She sits at the counter and watches me move.
It’s a different kind of surveillance than the city does. This one doesn’t want leverage. It wants truth.
“Tell me again,” she says, and her voice is light but her eyes are serious. “The night. The river.”
I stop. Not because I don’t want to answer. Because the answer is a blade and blades hurts.
“You know the shape,” I say.
“I want the edges,” she replies. “I want to hold it without it cutting me in the dark.”
So I give it to her, but I give it to her honestly. Not as a solved story. As a map with missing streets. I still need proof.
“There’s a voice behind this,” I say. “Not the loud men. Not the ones who throw their names around because it makes them feel safe. The kind that pays for distance and calls it order.”
Her hand tightens on the coffee mug. She doesn’t flinch. She isn’t a woman who collapses. She’s a woman who sharpens.
“You’ve heard him,” she says.
“I’ve heard his voice before,” I correct. “I’ve seen his fingerprints on clean paperwork. Maintenance windows that don’t make sense. Money that moves through places people clap for. A charity front. A committee. A fund with a nice name that washes a dirty purpose.”
“And my brother?” she asks, voice quieter.
I set the plate down and lean against the counter because if I sit, the memory sits with me.
“He interfered,” I tell her. “He saw something he wasn’t supposed to see. He contacted me. We were to meet. He knew they would ambush us. He put his life on the line to solve our parents’ death.”
Her throat works once. She swallows it down like she swallows everything.
“He died because someone needed the river to keep its story clean. Anyone who makes the story messy gets erased.”
She closes her eyes for one breath. When she opens them, there’s grief there, clean and controlled.
“My brother died so they could keep the Vendetta alive,” she says, more statement than question.
“Yes. He was close to proving Morettis didn’t kill your mother. And that Valentines didn’t kill my father. The song was so ancient they needed new blood to keep the Vendetta alive. They took his as well.”
“So the Commission could profit,” she continues. “So the port could shift without anyone noticing the fingers on the wheel.”
“Yes.”
“And Adrian?” she asks, mouth hardening.
“Adrian is a loud distraction,” I answer. “He wanted you removed because he thought it would make him a man.”
“And the voice,” she says, her gaze lifting to mine.
“The voice wants you removed because you won’t bend,” I say. “Because you sitting in that chair means he can’t move things quietly anymore.”
Isabella’s gaze doesn’t waver.
“I won’t bend,” she says.
“I know,” I tell her. “That’s why I’m here.”
I plate the food. She eats like someone who hasn’t had a real meal in days. She doesn’t pretend. I respect that. I eat too, because I need strength andbecause she watches me like she’s building another map. Not a port map. A Luigi map.
After, she goes to the bathroom and turns on the shower. The water runs. Steam fogs the small mirror. The room warms with the sound of it.
