Chapter Thirty
Isolde
For several seconds after Taddeo told her they were making the exchange, Isolde remained seated near the library windows with one hand resting on the open museum journal she had not actually read in nearly an hour.
The words themselves were not surprising after everything that had happened at Bellandi House, but hearing him say that Cesare had ordered him to bring her and that he had agreed created a strange physical stillness inside her, as though anger had arrived so quickly and completely that her body had decided movement would only interfere with understanding it.
Taddeo remained near the door instead of approaching her.
He had learned enough by now to know that distance could be a form of respect rather than indifference, yet tonight the careful space between them only made the conversation feel formal, as if he had come home from a meeting to inform her of a business decision whose consequences happened to include where she would live after tomorrow.
Isolde closed the journal and placed it on the table beside her. “Tell me the plan.”
Something shifted in his expression, perhaps because he had expected accusation before logistics, but he did not comment on it.
“Corwin chooses one of three terminal sites after we send him the security parameters. Bellandi teams secure the perimeter first, but the inner group stays limited because we still assume Lelio may have compromised personnel.”
“The money?”
“Verified electronically before anyone changes position. Corwin provides access to the full eight point four, then turns over enough of the remaining archive for Orsino and our technical people to authenticate that what he brought is complete.”
“And then?”
Taddeo held her gaze. “Once the transfer and evidence verify, Corwin receives safe passage out of Crownport.”
Isolde folded her hands loosely over her knee. “And I go with him.”
“Yes.”
The answer came quietly, though not hesitantly enough to soften anything.
She looked toward the dark grounds outside the windows, where lights marked the terraces and lower paths Taddeo had gradually given her permission to use.
The outer boundary disappeared beyond the trees, but she knew exactly where it was now.
She knew which gate led toward Crownport, which road curved toward the coast, and approximately how many minutes it took to reach the city once armed men were no longer trying to prevent the journey.
“Will I be restrained during the exchange?”
Taddeo's face hardened. “No.”
“Escorted?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“Me, Marco, Orsino, and selected security.”
“So I arrive with you and leave with Corwin.”
“That is the plan.”
Isolde nodded slowly, absorbing the absurd symmetry.
Taddeo had taken her from a Crownport street and put her into his car because her brother owed the Bellandis money; now, weeks later, he would bring her to an industrial terminal and transfer responsibility for her back to that brother once the debt had been satisfied.
The circumstances had become more complicated, their feelings had become infinitely more complicated, and she had acquired enough knowledge of Bellandi operations to identify at least six ways the exchange might go catastrophically wrong, yet the basic transaction remained almost embarrassingly simple.
“You said Cesare ordered this several days ago.” Isolde looked back at Taddeo. “Did you decide with them before you told me tonight?”
His jaw tightened slightly. “Yes.”
The answer should not have hurt more than the others, but it did.
“How much did I get discussed?”
Taddeo frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I asked.” Isolde rose from the chair and began collecting the loose papers she had left on the side table, not because they needed moving but because she suddenly needed her hands occupied.
“Did everyone sit around deciding the conditions under which I would be handed back to Corwin, or did Cesare make the order and you simply accept it?”
“There was a leadership discussion about the exchange, the security risk, Corwin's immunity, the evidence, and Lelio.”
“And me.”
“Yes.”
“Was Mauro there?”
Taddeo's silence lasted a fraction too long.
Isolde gave a small nod and stacked the museum journal on top of the papers. “Of course he was.”
“Mauro has operational interests affected by Lelio's betrayal.”
“I didn't ask why he was there.”
“No.”
She turned toward him with the papers held against her chest. “I want to understand something, and I want you to answer without giving me the version you think will hurt less. If I tell you right now that I refuse to participate in the exchange, what happens?”
Taddeo went still.
Isolde watched his face with the same attention she once used while trying to determine whether the faded line on an eighteenth-century document belonged to original ink or later intervention.
She knew his tells now, though he had fewer than most people.
His jaw tightened when he was containing anger, his shoulders became almost unnaturally still when he was worried, and when he was searching for an answer he disliked, his eyes held hers too steadily because looking away would feel like surrender.
