Chapter 10
Corwin tried claiming the staged incidents were harmless tests.
I almost admired the desperation.
“No weapons.”
“Controlled routes.”
“Your men improved afterward.”
He said it like a consultant.
I asked Miles Kerrow to enter the room.
Corwin’s face changed.
Good.
Miles confirmed payment.
Then a second hired intruder did.
Then one former Wyclare guard admitted Corwin paid him to deliberately leave a garage sensor offline during a gala.
Not betrayal of me exactly.
He thought it was a security audit.
Nobody told him guests would be frightened.
Layered deniability.
Everyone knew only enough to excuse themselves.
Corwin called it modernization.
Roland called it theater.
I called it finished.
Every Vane contract ended immediately.
Not because every employee was corrupt.
Those uninvolved could apply independently elsewhere.
But the company no longer entered my properties.
Corwin laughed bitterly.
“You’ll rebuild security from scratch because one old man took offense?”
Roland did not move.
I answered:
“No.”
“Because you sold me fear and called it protection.”
That silenced him.
Then Corwin turned toward Ismeralda.
“You asked for this.”
She flinched.
Good.
She had spent eighteen months allowing him to carry the ugliest parts.
Now he handed them back.
“I asked you to make sure Roland stopped interfering.”
“Yes.”
“I never told you to take him.”
“You knew afterward.”
Silence.
There.
That mattered more than the original ambiguity.
Whatever Ismeralda intended the first night, within three days she knew Corwin had transported Roland out of state.
She knew he escaped.
She knew he remained missing.
And she still told me nothing.
Why?
Because Roland returning meant the staged breaches would surface.
The engagement might end.
So she let Adelise mourn.
Let me memorialize him.
Let his photograph gather flowers.
May you like
At some point, silence stops being fear.
It becomes participation.
