That Hour

Candice's P.O.V.

Each minute the basement of the brownstone was growing smaller, the odor of old concrete, instant coffee and the bite of gun oil on the metallic taste was growing heavier, and we sat at a folding table covered with laptops, burner phones and half-empty containers of takeout, and the screens of the computers lightening everyone in cold blue, and the federal warrants scrolling across news feeds like a death sentence. Papa sat next me, and in a creaking metal chair, which squeaked with every movement, his hand on my knee in the very same way it used to when I was a kid and feared thunderstorms--and now the storm was here--warrants, leaks, the sheriff daughter locked away upstairs in a bedroom we had turned into a guarded safe room, and his silent presence helped me not to get away all the way. Mantovani had been standing behind me and had one hand on my shoulder and the fingers digging in just enough to be reminding me that he was there, solid and unyielding, and his other hand had been working through encrypted messages, coordinating his scattered capos who were still loyal and still fighting, even as the empire fell down around us.

Mom was pacing by the steps, her phone like a lifeline, checking her feeds compulsively, her voice is tight whenever she speaks, her words coming out like Candice is a person of interest in an organized crime investigation. They are cursing you the d'Agostino princess. The words hurt, and the title Mantovani had bestowed on me in love became dirty and criminal and I felt it sink into my chest, the shame of recognizable familiarity of being brought into the limelight when all I had ever needed was to be loved in secret. Sanna sat at the head of the table, looking older than I have ever known him, his burns still fresh bandaged, though his brain was as clear as usual; he rubbed his jaw, and looked narrow-eyed at the screen, "We have twelve hours to the deadline of the sheriff. Our only advantage is the daughter. We need her to have him take it back--call the feds down, bury the leaks--or we lose everything.

Dad cleared his throat and his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands, "You're talking of taking a child hostage. And that is not what you are, or what any of you are. His utterances fell like a load, breaking the tension of the room like a knife, and I saw Mantovani standing taller in the room, the struggle within him being apparent in the nature of his clench of the jaw. Isabella--the daughter of the sheriff--was sixteen, frightened, totally innocent of the sins of her father; we had fed her, had given her books, had permitted her to call her mother under supervision, but the thing was that she was a bargaining-chip, and every minute we had her under our charge was making us liker the monsters we fought. We do not wish this, I said to Dad, and my voice was tiny. But, by letting her go free, the sheriff wins. He will see that we all live in prison--there will be even worse ways to life.

And dad stared a long time at me, and then at Mantovani, and trying to find his features in his face, said, You love my daughter. I see that. However, love is no excuse. There has to be another way." His words--so soft, moral, human--stroke me more forcibly than any bullet, of the life I had had, so nearly, and made me think of it as one where decisions were easy and nights not closed with gunfire. Yes there might be, Train, remarked Mantovani, pushing his hand off my shoulder, to the back of my neck, and personally rubbing his thumb, as though it were balancing the two of us. The leaks are digital. We have our own hackers. we can wipe them and set on them false trails and purchase time to get out of it, should we get to the servers where the sheriff put the original ones, before they spread out more. The sheriff stores everything in encrypted drives in his own house, leaned forward, his eyes bright with grim hope, Sanna. Unattainable, yet high security.

The scheme was quickly made, and in a frenzied, desperate, necessarily-rather-than-perfective manner: a small party--me, Mantovani, Conti--would penetrate the mountain-estate of that sheriff to-night when Sanna and Mom had remained with Isabella and used her as the last card in a contest in case of a failure. Dad insisted that he is coming, "I am not sitting this out. I would like to be there in case they have an opportunity to bring this to a close without any more blood. Mom made a demonstration and even flushed in the eyes, but dad kissed her forehead and muttered, I lost you once. I won't lose my daughter twice. Let me help protect her." She made a nod and looked in tears and embraced him closely and the passion of their old love came back in the eyes of the crisis and it reminded her that some relationships never fall apart.

We were silent, geared up, in black tactical attire, repressed weapons, night-vision goggles, and drove into the mountains during the night, the road getting steeper and steeper, the air colder and colder with each mile. Mantovani was driving and his hand sought mine every few minutes and squealed and said, We come back together. Keep me word, I promise you you will not pass in front of me. I kissed his knuckles, which smelled of salt and gun oil, "Only promise to come back home to me. Conti was riding shotgun, still bandaged on the shoulder, but with a grimace of rage, "This is terminated to-night. One way or another."

The estate stood on the summit of the ridge--high fences, floodlights, armed guards--and we pulled our car a mile away and then began to walk up through the pines, their earth crunching in our feet. Mantovani stepped forward, silent and deadly, and pointing our way through the darkness, and I was right behind, my heart thudding at the same old rate of fear and excitement which had grown to be our existence. We stopped the outer fence with bolt cutters and bypassed the patrols with the help of the night-vision to see the thermal signatures, and then entered the main house: a contemporary castle of glass and stone, via an open service door left ajar by a bribed gardener.

It was silent indoors, and a majority of the personnel was asleep, and we gambled ghosts through marble corridors, by invaluable art and family portraits which depicted a younger and smiling sheriff with Isabella as a toddler. The server room was located in the basement, behind a biometric lock, but Conti had the override codes based on the intel obtained by Ryan and the door hissed open and showed racks of humming drives. Mantovani was quick, and within a minute we had our own encrypted drive installed, the wipe had begun, Conti on the cuff, and I on the stairs, with my pistol ready every scuff of the house causing my heart to jump.

Now we were nearly finished, files being deleted, false information uploaded, when alarms jangled, red lights flashed, and heavy feet were stamping on the floor overhead. They're here, they're here, Conti hissed, and Mantovani grabbed the drive and slammed the panel behind him as guards crashed through the door, with their rifles in their hands. Gunfire followed in that small area, bullets bouncing off servers, sparks flying as equipment burst, and Mantovani pushed me behind a rack, shooting back with lethal accuracy and killing two guards as Conti guarded the exit. I shot too, and my fire was all over the place, and I hit one in the leg, and the man went down screaming, and the desire to live, to get home to Mom and to Dad and to a life we were battling to, flamed even higher than the fear.

We struggled out, wall at our backs, the place filled with smoke, broken servers in the basement bursting into flame, and ran out of the building, in the direction of the treeline. Mantovani took my hand and I was dragged along, and his breath was ragged, "We have it--the originals are dead; the spread will not be so fast. But when we got up to the fence the floodlights came on, and we were kept in white excruciating light, and the sheriff himself came out of the brush, with a dozen men behind him, their rifles pointing our way, and smiling coldly, "Nice try. However, there is one thing you forgot--I make copies of things.

He put up his hand and a sniper laser dot, red and steady, came to my chest and Mantovani stood fixed, not able to discharge his weapon, his voice failing in the first instance, Don’t. Please. Take me instead."

The sheriff laughed, and tightened his fingers on the trigger, and I shut my eyes, and waited the shot which would stop it all.