Chapter Thirty-Four #3
Gunfire intensified near the south apron.
Someone shouted that Russo was moving.
Another voice yelled for the utility gate.
Then Isolde heard Taddeo.
Not through a radio.
Across the terminal.
His voice cut through the chaos from somewhere east of the loading wall, controlled and furious as he directed two men toward the warehouse and ordered another to hold the southern lane.
She moved instinctively toward the edge of cover before remembering that hearing him was not the same thing as seeing a safe route.
“Taddeo!” she shouted anyway.
His answer came almost immediately.
“Isolde!”
The sound of her name in his voice nearly broke whatever control she had maintained.
Corwin heard it too.
He looked at her.
There was no need to explain anything.
Taddeo appeared between two pieces of loading equipment approximately twenty yards south of them, moving with Marco's hidden security rather than the scattered official team.
Blood darkened one side of his shirt near the ribs, though whether it belonged to him or someone else Isolde could not tell, and his weapon remained trained toward the eastern warehouse line.
Lelio emerged at almost the same moment.
Farther west.
He was moving toward the loading yard beyond Terminal Fourteen, using the confusion around the burning van and container corridor to retreat away from the utility structure.
Taddeo saw him.
Isolde knew the exact second he did.
His entire body changed.
Every line of him turned toward Lelio.
The man who had betrayed Cesare.
The capo who had manipulated Corwin's permissions, built the false trail around Mauro, ordered the museum attack, tried to kill Isolde, and now transformed a Bellandi exchange into a staged Serevin massacre.
Lelio was perhaps forty yards away.
Running.
Taddeo had a clear choice.
Isolde saw it.
So did Marco.
“Taddeo,” Marco called, his gaze moving toward Lelio. “Ardizzi's going west.”
Taddeo looked once.
Then he turned his back on Lelio.
He came toward Isolde.
No hesitation.
No visible calculation.
No order from Cesare.
He simply chose.
Something inside Isolde broke open so suddenly that she could not give it a name.
Taddeo crossed the dangerous ground toward the scale housing while two hidden Bellandi men covered his movement. A shot came from the utility side and struck metal behind him, but he did not change direction until he reached the concrete shelter and dropped beside Isolde.
His hands stopped inches from her.
He did not grab.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, breathing harder than she had ever heard him breathe. “Tell me where.”
“I don't think I'm hit.” Isolde looked at the blood along his side. “You are.”
“Not important yet.”
“That is not how injuries work.”
His eyes moved over her face, shoulders, arms, and legs as though confirming the answer himself before finally looking toward Corwin. “How bad?”
Corwin held one hand against his upper arm. “Through-and-through or close enough, but I can move it.”
Taddeo reached toward him, stopped before touching the wound, and looked at the blood pattern instead. “You're losing too much.”
“I'll apologize to the blood later.”
Under other circumstances, Taddeo might have answered.
Instead he looked toward Marco. “Get Orsino here and move both of them behind the north warehouse hard cover. I want medical on Corwin as soon as that lane clears.”
Marco glanced west.
Lelio was disappearing between the old loading structures.
“Taddeo.” Marco's voice carried the urgency of an underling who knew exactly what allowing the capo to reach the outer yard might cost. “He's almost through the loading lane.”
“I see him.”
Isolde stared at Taddeo.
He still did not move.
“Get them safe first,” he said, and the command went to everyone around them without ambiguity. “Ardizzi waits until she is out of this line.”
Publicly.
In front of Marco.
In front of Corwin.
In front of every Bellandi man close enough to hear that their underboss had just allowed a traitorous capo to gain distance because Isolde mattered more than immediate pursuit.
Taddeo had finally reached the moment Isolde accused him of being unable to survive.
He chose her.
Corwin looked at him differently.
Isolde could barely look at him at all.
Movement appeared near the verification table.
Orsino crossed low behind a pair of loyal Bellandi soldiers, carrying the isolated laptop tucked beneath one arm while the other man covered the route.
