Semua Bab The Don's Ruthless Empire: Bab 541 - Bab 550

POV: Isabella"You came to shame me, Signora Isabella, so do it quickly. I have waited two days for someone to walk through that door and call me a traitor. At least then I would finally know what I am."I am Isabella, and the girl who said it did not look up from her desk. It was three in the afternoon, and the Lorenzi chart room smelled of lamp oil, old brass, and wet rope. Maps hung from the ceiling like sails. Sofia Lorenzi sat in the middle of them with ink on her wrist and her hair tied back with a piece of string. She was twenty three years old. She looked about fifteen and about fifty at the same time."I did not come to shame you," I said."Then why?""Because Corvin's harbor log says your launch went to Odile's ship three times this month, and I would rather hear the story from you than from a page."Sofia laughed, a short, dry sound. "A page. Everyone in Marabella is a page now. A paper says Tomas is a thief. A paper says I am a spy. Tell me, does anyone in your council sti

POV: Isabella"I lent my key once, Isabella. Only once in nine years. And the person I lent it to sat across the table from me this morning and looked me straight in the eye."I am Isabella, and Tomas Reyes sat at his own kitchen table with a cold cup of coffee between his big hands. It was noon. I had come to his house without a guard, in a plain gray shawl, because I believed that a man who had cried in front of the whole council deserved one visit where nobody was watching. His daughter Elena, fourteen, hovered at the stove pretending to stir a pot she had already finished."Elena," Tomas said gently, "go and see to the chickens.""Papa, you have no chickens.""Then go and find some."She rolled her eyes, kissed the top of his head, and left. The door shut. A clock ticked. Somewhere a child laughed in the street, and the sound felt very far away."Tell me from the start," I said."It was three winters ago. The flood year." He rubbed his jaw. "I was sick with fever, flat in bed for

POV: Isabella"If I show you this, you will use it. If I hide it, my father may die. Tell me which sin is smaller, Isabella, because I have run out of ways to decide."I am Isabella, and Sofia Lorenzi stood in my doorway at midnight, soaked to the skin, with a leather case clutched against her chest like a shield. Rain dripped from her hair onto the stone floor. She had come on foot, alone, across the whole slick length of the harbor road. Behind her, the lamps of the quay trembled in the dark."Come in," I said. "Before you catch your death.""I do not care about my death.""I do. Come in, Sofia."She stepped inside. I wrapped her in a blanket and sat her by the fire, and for a few minutes neither of us said anything. The wood popped. Matteo slept in the next room, finally, after Dr. Fenn had threatened to sit on him. I could hear his slow, shallow breathing through the wall."Drink this."She wrapped both hands around the cup. They shook. "My grandfather does not know I am here. He

POV: Isabella"You trusted me with the audit, Isabella, so I will trust you with the thing I was too afraid to say. Bertrand wrote a name in the margin. It was not a name I expected."I am Isabella, and Corvin sat across from me in the dim records room with a stack of ledgers between us, his ink stained hands folded like a boy waiting to be punished. It was late afternoon. Behind him, a high window let in a single bar of yellow light. Dust floated through it, slow and gold. Dario stood by the door, arms crossed, saying nothing."Start with the key," I said."Yes. The key." Corvin took a breath. "Three winters ago, Adriana lent me Tomas's key for one evening. I told her it was for the audit. That was half true.""Which half?""The half where I wanted to see the stamp. I had noticed something odd in the old notices, but I could not prove it without comparing the impressions side by side." He pushed a ledger toward me. "I took the stamp to my own desk, pressed it into wax, and returned i

POV: Isabella"I will tell you the truth about your father, Tomas, and then you may hate me for as long as you like. I promise I will not argue."I am Isabella, and I said it standing in the council office at six the next morning, with the gray light just beginning to creep through the windows. My eyes were swollen from lack of sleep. In my fist I held a small brass key, warm from my own palm. Tomas sat across the long table, his face stone still. Dario and Corvin stood beside him. Matteo, against every doctor's order, had insisted on a chair by the wall, wrapped in a blanket, with Tobias glaring at anyone who dared to suggest he return to bed."I helped your father fake his death," I said. "Thirty years ago. He had been skimming the old Don's accounts to buy medicine for you, Tomas. You were a small child, and you were sick. The Don's men were coming for him. I wrote a lie in a record and sent him away on a boat with a purse and a promise never to return."Tomas's hands closed into f