Six Months Contract With The Mafia God

”Yes, Signore.”

He set the phone down and stood for a long time with his hand on the receiver.

Someone had got to Armani. Not Dante, because Dante would have gone for the doctor himself, and Dante did not know where the doctor was. Someone quieter. Someone who had known where to look and what to take and how to leave very little behind.

It was a short list. He did not care for the name at the top of it.

...

The aide came back at nine that night.

Antonio was at his desk with the lamp finally lit. He had not eaten.

”It’s done,” the aide said. ”The courier is closed. Every registration was withdrawn by six. Armani’s file has been removed from three registries, and the fourth is in progress. The Naples depot has been emptied. The stock is in the cold room at Frascati.”

”Good.”

”The safe log, Signore.” He laid a second sheet on the desk. ”There have been no unusual openings in the past year. The only entry outside the first of the month is this morning’s. The code used was Armani’s own.”

”So he opened it himself.”

”Yes. Voluntarily, as far as we can tell.”

”Voluntarily,” Antonio repeated. ”On whose instruction?”

”We don’t know. His phone shows one call this morning, at seven forty. A prepaid number. It lasted forty seconds.” The aide paused. ”Our man outside saw a gray car leave the building at a quarter past eight. One man inside. He didn’t see a face.”

”Tall? Short?”

”Tall, he thinks. A dark coat. He couldn’t be certain.”

Antonio looked at the paper for a long moment. Then he folded it once and laid it aside.

”Keep the watch on Armani,” he said. ”Nothing changes.”

”And Benedetti?”

”Continue. If Dante’s people are at the door of the lab, I want to know the moment they touch the handle.” He rubbed his eyes with two fingers. ”That will be all.”

”Signore.” The aide hesitated at the door. ”May I say something?”

”You may.”

”If this goes further than Dante, if there is someone else.....”

”There is always someone else,” Antonio said. ”Good night.”

The aide went out. The door closed softly.

On the corner of the desk, in a plain silver frame, stood a photograph he had kept there for years. A woman in a white dress, laughing at something outside the frame, her dark hair blown across her face by the wind.

Claire.

He looked at it for a while.

”Not yet,” he said quietly, to no one. ”Not him.”

The house had gone quiet around him. Antonio sat alone with the lamp burning and the photograph before him, and waited for the telephone to ring.

***

POV: EVE

Eve found him on the terrace a little after nine.

She had been looking for him for ten minutes. The study was empty, the kitchen was empty, and Juliet, when asked, had said only that Signor Valentino had gone out to get some air and had not come back. So Eve took a blanket from the back of the couch, put on her shoes, and slid the glass door open.

Dimitri stood at the railing with his back to her. He had taken off his jacket. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and he held a glass he wasn’t drinking from.

”You’ve been quiet all day,” Eve said.

”I know.”

”Marco’s been in and out since dawn. You didn’t come to bed last night.”

”I know that too.” He turned. In the light from the windows, his face looked tired in a way she hadn’t seen before. ”I need to tell you something.”

Eve pulled the blanket around her shoulders and came to stand beside him. ”All right.”

”It’s about Isabella.”

She waited.

”Dante called me last night,” Dimitri said.

Eve went still. She kept her voice level. ”On your phone?”

”On the private line.”

”Why would he call you?”

”Because Isabella is dying.” He set the glass down on the railing. ”Or she will be, if nothing is done. She’s been taking medication for anxiety since she was a girl. It turns out it wasn’t what it said it was. It was a compound made to keep her dependent on it. She’s been without it for five days, and her body is going through withdrawal. It’s bad, Eve. She hasn’t had a seizure yet, but the doctor Marco found says she could have one tonight.”

For a moment Eve couldn’t find anything to say.

”Poisoned,” she said at last.

”Yes.”

”For how long?”

”Eight years.”

She pressed a hand over her mouth. Below them, a scooter went by on the street, its engine thin and faint.

”And Dante called you for help,” she said slowly.

”He couldn’t find the source. He doesn’t have the reach. He asked me to use mine.”

”And you said yes.”

”I said I’d see what I could do.” Dimitri’s voice was quiet. ”Then I did it.”

Eve took a breath. She thought of the morning, of the bed and the light through the windows, of the way he had said none of this concerns us. She had believed him. She had wanted to.

”This morning you told me you were stepping back from all of it,” she said.

”I was.”

”What changed?”

”A man called me at midnight and told me a woman was shaking herself to pieces in a rented house.” He looked at her. ”And I knew what was in the pills.”

Eve frowned. ”What do you mean?”

Dimitri didn’t answer right away. He looked out over the city, at the lit domes and the dark rooftops, and she watched him decide.

”I knew before he called,” he said. ”I’ve known for some time. Dr. Armani confessed it to me. He’s the doctor who prescribed them. He told me where the pills came from.”

”Where?”

”My father.”

The word hung between them.

Eve didn’t move. She heard the scooter again, farther away now. She heard her own pulse.

”Your father,” she said.

”My father owns a laboratory called Prometheus. It makes things like this. He intercepted her prescription years ago and replaced it with his own compound, dressed up as what she thought she was taking. She’s been taking it every day since she was sixteen.” Dimitri’s jaw tightened. ”She has no idea. Lorenzo has no idea. Dante knows the pills are wrong, but not whose they are.”

”Does Dante know it’s your father?”