His overcoat had torn at one shoulder, and blood marked the side of his face from a shallow cut near the temple, but his expression remained irritated rather than frightened.
“I strongly recommend we conclude all future financial negotiations in buildings with functioning lights.” Orsino dropped behind the scale housing beside them and looked immediately toward Corwin's arm. “You appear to have made the evening considerably more expensive.”
Corwin gave a short laugh that turned into a grimace. “Nice to meet you properly too.”
Orsino looked toward Isolde. “You have the second drive?”
She touched the inside of her coat. “And the physical ledger.”
His eyes sharpened. “Both survived?”
“Yes.”
Corwin leaned back against the concrete and closed his eyes briefly. “She crawled back for them while people were shooting, and I would like it entered into the record that I objected.”
“I objected too,” Taddeo said.
Isolde looked at him. “You were not present.”
“I object retroactively.”
“Denied.”
The exchange lasted only seconds.
It felt astonishingly normal.
Another burst of gunfire came from the east.
Marco's hidden team returned it.
Orsino looked toward Taddeo. “Russo?”
“Still active or unconfirmed.” Taddeo glanced toward the south warehouse before returning his attention to Isolde. “Lelio?”
“West.” Isolde immediately saw the route again inside the map she had studied. “Not toward the harbor.”
Taddeo looked at her.
“He passed the end of the container corridor but cut north before the western road.” Isolde pointed past the abandoned rail equipment, reconstructing what she had seen rather than guessing.
“He's heading through the old loading yard behind the west warehouse.
The van fire blocks part of the road, so he isn't using Corwin's exit.”
Marco looked toward the same direction. “That yard connects to the maintenance sheds and the old truck scales.”
“I know.” Taddeo's body shifted as the pursuit instinct returned, but he still did not leave.
Isolde understood why.
He was waiting.
For her to be secured.
The realization hurt in a completely different way from everything that had come before.
“I'm going with Orsino and Marco.” Isolde looked directly at Taddeo, forcing the words through a throat that had become too tight. “Corwin needs medical attention, the drive is on me, and the north warehouse is covered by your people.”
Taddeo's eyes stayed on hers. “Are you sure you can move?”
“Yes.”
“You're not dizzy?”
“No.”
“Any pain you haven't noticed because of adrenaline?”
“Only approximately seventeen emotional problems, and none are currently ballistic.”
Something almost desperate moved through his face.
Isolde reached for him before thinking about whether she should.
Her fingers closed briefly around his wrist.
Taddeo went completely still.
“Lelio is getting away,” she said. “I'm safe enough for you to go now.”
He looked down at her hand, then back at her face.
“Marco stays with you.”
“I know.”
“Orsino has the laptop.”
“I know.”
“North warehouse only until the terminal is clear.”
“Taddeo.”
His mouth tightened.
Isolde squeezed his wrist once. “Go.”
This time the decision belonged to her too.
Taddeo turned toward Marco. “She does not leave your sight until the active shooters are down, and Corwin gets a medic the second the route opens.”
Marco nodded. “I've got them.”
Taddeo looked toward Orsino.
The consigliere gave him the smallest nod.
Only then did Taddeo rise.
Isolde let go of his wrist.
He moved out from behind the scale housing and crossed toward the western loading yard, disappearing through emergency-red shadows after the man who had built months of betrayal around everybody else's greed, loyalty, fear, and predictable choices.
Isolde watched him go for only a second before Corwin shifted beside her and hissed through his teeth.
She turned back.
There were still people alive who needed her attention.
There was evidence beneath her coat that Lelio had tried to burn.
There were Bellandi men fighting through a terminal designed to make somebody else look guilty.
And somewhere beyond the west warehouse, Taddeo was finally pursuing Lelio only after proving, in front of everyone who mattered, that when forced to choose between immediate power and Isolde, he no longer needed time to decide.