Chapter 136

[ 1,009 words ]

Delia’s POV

The table shifted slightly. Gail looked at me. Julian looked at me. Katia looked at me with the composed, neutral attention she brought to everything.

“Of course,” Katia said.

We moved to the side of the room while Julian’s grandmother excused herself to speak to the housekeeper. Just the two of us, far enough from the table that the conversation was private.

I looked at my sister.

“I need you to stop coming here,” I said. “This house. These family events. Whatever arrangement you have with Grandma Celeste, it ends. I don’t want you setting foot in my home again p>

Katia looked at me for a moment. Her expression did not change. “Delia p>

“I am not finished.” I kept my voice very controlled. “I have watched you sit at that table for two hours while my husband looks at you like you are the only person in the room. I have watched him put food on your plate. I have watched his grandmother look at you like you belong here and look at me like I am furniture she didn’t choose.” I paused. “So I am asking you, as your sister, to respect the fact that I am his wife and to stay the fuck away from this family p>

“Delia.” Katia’s voice was quiet. “What Julian does or doesn’t do is between you and him. That is not something I control p>

“You could make choices p>

“I have made choices. I’m here for lunch with Gail and Grandma Celeste. That’s it p>

“That’s it,” I repeated. I almost laughed. “Right p>

“Delia, I’m not going to stop seeing Gail. She’s my best friend. She helped raise my son. If that means I’m sometimes in this house then p>

“Then don’t be.” I held her gaze. “I’m asking you not to be p>

“Excuse me p>

The voice came from behind me.

I turned.

Gail was standing three feet away. Her expression was the one I had never seen on her before — not the warm, easy Gail who laughed at everything and made everything feel lighter. This was something else. Something with edges.

“What exactly,” Gail said, “do you think you’re doing p>

“This is a private conversation,” I said.

“You’re having it in my family’s home,” Gail said. “So I think I get to be part of it.” She looked at me directly. “Let me be very clear, Delia. This is not your home. This is the Windsor family mansion. It belongs to this family. And Katia has been part of this family since before you had any idea Julian Windsor existed.” Her voice was completely level and completely devastating. “If you want to set rules about who comes and goes, you do that in the house Julian lives in with you. Not here. Never here p>

“Gail p>

“I’m not finished.” She stepped forward slightly. “Katia raised my godson. She has been my best friend for years. She will come to this house whenever she is invited, and she will be welcomed every single time because that is what this family decided long before you got married to my brother.” She paused. “And if that’s a problem for you, I genuinely suggest you take it up with your husband. Because it is not Katia’s problem. And it is absolutely not mine p>

I looked at Gail. Then at Katia.

Katia had said nothing during Gail’s speech. She was standing with her arms loose at her sides, her expression neutral, watching me with the specific calm of someone who had decided not to add to what had already been said because it didn’t need adding to.

I picked up my bag from the chair.

I walked out.

I did not say goodbye to anyone. I did not look at Julian on the way past the table. I did not look at his grandmother, who had come back to the doorway and was watching everything with the expression of a woman who had lived long enough to find most things unsurprising.

I got in the car.

I sat in it for a full minute before I told the driver to go.

My hands were shaking. Not visibly — I controlled that. But underneath. The internal tremor of someone who had just lost a confrontation they had walked into believing they would win.

Gail had looked at me like I was a guest who had forgotten her place.

Maybe I was, but I was done being handled. I picked up the burner phone.

The investigator answered on the second ring.

“Tell me you have something,” I said.

A pause that told me everything before he spoke. “I have to be honest with you, Delia, the person you’ve asked me to look into is extremely difficult to trace p>

“What does that mean p>

“It means that before IG Technologies existed publicly, there is almost nothing. No financial records I can access. No property history. No traceable transactions. Whatever she was doing in those six years — wherever the money came from — it’s been kept very clean.” He paused. “Too clean, actually. Nobody’s financial history is this clean naturally. Someone worked to make it this way p>

I stared at the window.

“So you have nothing,” I said.

“I have fragments. Small things. I need more time p>

“How much time p>

“A week. Maybe two p>

I said nothing for a moment. The car moved through the city. Outside Manhattan moved past the windows, indifferent as always.

“Keep looking,” I said. “The fact that it’s this clean tells me there’s something worth finding. Nobody scrubs a history that doesn’t need scrubbing p>

“Agreed,” he said. “I’ll be in touch p>

I hung up.

I sat with the phone in my hand and thought about my sister. About a financial history so clean it had taken a professional investigator less than a day to hit a wall. About six years that had apparently been lived in near-complete privacy with no traceable record of how any of it was funded.

What the hell was Katia hiding?

I didn’t know yet, but I was going to find out.

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