Chapter 443: He Has The Antidote

Dimitri felt something cold and slow settle in his chest.

"You’re bargaining with her life."

"I’m bargaining with mine. And yours."

"She is sick, Father. She’ll be sick for weeks under a taper."

"Then she will be sick for weeks. She will live. You have seen to that." Antonio shrugged very slightly. "I am not asking you to let her die. I am asking you to stay quiet."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I keep what I have. And Dante keeps looking."

Dimitri said nothing. He stood very still, his hands at his sides, and looked at the man across the desk who had taught him to read a room, to choose a word, to hold a silence until the other side broke.

He had never expected to be on the receiving end of it.

"You are using her," he said.

"I am using what I have."

"Mother would have...."

"Do not," Antonio said sharply, "use your mother as a weapon in my house."

The room went very quiet.

For a moment the two men looked at each other across the desk, and neither of them moved. Then Antonio’s expression changed. It didn’t soften. It hardened into something smaller and colder.

"You have made an enemy of your own father," he said. "I hope you understand that."

"I understand it."

"Then think about what you do next."

"I will."

"Do not take long."

"I will think about it," Dimitri said. "Don’t mistake that for agreement."

He turned and walked to the door. His hand was on the handle when Antonio spoke again, quietly, without raising his voice.

"Dimitri."

He stopped.

"She is alive because of you. I know that." Antonio paused. "It does not change what I need."

Dimitri did not turn around.

"I know," he said.

He opened the door and went out.

...

Marco was waiting by the car.

He took one look at Dimitri’s face and opened the rear door without a word. Dimitri slid in. Marco got behind the wheel and pulled out through the gates, and neither of them spoke until the estate had disappeared behind the trees.

"Well?" Marco said at last.

"He has the antidote."

Marco’s hands tightened on the wheel. "He has it."

"Prometheus holds a counter-compound. It would take her off the dependence in days." Dimitri looked out the window at the passing fields. "He won’t give it to me."

"Why not?"

"He wants a price."

"What price?"

"Dante," Dimitri said. "He wants Dante kept away from the lab. Told the trail is dead and made to believe it."

Marco was quiet for several seconds. "That’s a price you can’t pay."

"I know."

"If you tell Dante the trail is dead, you leave her on the taper. You leave her sick."

"Yes."

"And if you tell Dante the truth...."

"Then Lorenzo hears it, and the alliance falls, and my father burns everything to stop it." Dimitri pressed his fingers against his eyes. "I’d have two wars instead of one."

"What will you do?"

"I don’t know."

It was the first time in years Marco had heard him say it. He glanced in the mirror. Dimitri sat very still with his head back against the seat and his eyes closed.

"Take me home," Dimitri said.

"The penthouse?"

"Eve is waiting."

Marco nodded and turned the car toward the city.

***

*HOURS LATER*

He had come home at noon and gone straight into the study, and he had not come out.

Eve let him. She had spent most of her life learning when to push and when to wait, and this was a day for waiting. She had Juliet bring coffee to the study door at two and take it away untouched at four. She had a quiet lunch alone on the terrace. She read the same page of a book three times. At seven, she heard Marco’s voice in the corridor, low and brief, and then the front door closing again.

By ten, the penthouse had gone still.

She stood outside the study for a minute with her hand on the door. Then she knocked once and went in.

Dimitri sat at the desk with a single lamp burning. He had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, and in front of him lay a sheet of paper covered in nothing at all. He looked up when she entered, and she saw that he hadn’t slept in two days.

"You said the same night," Eve said.

"I know."

"It’s night."

He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "It is."

She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the desk in front of him, close enough that her knee touched his arm. She didn’t say anything else. She waited.

"I went to see my father this morning," Dimitri said.

"I know. Marco told me."

"He didn’t tell you what was said."

"No. He said it wasn’t his to tell."

Dimitri nodded slowly. He looked down at the blank page for a moment, as if the words might be written there.

"He admitted it," he said. "All of it. He didn’t deny it, and he didn’t try to. He sat at his desk and told me why."

"Why?"

"Control." He said the word flatly. "She was sixteen, and Lorenzo went looking for a doctor. My father made sure it would be a doctor he could reach. He wanted her calm and dependent. He wanted a bride who would never run, never choose, never leave the hand that fed her. That was the whole of it. The alliance needed her steady, so he made her steady."

Eve felt something cold move through her. "That’s...."

"He said he never meant to harm her. He said it was only meant to hold her." Dimitri’s jaw was tight. "He told me I was meant to be the reason she stayed. That I didn’t have to love her. I only had to be there."

"Dimitri."

"He made the engagement into a cage, Eve. And I was the lock."