Chapter 432: The Longest Night

Mike’s mouth twitched. "That’s cruel."

"It’s efficient."

"It’s both." Mike turned back to the screen. "He’ll be proud of it. He’ll carry it to Dante like a cat with a bird."

"And Dante will believe it, because Luca brought it."

Mike worked through the next hour with his head down. Dimitri stayed on the line and didn’t interrupt him. Once Mike swore under his breath at a registry page that wouldn’t load, and Dimitri said, without looking up from his papers, "Try the older archive." Mike tried it, and it worked.

Marco rejoined the call a little after nine, Rome time, which made it just past three in the morning in New York. He turned the camera toward a gray case on the desk and opened it.

Two plain white cartons lay inside, unmarked.

Mike stopped typing and looked at the screen.

"That’s it?" he asked.

"That’s it," Marco said.

He took a single pill from one of the cartons and held it up to the camera. Mike leaned close. It was small and white and perfectly ordinary.

"That’s what’s been in her for eight years," Mike said quietly.

"Yes," Dimitri said.

"It looks like nothing."

"That’s the point." Dimitri took the pill from Marco’s fingers and put it back in the carton. "The pharmacist has an hour. Everything gets decanted into plain bottles and sealed. No labels."

"It’ll be done by two," Marco said.

"Good."

Mike watched Dimitri close the lid of the case. He had worked with him long enough to know when he was holding two things at once. He wasn’t sure whether the second thing was a plan or a weight.

The call ended. Mike went back to the laptop and kept typing.

...

By noon in Rome, which was six in the morning in New York, the trail was finished. Mike had built it in five hours and ten minutes, and he had left one small error in it, a closing date that was off by a single day. He read it through twice. Then he sent it to Marco without a word.

In the study, Dimitri stood at the window with the sun high over Rome and looked at the clock on the wall.

Twenty-four hours had become twelve.

***

POV: DANTE / ISABELLA

By evening, Isabella could no longer sit up.

Dante had moved her to the couch in the main room, where the windows faced the sea and the light was soft, and she lay under a blanket she kept pushing off and pulling back. Her skin was damp. Her hands moved against the fabric in small, restless motions, as if looking for something to hold. Twice she had asked him what time it was. Twice he had told her.

"It’s seven," he said again.

"Still seven?"

"It’s seven-fifteen now."

She closed her eyes. "It feels like it’s been seven all day."

Dante sat on the edge of the couch and laid the back of his hand against her forehead. She was burning. He took the glass from the table and held it to her mouth, and she drank a little, and some of it ran down her chin. He wiped it away with his thumb.

"I’m sorry," she whispered.

"For what?"

"For not telling you. In the beginning." Her voice was thin. "I thought if I said it out loud, it would be real."

"Stop."

"I should have told you."

"You told me when you could," Dante said. "That’s all anyone can do."

She turned her face into the cushion and didn’t answer. Her jaw was locked, and he could see the muscle working under her skin.

His phone buzzed on the table.

Unknown number. Dante looked at it for a moment, then at her. Her eyes were closed again.

He picked up the phone and carried it out onto the terrace, sliding the glass door shut behind him.

"Romano," Dimitri said.

"Valentino."

"The supply has been found."

For a moment Dante didn’t speak. The sea moved below the cliffs. A gull cried somewhere in the dark.

"Found," he said.

"A reserve. It’s the same compound. It won’t cure her, and I won’t pretend that it will. It will keep her alive long enough to be brought down properly." Dimitri’s voice was flat and businesslike, with nothing in it that Dante could use. "I’m sending Luca a location. A drop, ninety minutes from Rome."

"Where did it come from?"

"Someone who had no more use for it."

"That isn’t an answer."

"It’s the one I’m giving you." A pause. "There’s also a doctor. He will guide you through the first dose over the phone, and through the weeks after. You do exactly what he says."

"I want his name." Dante said.

"He doesn’t give one."

"You’re asking me to hand her to a stranger."

"I’m giving you a man who has kept every patient he’s ever been handed alive," Dimitri said. "You can call the number or you can wait and watch her. That’s the choice."

Dante’s hand tightened on the railing. Below him, the water was black.

"And what do I owe you for this?"

"Not tonight," Dimitri said. "When she’s stable, we’ll talk. Write this down."

Dante wrote the number on the back of his hand with a pen from his jacket. He didn’t thank him. Neither of them expected it.

"Understood," he said.

The line went dead.

He stood on the terrace for another ten seconds with his eyes shut. Then he called Luca.

...

Luca left Rome within the hour. The drive to the drop would take him an hour and a half, and the drive from there to the villa would take longer. Dante did the sum twice and didn’t like either answer.

He called the number on his hand.

It was answered on the second ring by a man who sounded neither young nor old and gave nothing away. "Tell me about her."

"She’s in her mid-twenties," Dante said. "Five days without a dose. Tremors, fever, locked jaw. She’s not eating. She’s drifting in and out."