Dimitri felt something cold and slow settle in his chest.
"You're bargaining with her life."
"I'm bargaining with mine. And yours."
"She is sick, Father. She'll be sick for weeks under a taper."
"Then she will be sick for weeks. She will live. You have seen to that." Antonio shrugged very slightly. "I am not asking you to let her die. I am asking you to stay quiet."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I keep what I have. And Dante keeps looking."
Dimitri said nothing. He stood very still, his hands at his sides, and looked at the man across the desk who had taught him to read a room, to choose a word, to hold a silence until the other side broke.
He had never expected to be on the receiving end of it.
"You are using her," he said.
"I am using what I have."
"Mother would have...."
"Do not," Antonio said sharply, "use your mother as a weapon in my house."
The room went very quiet.
