Chapter 211: You’re okay with him dying?

Eve felt something crack inside her chest. "You’re just going to do it. No matter what I say."

"Yes."

"Even if I beg you not to."

"Yes."

"Even if I leave again."

Dimitri’s expression finally shifted, something raw and vulnerable crossing his features. "Don’t."

"Don’t what?" Eve asked, her voice breaking. "Don’t leave? Don’t beg? Don’t try to stop you from killing yourself?"

"Don’t make me choose between you and saving millions of lives," Dimitri said quietly. "Because we both know how that ends."

The truth of it, the brutal, devastating truth...settled over the room like a shroud.

He was right. If The Covenant deployed that virus, millions would die. Including her. Including Mike. Including Nonna. Including everyone she’d ever known or loved.

And he was telling her that he could stop it. That he was the only one who could stop it. That all it would cost was him walking into a facility that might kill him.

"I hate you," Eve whispered.

"I know," Dimitri said.

"I hate that you’re doing this. I hate that you’re right. I hate that I can’t stop you. I hate that you’re standing there looking at me like you’ve already made peace with dying."

"I haven’t made peace with dying," Dimitri said. "I’ve made peace with doing what needs to be done."

"That’s the same thing," Eve said.

"No," Dimitri said, stepping closer now, close enough that she could feel the heat of him. "Dying is the risk. Stopping The Covenant is the goal. And I don’t intend to die, cara mia. I intend to walk into that facility, burn it to the ground, and come home to you."

"You can’t promise that," Eve said, her voice barely audible.

"No," Dimitri agreed. "I can’t."

He reached out and took her face in his hands...gently, carefully, like she was something precious.

"But I can promise this," he said. "I will fight like hell to survive. I will use every advantage, every resource, every ounce of intelligence and strategy to make it back to you. And if I die...if I fail....it won’t be because I didn’t try hard enough. It’ll be because stopping The Covenant required more than I had to give."

Eve’s eyes were burning. "That’s supposed to make me feel better?"

"No," Dimitri said. "Nothing I say will make you feel better. But I need you to understand that this isn’t recklessness. This isn’t ego. This is necessity. And I need you to trust that I know what I’m doing."

"I trusted you before," Eve said, the words coming out sharper than she intended. "And you lied to me about The Covenant. You kept me in the dark. You made decisions without me. Why should I trust you now?"

"Because I’m not lying now," Dimitri said. "I’m telling you everything. The timeline, the plan, the risks. I’m asking you to stand beside me even though I can’t promise I’ll survive. That’s not control, cara mia. That’s trust."

Eve pulled away from him, wrapping her arms around herself. "When?"

"Seventy-two hours," Dimitri said. "Marco is creating the cover story, establishing credentials, making contact with The Covenant’s recruitment channels. I need to be inside the facility before day fourteen. Which gives us three days."

"Three days," Eve repeated, her voice hollow. "Three days before you disappear into a bioweapon facility and I have no idea if you’re alive or dead."

"You’ll know," Dimitri said. "Marco will monitor my location. If anything goes wrong, if my cover is blown, if the situation becomes unmanageable, you’ll know immediately."

"And what am I supposed to do with that information?" Eve asked. "Storm the facility? Launch a rescue mission? Watch you die in real time on some computer screen?"

"You’re supposed to trust that I’ll find a way out," Dimitri said.

Eve laughe....a broken, bitter sound. "Trust. You keep using that word like it’s simple."

"It’s not simple," Dimitri said. "It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever asked of you. But it’s what I need."

Eve looked at Mike. "Did you try to talk him out of this?"

"For an hour," Mike said. "He’s not changing his mind."

"And you’re okay with this?" Eve asked. "You’re okay with him dying?"

"No," Mike said quietly. "But I’m okay with him trying to save the world. Even if it costs him everything."

Eve turned to Nonna. The older woman had been silent this whole time, standing in the kitchen with her hands clasped in front of her, watching the conversation with eyes that had seen too much tragedy.

"Nonna," Eve said, her voice pleading. "Tell him this is insane. Tell him he can’t do this."

Nonna walked slowly toward Dimitri. She reached up and took his face in her weathered hands, the same gesture she’d made a thousand times when he was a boy.

"You are my grandson," Nonna said in Italian, then switched to English for Eve’s benefit. "You are the boy I raised when your mother died. You are the man I watched build an empire from nothing. And you are also the most stubborn, impossible, self-sacrificing fool I have ever known."

Dimitri’s jaw tightened. "Nonna...."

"But," Nonna continued, "you are also right. If this virus is released, we all die. Every person in this city. Every person you love. And you cannot stand by and let that happen when you have the power to stop it. Even if stopping it costs you everything."

She pulled his face down and kissed his forehead, a benediction, a blessing, a goodbye.

"You come home," Nonna said fiercely. "You hear me? You do what you must do, but you come home. Because if you die in that place, I will never forgive you. And neither will she."

She stepped back, and Eve saw tears in the old woman’s eyes for the first time since they’d met.

Eve looked at Dimitri. At the man she loved. At the man who was about to risk everything because he believed it was the only way.

"I can’t lose you," Eve whispered.