Chapter Six #2
I want her away from him. She retreats from Adrian. I take a step towards him as a warning. She tucks the items into the bag, keeping the recorder in her hand. She presses play. The room fills with the sound of Adrian’s voice speaking like a man who believes wires are for other people.
“Clean hit. But make a spectacle. During the truce. Use the other heir. I want her dead. He kills her, and Vittorio will kill him. Two brats with one truce.”
My hand balls. Isabella stops the recording with a thumb and her eyes meet mine. She isn’t surprised. She’s satisfied.
“You will give that back,” Adrian says. His tone tries for soothing. It lands on threat.
“No,” she says.
The desk mic chirps. A voice from security asks for a status he’ll regret wanting.
“You won’t make it out of here alive. They're dispatching an army that won’t stop to listen to recordings,” he says, with a smug grin.
I step over the first guard and pick up Adrian’s gun. “You’re not making it out of here alive, first.”
“Kill me, and my boss gets what he wants. The Vendetta. Blood for blood. You dead by a Valentine’s hand.”
“He’s right,” Isabella says, clearly.
Her words stop me. I strip the magazine and pocket the slide. I toss the empty handle back to him so he can feel the shape of losing.
“You’ll live long enough to suffer at the hands of both families.”
He looks past me to Isabella with the eyes a man uses when he’s run out of lies. I take a step that puts my body between them. The message lands. He swallows.
“Vittorio’s out for your blood. You took his daughter. You won’t live to convince him otherwise,” he retorts.
“Father will listen to me,” Isabella speaks to the room. “He’ll believe me.”
“Will he?” Adrian smiles like he knows something we don’t.
I can hear his little crew coming. He tries to make a move. I kick him in the teeth.
While he bleeds, we leave the way we came. Freight elevator. Service corridor. Isabella keeps her hand on the rail, bag tight to her side, eyes everywhere. I like how fast she learns.
Back in the restaurant’s office she lays out what we took.
Two drives. The recorder. Cards we can burn or use.
Cash for grease. We plug the smaller drive into an old laptop I disconnect from the network first. Files crawl into view.
Time stamps. Call logs. A folder labeled “Meetings” that holds audio with dates and names redacted.
Ledger notes read, harbor pilot retainer, midnight. Crane three rotation logged as maintenance, then erased.
The night our houses put two bodies in the water, stares back at me. It’s a date I’ll never forget.
“Listen to this one,” she says, pulling me out of my internal debate on whether or not to point it out.
A voice that isn’t Adrian’s fills the room. Older and more polished, the kind of voice that sits on boards and cuts checks with other people’s blood.
“Different barrel. Different man. Same word as the river night. Resolved. After Valentine Week, we take the port. If the girl holds the chair, that’s a problem. Remove her and their consent follows.”
Not a jealous fiancé. A scaffolding. A plan that uses Adrian like a cheap hinge. A chill moves under my skin.
Isabella presses stop. “That’s not your uncle.”
“No, or any of our men.”
Her face is a study in angles and decision.
“We can take this to your uncle,” she says.
“We can,” I say. “Even if he’s involved, he’ll want to use it to cut a deal. The Commission, too. They’ll want to pretend they discovered it on their own. Your father will pretend he didn’t hear it at all.”
“My father’s the only reasonable one,” she says, crossing her arms.
Taking a breath, I remember she’s a Valentine. Something I haven’t had time to process.
“Your father’s dealing with a lot. His daughter in the line of fire, disappears with the enemy. He’s out for blood. I’m assuming Adrian has men loyal to him. We don’t know who we can trust. The same is true of my family.”
Her mouth lifts at one corner. Not a smile.
Agreement. I pull out a map of the district around the port and spread it on the desk.
She moves in beside me. We draw lines. We mark a timing window.
We pick a courier who’ll carry one copy to a man who hates the Commission more than he loves us.
We decide where we’ll stand when the room ignites.
Only then do I permit myself to gaze at her in the manner I wish. Her hair’s coming down in small defeats. Her mouth has that soft set it gets when she’s chosen something she can’t take back. I touch the back of her hand where ink from the map has smudged her skin.
“You should sleep,” I say. “Forty minutes. I’ll watch.”
“You will not sleep if I do?” she asks.
“No.”
“Then we sleep later. We’ll go check the condo.”
“Is that wise?” I ask.
She steps into me like she always belongs there. “He won’t think we’re stupid enough.”
My hands find her waist and the small of her back. Her breath warms my throat. I kiss her once, slow, the way I did in the suite with the sea walking in and out of the room. She answers like that night’s still under our skin.
I pull back because if I don’t, we’ll never leave this office. She lets me. Taking the burner, she puts it and the recorder inside the lining of her dress where no one will search without losing a hand.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Ready.”
We kill the lights. I key the back door. The street outside smells like snow that hasn’t arrived yet. Somewhere across the river a siren climbs and falls. I take her hand and we move into the night, carrying proof enough to start a fire.