“What happens?” she asked again.
Taddeo took a breath before answering. “We would have a serious problem.”
“That wasn't the question.”
“I know.”
“If I say no, do I still go?”
He said nothing.
The silence lasted perhaps three seconds.
It was enough.
Isolde looked down at the papers in her arms because seeing him while the answer settled made it harder to remain composed. “All right.”
“Isolde.”
“No, that's fine.” She crossed toward the worktable and placed the papers beside the larger investigation stack, aligning their edges carefully. “I asked because I wanted to know, and now I know.”
Taddeo finally moved away from the door. “I did not say I would force you into a vehicle.”
“You also didn't say you wouldn't.”
“Cesare gave me a direct order.”
“I understand that.”
“The exchange may be the only opportunity we have to get Corwin and the complete archive into a controlled location while Lelio still believes he can manipulate the outcome.”
“I understand that too.”
Taddeo stopped several feet away. “Then you understand why I cannot answer the question as if there are no other consequences.”
Isolde looked at him and felt something inside her become very tired. “I understand every reason, Taddeo. That's the part you still seem to think you're explaining to me.”
His expression changed.
She folded her arms loosely, not defensively so much as because she no longer knew what else to do with them.
“I understand that Corwin is in danger. I understand that Lelio may know where he is. I understand that your family wants the money back, that Cesare cannot let a civilian analyst steal eight point four million dollars and disappear without consequences, and that the archive may be the strongest evidence you have against a capo who has been stealing from the Bellandis and sending men into my museum.”
“I know you understand the operational side.”
“Then stop giving it to me as though the problem is that I haven't appreciated the stakes.” Her voice stayed calm even as pressure tightened behind her ribs. “The problem is that every time the stakes become large enough, my choice becomes the first thing everyone decides can be postponed.”
Taddeo's hands remained at his sides. “That is not what I want.”
“I believe you.”
The statement made him look more unsettled than if she had called him a liar.
Isolde continued before he could answer.
“I believe you don't want to force me. I believe you don't want me frightened.
I believe you don't want Cesare treating me like an object, and I believe you hate the idea that Corwin called taking me with him ‘custody.’ I believe every one of those things because I know you better now than I did when you put me in your car.”
She paused and looked toward the windows again. “But when Cesare ordered the exchange, you agreed before asking me whether I wanted it.”
Taddeo's face tightened. “Yes.”
“You didn't come home and say, ‘Cesare wants this. What do you want to do?’ You went into a room with your boss, Orsino, Mauro, and other Bellandi men, built the operation, accepted the order, and then came home to tell me what was happening.”
“Yes.”
The lack of defense should have helped.
Instead it made the truth cleaner.
Isolde inhaled slowly through her nose and let the breath out until she could speak without her voice changing. “Then there really isn't anything else to argue about.”
Taddeo's brows pulled together. “There is plenty to argue about.”
“I'm tired of arguing.”
The words landed harder than she intended.
Taddeo took another step closer. “You are angry.”
“Yes.”
“You should be.”
“Yes.”
“But don't do this.”
Something almost resembling amusement moved through her despite everything. “You are going to have to be more specific, because apparently I'm doing several things wrong tonight.”
His jaw tightened. “Don't become polite with me.”
The accuracy nearly undid her.
Isolde looked down at the table and smoothed one thumb along the edge of a folder. “Would you prefer I scream?”
“No.”
“Throw something?”
“No.”
“Tell you you're a controlling bastard?”
“You've told me before.”
“I have.” She looked at him again. “It didn't change the structure.”
Taddeo's face became very still.
That was the point she had been circling without wanting to name.
He had changed. She believed that too. He had learned to ask before accessing what belonged to her, learned to stop interpreting every refusal as a problem requiring correction, learned that sexual surrender meant nothing unless it could be withdrawn, and even after failing catastrophically with Corwin's messages he had been capable of recognizing exactly what he had done rather than dressing it in noble language.
None of that was meaningless.
It simply had not reached far enough.