Chapter 431: Does Eve Knows About This?

Marco let that stand. He knew better than to push at it.

"There’s the offer," he said instead.

"Yes."

"Dante said he’d give you The Covenant. Do you trust it?"

"No," Dimitri said. "I trust what he wants."

"Which is?" ℯ𝓵.

"The girl alive. A man who wants that badly enough will hand over things he can’t take back." Dimitri turned from the window. "But I’m not going to take his word for it. When the time comes, I’ll ask him something I already know the answer to. If he lies, I stop."

"And if he doesn’t?"

"Then I have what I’ve wanted for a year, from the one man I never expected to give it to me."

Marco looked at him for a long moment. "You don’t sound pleased."

"I’m not," Dimitri said. "I’m useful to myself. It’s not the same thing."

He sat back down and pulled the phone across the desk.

"Call Armani," he said.

...

Marco dialed. It rang four times before it was picked up.

"Pronto?" The doctor’s voice was thin and wary.

"Dottor Armani," Dimitri said. "It’s Dimitri Valentino."

There was a long silence on the line. When Armani spoke again, his voice had dropped almost to a whisper. "Signor Valentino. I told you everything the last time. Everything I know."

"I remember."

"I haven’t spoken to anyone. I haven’t changed anything. I’ve done exactly as you said."

"Then you’ll have no difficulty with one more thing," Dimitri said. "You told us you keep a reserve."

"Two cartons," Armani said. "I hadn’t shipped them yet. They’re locked in the safe at the office."

"Marco will collect them within the hour. Nothing from the original packaging leaves that building. Not a box, not a label, not a receipt. Do you understand?"

"I understand." A pause. "Signor Valentino, if Signor Antonio were to learn that I...."

"You should be more afraid of me than of him," Dimitri said. "It shouldn’t be difficult."

The silence this time was shorter.

"It will be done," Armani said.

"Good."

Dimitri ended the call and handed the phone back to Marco.

"One hour," Marco said, standing. "I’ll bring Mike in on the paper trail. And I’ll have my doctor ready by noon."

"Tell him she’s to be moved nowhere. He goes to her."

"Understood."

"And Marco." Dimitri didn’t look up from the desk. "I want her stable before sundown tomorrow."

"I’ll do what I can."

"Do more."

Marco nodded once and went out. The door closed behind him with a soft click.

Dimitri sat alone in the study with the sunlight lying across the desk.

He picked up the whiskey he had left untouched, looked at it, and set it down again.

...

MIKE’S POV

Mike’s phone lit up at twenty to two in the morning.

He was asleep on top of the covers in his New York apartment, still in his clothes, and it took him two rings to find the phone. Marco’s name was on the screen. A video call.

He was upright before he answered.

"Is it Eve?"

"Eve’s fine," Marco said. His face filled the screen, a gray Roman morning behind him. "She’s asleep. It isn’t her."

Mike let out a breath and rubbed his face. "It’s two in the morning, Marco."

"I know. Dimitri needs you."

The picture swung. Marco propped the phone against something on the study desk, and Dimitri came into the frame, a folder open in front of him. He looked like a man who had spent the night thinking and had not enjoyed the results.

"I’m going for the cartons," Marco said from somewhere off-screen. Then a door closed.

"Mike," Dimitri said.

"You look terrible."

"I’ve been told." Dimitri didn’t smile. "Get to your laptop. This one matters."

Mike was already moving. He dropped into the chair at his desk, opened the laptop, and propped the phone beside it. Dimitri laid it out in a few sentences, and Mike’s face changed twice while he listened.

"You want me to build a fake trail," Mike said. "For Dante."

"For Dante’s man," Dimitri said. "Dante will be the one reading it."

"It’s the same thing." Mike leaned back in the chair. "You understand what you’re asking. Of all the people you could ask to help that man."

"I understand."

"He’s...." Mike stopped. "Never mind. You know what he is."

"I do."

"Then why?"

"Because there’s a woman four days into withdrawal who won’t last a week without help," Dimitri said. "This isn’t for Dante, Mike. It’s for her."

"Isabella."

"Yes."

Mike was quiet for a moment. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Does Eve know about this?"

"Not yet."

"She’ll want to."

"I’ll tell her tonight," Dimitri said.

"Good." Mike pulled the laptop closer. "I’ll do it. But I’m not doing it for him."

"I don’t need you to."

Mike opened a new window and started typing. "What does Dante know so far?"

"That the pills come from a Dr. Armani who isn’t in any registry," Dimitri said. "A shell courier. Three delivery addresses."

"Then the trail starts there." Mike didn’t look up. "I don’t build anything new. New things look new. I find a company that’s already dead and write a history for it."

"What kind of company?"

"A small import firm in Malta. It traded for a few years and folded. I tie it to a pharmaceutical supplier in Naples that went out of business last spring. The firm paid the supplier, the supplier paid a courier, the courier sent boxes to three addresses." His fingers kept moving. "When Luca pulls the thread, it leads him through all four, and then it ends where companies end. Closed accounts. Directors nobody can find."

"How long?"

"Six hours to make it hold. Twelve if you want it clean."

"Six," Dimitri said. "But not clean."

Mike looked up at the phone. "What does that mean?"

"Leave something out of place. Something small."

"A seam," Mike said slowly.

"A seam he can find on his own. A date that doesn’t quite match. A signature that’s a little too neat." Dimitri’s voice stayed even. "Luca is good enough to catch a mistake. Let him. Let him think he’s cleverer than whoever built it. A man doesn’t question a trail he discovered himself."