"Right. Yes. Um… goodnight, then," she says.
"Goodnight."
She opens the door, steps inside, looks at me one more time through the gap. The door closes. I'm standing on the sidewalk in the cold, and I can still feel the place where her knuckle bumped the back of my hand. Third block, right side, four steps past the parking meter with the dented head.
Ten seconds. Then I turn around and walk back to my apartment.
The placement network is running a secondary check.
Danila texts at six AM: "Handler pulled records on three Philly placements in the last 48 hrs. Yours might be one of them. Stay alert."
I read the text standing at the window in the dark. Grace's apartment lights are off. She won't be up for another three hours. The street below is empty except for a delivery truck idling outside the bodega.
Three Philly placements. The network has multiple assets in this city. I knew this from Danila's briefing, but I didn't think the handlers would actively reviewing them. The Harrisons' restructuring of the Silent is creating pressure all the way down the chain.
If Grace's handler pulls her file and sees the Marinos' next check-in is twenty-four days out, that's within normal parameters. No flag. But if the handler decides to do an independent verification, send someone to the restaurant or the apartment or the Marinos' house, the operation gets complicated fast.
I need to move the timeline up.
I text Danila back: "Can you get the handler's name?"
Twenty minutes. Then: "Working on it. Two days."
Two days. The Marinos' check-in is in four days. If I move on them the day after the call, I have the standard window. If the handler pulls an early review before the call, the Marinos report Grace as stable and the handler stands down and I move on schedule. If the handler pulls an early review after I've killed the Marinos, the handler finds dead bodies instead of a status report and the entire network activates.
The timing has to be perfect. I need to know when the handler is looking and when the handler looks away. I need Danila's intel, and I need it before the check-in call.
I pull the knife and clean my thumbnail and think about logistics for an hour then I call Leone.
First ring. "Carmelo."
Fifteen seconds of nothing. I stand at the window, hold the phone, hold the knife.
"Tell me," Leone says.
"I need to move on the family. But the timeline changed. Danila says the placement network is tightening protocols. Handlers are reviewing assets. They could relocate her."
Leone is quiet. Processing. "How soon?"
"The check-in is in four days. I move the day after. But if the handler reviews her file before that, the window closes."
"What do you need?"
"Danila's getting the handler's name. If I can track the handler's review schedule, I can time the hit between the check-in and the next review cycle."
"What else?"
"If they try to relocate her before I move, I need to be able to stop it. That means I need to know who they send and when they send them."
"Claudio," Leone says. "I'll have him set up a monitoring protocol on the Marinos' house. If anyone approaches, you'll know."
"Yes."
"Is this about her?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Then move. Kill them clean. Be there for her when the pills stop, because she's going to need someone. You put yourself in that position, so you damn well better be ready."
