Chapter Thirty-Three #3
Isolde looked at both men. “Every time one of you uses me to win an unrelated argument, I am adding another financial penalty. Orsino may administer it because he appears to be the only adult currently handling money.”
“I support the proposal conceptually.” Orsino entered the test-transfer command. “I reserve the right to charge administrative fees.”
The transfer took less than a minute, though the silence stretched it.
Wind struck the table, something loose knocked intermittently against one warehouse wall, and Taddeo watched Corwin rather than the progress indicator because people changed before screens did.
Corwin looked tired and wary, but his attention moved too often toward the western lane behind his driver for the Bellandis to be his only concern.
Someone had come close to finding him before the exchange, and nothing about his behavior suggested that fear had passed merely because he had arrived.
The test transfer cleared.
“Ten thousand received,” Orsino said after reading the confirmation twice. “Source balance remains stable and the control token is valid. The remainder transfers after the first archive threshold validates.”
Corwin released a slow breath and opened the hard-shell case.
Inside were two encrypted drives, a smaller device sealed inside a clear evidence sleeve, three handwritten notebooks secured by elastic bands, and a narrow physical ledger whose aged paper and binding drew Isolde’s attention immediately.
“That isn’t Bellandi stock.” She leaned closer without touching the book. “Where did you get it?”
“From one of the intermediaries I approached after realizing the theft extended beyond the accounts I first found.” Corwin removed the ledger carefully and placed it beside the drives. “He gave it to me once he decided whoever was behind the financial structure frightened him more than I did.”
“The man you pressured.” Isolde’s expression flattened. “The one you blackmailed because you initially thought the information might be profitable.”
Corwin’s mouth tightened. “Yes.”
“Is he alive?”
“I don’t know.”
A shadow passed over her face, but Orsino had already opened the isolated verification case and extended his hand for the first drive.
Corwin retained the second, matching the staged terms that prevented either side from surrendering everything before the agreement progressed.
He supplied the first password, and after the device unlocked, Orsino opened files whose hashes matched authenticated material recovered from the Harbor Pilot.
Additional records appeared alongside them, including Bellandi administrative-access logs under Giacomo Verri’s credentials clustered around the exact periods when Corwin’s permissions had been manipulated.
Taddeo looked up. “You had this.”
“Part of it.” Corwin rested both hands on the edge of the table. “I kept evidence nobody else had because once I surrendered everything, I had no reason to believe Cesare gained more by letting me walk than by putting me in the harbor.”
“You left information hidden while your sister remained at Northglass and we were still trying to determine whether you had stolen twenty-five million dollars.” Anger entered Taddeo’s voice despite his effort to keep the exchange professional.
“You knew those records could narrow the threat around her.”
Corwin’s face hardened. “And you took my sister off a street because you thought she could narrow the search around me, so perhaps neither of us should become self-righteous about leverage.”
Taddeo stepped half a pace forward.
Isolde moved between them with so little hesitation that both men stopped, less because either would have touched her than because her obvious lack of fear made the argument look suddenly as childish as it was.
“You are both exhausting, and neither man’s worst decision makes the other one disappear.
” Her anger required no volume. “Corwin withholding evidence because he wanted leverage was wrong. Taddeo taking me because he wanted leverage was wrong. Congratulations on symmetry. Can we continue trying not to die now?”
Taddeo stopped because anything else would prove her point.
Corwin looked away first.
Orsino, who had developed a remarkable ability to ignore family arguments when money required concentration, continued reading.
“These files support our reconstruction of Verri’s role, and the timestamps align with the mirrored Bellandi logs.
If the remaining drive contains what Corwin described, the access manipulation becomes considerably harder to explain as accidental inheritance. ”
“Enough for Lelio?” Isolde asked, returning to the table because the answer mattered more than making either man feel properly chastened.
“The second drive gets closer.” Corwin looked toward her rather than Taddeo. “Payments through contractors tied to Ardizzi operations, copies of Verri’s handwritten notes, and a communication record between Lelio’s office and one of the men who helped build the false Mauro trail.”
