he slipped the phone in his pocket, clutching his keys. "Come on, man, don't tell me you…"
Umberto half-shrugged. Dante didn't have to finish where he was going with that. Nobody knew the ins and outs of cars like Umberto Ricci, the guy who had done time for stealing them twice. He knew all about circuits and conduits and whatever the fuck else it took to get power flowing.
Of course he'd been involved.
He'd certainly know how to wire a bomb.
"You were gone," Umberto said, trying to explain. "Your father wanted it all to be over. He figured, you know, it should come full circle. He wanted the bomb to be exactly like the one that killed your brother. Key in the ignition… boom. And your sister, man, I didn't know. Nobody could've known she would go after him, that she would risk her life like that, knowing there was a bomb."
"I would've," Dante said. "I would've known she'd run straight for him, because that's who she was."
"An enemy sympathizer."
An enemy sympathizer. Dante laughed bitterly at that. She'd been put in a box with a label, like she'd never been anything more than someone in love with someone so wrong. Fucking Romeo & Juliet in the flesh, dying stupidly over forbidden love. Dante wasn't surprised. He'd feared that for her. But it made him sick to hear it. She'd always been so much more.
"I meant she was the kind of person who would risk her life to save someone," Dante said. "Say what you want about my sister, but nobody can deny she was one of the good ones. She was innocent... a hell of a lot more innocent than any of us."
Dante walked out before Umberto could respond. Dante was in no mood to hear whatever he'd say to that. He didn't want to start off his night by punching the guy who had at one time been his closest friend.
Besides, the world was out there, waiting.
And wherever his sister was, wherever she'd ended up, he was going to make her proud. He was going to show her he hadn't forgotten the promise he made.
The promise that he'd be there anytime she needed him. He might've been late this time, but it was never too late to make things right.
Chapter Seven
Darkness cloaked Manhattan.
It had moved in hours earlier, coming on like a fog and swaddling everything around Dante. He found a strange sense of peace in it. He always had. As the sun went down, he felt himself growing calm.
More than anything, especially then, out there felt like home.
It hadn't been a particularly gloomy night. Nothing out of the ordinary. In a city like Manhattan, even in the darkness, everything still seemed to be lit up. Buildings, streets, and even the sky. Enough light radiated out that it made it damn near impossible to see any stars. But still, after nightfall, the world turned dark. It was like walking in the shadows.
Being invisible.
Invincible.
Dante sat on the metal bench outside of the hospital. He wasn't sure how long he'd been there but it had to have been a few hours. People came and went, moving in fast-forward, while he pressed pause, just existing in the moment. After darkness reigned, the sky again started to grow light. Dawn was coming. A new day happening. He'd survived another night.
Noises came from the entrance to the hospital near sunrise as a few people scattered. Shift change. Dante watched as a woman approached. Head down, eyes fixed on the ground, she walked at a brisk pace.
He almost let her keep going. Almost let her slip away. But his lips moved, his voice sounding out while she was still in earshot. "Nurse Russo."
She skidded to a stop. "Dante? What are you doing here? I thought you left."
"I did," he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out the yellow MetroCard. He held it up, clutching it between two of his fingers. "Figured I'd return this."
"You didn't have to do that," she said as she stepped to him, carefully taking the card and holding onto it. "You could've kept it."
He shook his head. "Returning it was the least I could do."
He didn't mention the fact that he'd loaded it with money, too.
"Well, thank you," she said, her voice hesitant, "but I'm serious... you didn't have to. You probably shouldn't have. Just because you got discharged doesn't mean you're healed. You should be in bed, recuperating, not hanging out here."