The air in the West Wing salon turned into liquid ice.
Dante took the phone from my hands. His thumb tapped the screen, replaying the seven-second video loop of the masked man standing beside Leo’s hospital bed with the syringe.
I waited for him to explode. I waited for him to put a fist through the mahogany wall or roar for his lieutenants. But Dante didn't move a single muscle. His face didn't warp with rage; it locked into a terrifying, unnatural stillness, the face of a man who had stepped beyond anger and straight into absolute destruction.
"Dante," I whispered, my voice trembling as panic clawed at my chest. "We have to annul it. We have to tell her....."
"We tell her nothing," Dante said, his baritone dropping to a frequency so low it felt like a vibration in the floorboards. He
