Sera said nothing when Dante told her.
She simply looked at him for exactly three seconds then picked up her phone and started making calls.
That was how Aria learned that Sera Conti's version of nothing was actually everything — that the silence was not absence but the sound of a very precise mind moving very fast through a very long list of things that needed to happen in a very short time.
Aria sat in Dante's penthouse and watched it unfold.
Within the first hour — the cover story was tightened. Every detail stress tested. Every answer to every possible question rehearsed until it sat naturally in the mouth rather than sitting like something memorized.
Within the second hour — the Rome property was confirmed. Travel arrangements made. A hotel booked under a name that was not Dante'