Orsino’s head came up. “You have a communication record linking Lelio’s office directly to manufactured evidence and did not transmit a copy before arranging this exchange.”
“If I transmitted every unique piece of evidence, I became unnecessary.” Corwin held his gaze. “I was trying to survive long enough to make the bargain.”
The explanation was ugly.
That made it credible.
Isolde looked at her brother for a long moment before shaking her head. “You really did construct a survival plan around everyone behaving according to the worst thing you understood about them.”
“I was trying not to die.” Corwin’s tired smile held almost no humor. “Some parts of the plan worked better than others.”
“You hid evidence inside a century-old harbor reference and gave it to your conservator sister. I am still evaluating your use of the word better.”
His smile became more real for half a second, and Taddeo watched something ease in Isolde’s face because whatever else Corwin had damaged between them, their ability to speak like siblings still existed.
While the first archive packet moved through validation, Taddeo checked the terminal again.
Ruggiero remained at vehicle control. Fenzo had not moved from the east gate.
Kallis stayed near the utility fence, and Russo worked at communications exactly as any competent Bellandi soldier should have, occasionally touching his headset or reaching across the console.
The flat black stone in the silver ring on his right hand caught a floodlight when he adjusted the earpiece, flashing once before Taddeo’s attention moved toward the hidden team on the rail side.
Nothing had happened.
That no longer bothered him.
If Lelio had compromised Terminal Fourteen, patience benefited the man who built the trap. The evidence, the money, Corwin, Isolde, and several senior Bellandi figures were finally standing in the same place. Whoever intended to act would want them committed before revealing himself.
Corwin and Isolde spoke quietly while Orsino worked, and Taddeo gave them enough physical distance that he did not turn proximity into access. Wind carried occasional fragments toward him anyway.
“You should have called me,” Isolde said. “Before the theft, before you disappeared, before any of this became something I had to discover through men who kidnapped me.”
“I knew you would try to help.” Corwin rubbed one hand over the back of his neck. “That was part of why I didn’t tell you. I thought keeping you outside it meant nobody could use you.”
“You put your archive in a book you gave me.”
“I know.”
“You knew the contradiction then too. You simply believed you could manage the risk better than I could.”
Corwin looked toward the pavement. “It sounds worse when you say it like that.”
“It was worse when you did it.”
Despite the words, Isolde’s face softened enough that when Corwin held out one hand after a visible hesitation, she let him take hers.
Taddeo looked toward the north warehouse.
Jealousy still came.
He let it exist without turning it into policy.
Marco approached from the southern side of the exchange zone and stopped near enough to speak without visibly changing formation. “Hidden layer reports no unplanned movement. Western road remains clear behind Corwin’s driver. Rail side is quiet.”
“East?”
“Nothing. Russo’s official traffic looks normal, and Kallis has not left utility.”
Taddeo nodded once.
A few minutes later, Orsino received the first archive confirmation.
“The drive validates against the Harbor Pilot material, and the additional Verri records are internally consistent. We proceed to stage two.” He closed one verification window and opened the next, then extended a hand toward Corwin. “I need the remaining drive.”
Corwin exhaled and looked toward Isolde before reaching into the case.
Something in that glance changed the atmosphere even before he spoke. The evidence had given him leverage over the Bellandis, but it had also allowed him to delay the question that mattered to him personally.
“Once I hand this over and the remaining balance transfers, the agreement is finished.” Corwin held the second drive in one hand and looked directly at his sister. “Cesare gets the money and evidence. Then we get out of Crownport.”
Isolde withdrew her hand from his.
“The financial agreement is finished,” she said. “You and I still need to talk before I leave anywhere.”
Corwin frowned. “Izzy, this is what I came back for. I came back so you could leave with me.”
“You came back because hiding stopped being sustainable, and I am very glad you are alive.” Isolde folded her arms beneath her coat. “That still does not make the phrase ‘released into my custody’ less infuriating.”
“I was trying to make sure they couldn’t keep you.”
“I know what you were trying to do. You still wrote an agreement where you and Cesare decided where I went afterward.”
Corwin glanced toward Taddeo.
Isolde caught it immediately.