me look like I took twenty-five million.”
“You took enough on your own that nobody had to work very hard to make the larger accusation believable,” Cesare replied.
Mauro muttered something under his breath.
Cesare looked at him. “Would you like to repeat that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Taddeo almost appreciated the familiarity of the exchange because it belonged to a Bellandi problem with Bellandi rules. Mauro had stolen. Lelio had likely framed him. Cesare decided what happened next. Taddeo executed the decision.
Then Cesare touched Corwin's proposal.
The room stopped feeling familiar.
“He returns the eight point four,” Cesare said. “Not a promise to return it later. Verification occurs before he leaves the exchange.”
Taddeo nodded once. “Yes.”
“He provides the full archive, passwords, source records, and testimony explaining how he accessed the material and whom he suspected.”
“Yes.”
“His remaining condition is safe passage out of Crownport.”
“And Isolde.”
Cesare looked at him. “And his sister leaves with him.”
The phrasing was cleaner than Corwin's released into my custody, and Taddeo disliked it more because Cesare had stripped away the part most likely to provoke objection.
Isolde did, in fact, want freedom. Corwin did, in fact, represent an exit from Bellandi confinement.
If the exchange occurred under controlled conditions and Corwin left Crownport afterward, then Isolde would no longer be a captive at Northglass.
She would be free.
She would also be gone.
Cesare leaned back. “This accomplishes what we wanted from the first night.”
Taddeo's jaw tightened.
“The money comes back,” Cesare continued. “Corwin comes back far enough for us to verify what he has. The archive comes into our possession. We get testimony against whoever helped construct the theft. Isolde leaves with her brother, and our reason for holding her ends.”
Mauro glanced toward Taddeo and then wisely looked somewhere else.
Orsino remained very still.
Taddeo folded his hands on the table. “Corwin wants immunity.”
“He wants to live.”
“He stole eight point four million from us.”
“And he is offering to return it.”
“He attempted to profit from an internal theft.”
“Yes.”
“He concealed evidence, manipulated our response, and caused us to spend weeks hunting him.”
Cesare's expression stayed patient. “All true.”
“You intend to let him walk.”
“I intend to decide what produces the best result for the Family.” Cesare tapped the proposal once.
“Killing Corwin after he returns the money teaches future thieves not to negotiate. Letting him leave Crownport permanently, stripped of Bellandi access and aware that returning would reopen the debt, costs us less than continuing to search for him while Lelio remains inside our organization.”
Taddeo could not dispute the logic.
That made it worse.
One of the operations men asked, “What about the testimony? If Dacre disappears immediately, how do we know the archive isn't selectively edited?”
“Verification at the exchange,” Orsino replied. “He provides the source data and decryption structure first. We compare enough against records already authenticated to establish integrity before safe passage begins.”
“And if he lies?” Mauro asked.
“Then no one leaves,” Cesare said.
The room accepted that because the answer belonged to rules everyone understood.
Taddeo looked at the map Cesare's assistant had placed near the center of the table.
The proposed meeting location was the same western industrial corridor Corwin had previously given Isolde, though the final terminal had not yet been selected.
Multiple entrances, freight access, rail infrastructure, dark water to the south, industrial buildings capable of hiding vehicles and men.
Unsafe.
The word arrived automatically.
Taddeo seized it because safety was familiar ground.
“The location is vulnerable.”
Cesare nodded. “Then secure it.”
“We have an internal leak.”
“Yes.”
“We believe Lelio may have ordered the museum operation.”
“Yes.”
“Putting Isolde in another exchange tied to Corwin gives him a second predictable target.”
Cesare's gaze sharpened slightly. “Then you build the security so he cannot reach her.”
“That is not certainty.”
“No security is certainty.”
Taddeo's hands tightened.
Cesare noticed. “What exactly are you asking me to solve?”
The question struck too close to the thing Taddeo had not wanted to articulate.
He looked toward the terminal map. “I am saying the exchange gives Lelio an opportunity.”