Six Months Contract With The Mafia God

Dante carried her to the bedroom. He laid her on the bed with her head turned to the side and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. Then he pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat in it, and put his hand over hers.

He did not look away from her face for the next two hours.

...

Luca arrived at one thirty-four.

Dante heard the car on the gravel and was at the door before the engine cut. Luca came up the steps fast, a plain black bag in one hand. He stopped when he saw Dante’s face.

”She seized,” Dante said.

Luca closed his eyes briefly. ”How long?”

”Under two minutes. It’s over.”

”Is she....”

”She’s breathing. She hasn’t woken.” Dante held out his hand. ”Give it to me.”

Luca gave him the bag. ”The drop was clean. A locker at a rail station. Nobody followed me. Nobody saw me.”

”Did you see who left it?” Dante asked.

”No. It was already there.” Luca hesitated. ”Boss, the bottles. Nothing on them. No label, no seal, no lot number. Whoever packed these knew how to leave nothing.”

”Yes,” Dante said. ”I noticed that too.”

He didn’t say anything else. He took the bag into the bedroom and set it on the nightstand.

The doctor was still on the line. He talked Dante through the first dose in a level voice, step by step, and had him repeat every instruction back. Dante wrote nothing down and forgot nothing. He raised Isabella’s head with one arm. She stirred but didn’t wake. He held the glass to her lips, and she took a little, and then a little more, and swallowed with an effort that made him wince.

”Now we wait,” the doctor said.

”How long?” Dante asked.

”An hour before there’s any change. Maybe two.”

”And if there isn’t?”

”There will be.”

Dante sat down in the chair and took her hand.

Luca stood in the doorway and watched him for a while. He didn’t speak. Then he said, quietly, ”I’ll be in the kitchen,” and went away.

The clock on the wall ticked toward three. The sea beat against the cliffs. Dante kept his eyes on Isabella’s chest, counting each breath, and when his own eyes began to close, he pinched the back of his hand until they opened again.

...

ISABELLA’S POV

When she woke, the light was gray and soft and coming from the right side of the room.

She lay still and listened. Waves. A gull. The faint creak of a chair.

Her body felt like it had been taken apart and put back together by someone in a hurry. Every muscle ached, a deep, hollow ache, but under it, for the first time in days, there was something else. A kind of quiet. The pressure behind her eyes had eased. The tremor in her hands, when she lifted one and looked at it, was only a flutter.

She turned her head.

Dante was in the chair beside the bed. His shirt was creased, his jaw dark with stubble. His head had dropped forward, and his hand was still wrapped around hers. He wasn’t asleep. She could tell by the set of his shoulders.

”Dante,” she said.

His head came up at once.

”Hey.” His voice was rough. ”Hey. You’re awake.”

”What time is it?”

”A little after six.”

”Did I....” She stopped and swallowed. Her throat was raw. ”Something happened. I remember the floor. I remember you counting.”

”You had a seizure. It was short.” He reached for the glass on the nightstand and helped her drink. ”You’re all right now. You’re all right.”

She drank. The water was cool and tasted of nothing, and it was the best thing she had ever swallowed.

”The pills,” she said, setting the glass down. ”You gave me something.”

”Yes.”

”Where did you get them?”

His hand tightened on hers. ”From someone who could.”

”You told me there was no way to find them.”

”I said I couldn’t find them.” He kept his eyes on hers. ”Someone else could.”

Isabella looked at him for a long moment. The gray light lay across his face, and she noticed things she hadn’t seen before. The shadows under his eyes. A small white scar at the corner of his mouth. The way he held very still, the way a man does when he is waiting for a verdict.

”You’ve been on the phone for days,” she said slowly. ”You go quiet when I walk in. You told me it was someone who might help, and you didn’t say who.”

”Isabella.....”

”What have you been hiding from me?”

The room was silent. Down the hall, a tap dripped in the kitchen. Luca moved around out there, quietly, making coffee.

Dante didn’t look away.

”A lot,” he said. ”I’ll tell you what I can.”

”Start with the pills.”

He took a breath. ”Luca analyzed them twice. The first time, they looked like exactly what the label said. The second time, he took them apart layer by layer. They have two. On the outside, real anxiety medication. Underneath it, something else. Something that was built to keep you dependent.”

Isabella didn’t move.

”It wasn’t a mistake,” Dante said. ”It wasn’t a bad batch or a doctor’s error. Somebody made it, and made it carefully, and put it in your hands every month for eight years.”

”For eight years,” she said.

”Yes.”

”I thought I was ill.” Her voice cracked on the last word. ”I thought something was wrong with me.”

”Nothing was wrong with you.”

”I was taking it. Every morning. I never missed. I counted them when the box came.” She pulled her hand out of his and pressed it over her mouth. Her shoulders began to shake. ”Every day, I.....”

”Come here.”

She didn’t. She turned her face into the pillow and cried, silently at first, then with great, tearing sobs she couldn’t have stopped if she’d tried. Dante moved to the edge of the bed and put his arm around her, and she turned into him and held on.

He didn’t say anything. He held her until the worst of it passed, and then a while longer.

”Who knew?” she whispered finally, against his chest.

”I don’t know yet.”

”My father....”

”I don’t believe he did. He found the doctor himself, and he trusted him.” Dante’s hand moved slowly over her hair. ”I think he’s been deceived the same way you were.”