Mantovani...

Conti almost shouted in a moment, holding up a phone, and his face flushed pale, but determined despite his own bruises, "The sheriff men are running; our side striking at their own strong places- hard. The leaks are drying up; our hackers have put enough suspicion there to halt twenty-four-hour warrants by the feds. This news ought to have been a triumph, a turning point of the war which had swept us up, but it was empty with Mantovani unconscious and tubes running into his arms, and machines breathing on his behalf and the mystery of the sheriffs backups still haunting like a phantom of a ghost, and at any moment it would reappear. Dad was putting his arm about my shoulders, "He's tough, Candice; like you. You been through worse than you or I," and I threw myself into his bosom, and found there the strength I needed, the man who taught me how to play cello and read books under blankets, and now taught me how to inhale the world at the end of a gun and to betray.

Time lost all meaning and a vigil ensued, the room filled with the steady beep of monitors and the subdued buzz of low-toned conversation; Mom carried blankets and coffee, her hands never idle, tending to everyone like it was a family reunion, the affection of a father, so passionate under the mafia king, and Sanna told stories of Mantovani growing up, of wild rides on a bike, of secret books of poetry under the bed, of whispering to each other, the way she coped with all the mess. I remained with Mantovani, and I held his hand, and the tattoos on his fingers were telling me of the loyalty and loss, and I was whispering how we would all make it, we would go to that beach house, just us, no more running, no more fighting, and the dream of normalcy that I could relate to kept me sane through all the beeps and bandages.

As daylight came peering in through the curtains, and changed the room to gray and soft, Mantovani awoke--his eyes fluttering, a groan murmuring on his lips--and my heart sank within me, and I swore, "He is waking up!--call the doctor!--call the doctor!- They all started, all faced with weariness and impatience, and his eyes were wide open, and green and hazy, and staring at me with a low smile, voice hoarse, "Piccola... supposed you would... be here... I kissed his hand and my tears rolled, and the feeling that had been between us like a spark in dry tinder came back, and the doctor looked at the monitors and his face was serious, saying he was stable, but the internal bleeding--we needed a real hospital, or he wouldn't last until daylight.

The lines are like a blow to the gut, the post-war reality requiring one more impossibility decision: expose him to the authorities and take him to a hospital, where the feds were on warrants, or just let him die in this secret room. Sanna shook his head, "We move him. Call the New York contacts, Conti, get a wing to oneself, get bribes in place. But just as we were ready, the phone of Conti tingled with some dire announcement--news of Isabella, the daughter of the sheriff, on all the channels, Missing Teen Linked with Mafia War, and in the middle of it all to see her face, and the interest was increased when the sheriff himself became the betrayer of her, and we had to give her up or face the penalty of kidnapping on top of it all, and our cards were in a noose around our necks.

We had to release her--in a hurry, before the SWAT forces arrived, but as we draggedged her off in a car, blindfolded and not a single bruise, she kissed me, and told me that her dad kept his backups in a safe deposit box in Boston; key in his office desk. End this for all of us." Her words were like a lifeline, an opportunity to get the leaks closed forever, but with the car driving away, sirens were screaming in the background, nearer than ever, the feds closing in, and Mantovani monitors were again beeping erratically, his hand was going slack in mine, the tension mounting to a straining point as the doctor shouted, He is crashing--get the defibrillator!

I stood powerless and could only watch as they defibrillated him once more, his body arched up, the flat line went through the air again, and outside the war and the law crashed together in the last, cataclysmic bang.