Her eyes are wet. Not from the sex. From the guilt crashing back in. Sofia’s name written in the set of her jaw.
“Stay here.”
“I can’t.” She untangles herself. “She’s out there, Lorenzo. While I was—” She can’t finish. Her chin lifts. Her shoulders square.
I let her go.
She pulls on her shirt. Sits at the laptop. Starts typing. The clicking fills the silence.
“Isabella.”
She doesn’t look up. Hair falling to hide whatever’s happening underneath.
“I’ll find her. The next window. I’ll find her.”
Her fingers pause on the keys. One second. Two.
“I know.”
She starts typing again.
I pick up my shirt. Walk out.
The shower runs cold. The blood swirls down the drain.
Her face when she came. Looking at me. Seeing me.
I don’t know how to close it again. I don’t know if I want to.
11
ISABELLA
The office smells like him. That’s the first problem.
I got here before dawn. Before the hallway lights clicked on. Before anyone in this house was conscious enough to witness me claiming territory like a feral cat backed into a corner. I brought my laptop, my charger, a coffee I made in the dark. Claimed my side of the desk. Opened the Benedetti files. Put my hair up.
I open a second browser tab.
The data from last night’s run is promising. Three shell companies routing money through a Metairie laundromat. Either the most clichéd money-laundering operation in Louisiana history or a legitimate business that cleans a suspicious number of linens. I pull financial records and the patterns start to emerge. Incoming transfers. Monthly. Irregular amounts but consistent timing. Whoever is paying the Benedettis does it on a schedule, and the payments started four years ago.
Before Sofia.
My hands won’t stay still. I press them flat on the desk. Sofia flashes behind my eyelids. Fifteen. Grinning with hair in her face, holding up a crab she caught at the lake, refusing to put itdown even after it pinched her. The photo is pinned above my monitor here now. Same smile. Different wall.
I push her back. Today I am a machine that parses data and drinks cold caffeine.
My eyes drift to the other chair. His chair. Leather, worn on the left armrest where his hand rests when he reads. The same hand that?—
“Stop it,” I tell the screen.
It does not respond. It’s displaying a pivot table and has no opinion about my deteriorating grip on rational thought.
I pull up the Metairie transfers and start cross-referencing.
He arrives before I finish my second cup. No knock. The door opens and he fills the frame the way he fills every room. Not with noise. With the absence of it. He’s carrying two mugs. Sets one on my side of the desk without a word. Made the way I take it. Without being told.
I did not tell him how I take my coffee.
