Chapter 58: Romano's Meeting

Dante's POV

Romano's building looked the same at nine in the morning as it had looked at midnight two weeks ago when he'd walked out of it on bail with Leone waiting at the curb.

He went in through the front this time.

The security desk logged him, issued a visitor pass, and told him Romano was expecting him on the fourth floor. Standard and civil, which meant Romano had decided this meeting was going to be conducted as a professional conversation rather than anything else.

He took that as useful information.

Her office was the same as it had been the last time he'd seen it, which had been through a window when he was waiting for Aria. Small. Ordered. The desk is clear except for a folder and a coffee cup and the particular arrangement of someone who worked in a space efficiently rather than decoratively.

Romano stood when he came in. Closed the door behind him.

"Mr. Moretti." She gestured to the chair. "Coffee?"

"No."

She sat. He sat. She opened the folder on her desk and turned it so he could see the first page.

It was a photograph of one of Gavino's files. The photo Aria had taken last night, clear and legible in the way that happened when someone who knew what they were doing held a phone steady in adequate light.

"I received these at six this morning," Romano said. "Anonymous routing. Marco Ferraro's signature work, based on the method, but untraceable by design." She looked at him. "You've been busy."

"I received an anonymous package," Dante said. "Decided to forward it."

Romano's expression said she found this approximately as convincing as he'd expected her to. "The materials are substantial. If the originals exist and match these photographs, this is the kind of evidence that changes the shape of a prosecution significantly."

"I'd think so."

"I can't use these directly." She closed the folder. "Photographs of unknown provenance from an anonymous source aren't admissible. Defense would dismantle them in under ten minutes."

"But you can use them to find sources you can use," Dante said.

Romano looked at him steadily. "These tell me where to look. What to ask Gavino when we bring him in. What to request through proper channels from institutions that have been cooperating with our investigation." She paused. "They make the official investigation significantly more efficient."

"That's all I was hoping for."

"Is it?" She leaned back in her chair. "You've been working against Salvini from inside his world for two years. This isn't opportunistic. This is deliberate and sustained."

"I've been working against Salvini," Dante said. "The inside is just where I ended up."

"The distinction matters to you."

"It describes the situation accurately."

Romano studied him the way she studied most things, like she was deciding how much weight to give what she was seeing. "You didn't come here just to tell me about an anonymous package you forwarded. You could have let Marco handle that."

"No."

"Then why."

He looked at her directly. "The girl."

Romano didn't pretend not to understand. "Dr. Salvini."

"She's been making her own choices throughout this. I want to be clear about that because at some point someone is going to suggest otherwise and I need you to already know it isn't true."

"She helped you access that building last night."

It wasn't a question. Romano had clearly worked that out already.

"She used her legitimate hospital credentials to access a building where she has legitimate hospital business," Dante said. "What happened elsewhere in that building she had no involvement in."

"That's a careful description."

"It's an accurate one."

Romano looked at him. "She could be implicated regardless of the accuracy of the description. Association, pattern of behavior, relationship with a known criminal organization. Prosecutors build cases from smaller things than that."

"That's why I'm here," Dante said. "Keep her out of it."

"I can't promise that."

"Then try harder."

The room was quiet for a moment.

Romano's expression didn't change but something in it shifted slightly. The particular shift of someone adjusting their read of a situation.

"You came here to negotiate for her," she said.

"I came here to make sure you understood her situation clearly before decisions were made about how to proceed."

"What do you want in exchange?"

"Nothing in exchange. I want you to understand that Aria Salvini is a surgeon who made a choice to help end something that's been damaging people for thirty years. She didn't do it for personal gain. She didn't do it to protect herself." He held Romano's gaze. "She did it because it was right and because she's that kind of person. I'd like that to be the lens through which you view her involvement."

Romano looked at him for a long moment.

"She's important to you," she said.

"Yes."

"That's not going to make the legal question simpler."

"I know." He didn't look away. "I'm asking you to try anyway."

Romano picked up her coffee cup, found it empty, and set it back down. "Dr. Salvini has been cooperative with this investigation independently of whatever is happening in her personal life. Her testimony, when she gives it, will be significant." She paused. "I have some discretion in how I characterize the role of cooperative witnesses. I'm not making promises. But I'm noting what you've said."

"That's enough," Dante said.

"Don't thank me yet." Romano opened a different folder. Pulled out a document and turned it to face him. "Bruno Salvini filed a formal complaint against you this morning. Harassment. Stalking. Intimidation. A pattern of behavior designed to interfere with his legitimate business and personal life."

Dante looked at the document. His name at the top. Bruno's lawyers' letterhead at the bottom.

"He's building a case," Romano said. "The complaint itself won't go anywhere given the circumstances, but that's not the point. The point is to create a paper trail that positions him as a victim and positions you as the aggressor. If he can get a judge to issue any kind of order restricting your contact with him or people associated with him—"

"He gets me removed from Rome," Dante said.

"Or at minimum creates sufficient legal complications to delay everything and make your position here very uncomfortable." Romano looked at him. "His lawyers filed this at eight this morning. An hour after I received your anonymous package."

"He knows we found something."

"He knows something is moving against him and he's responding the way he always responds, by building a counter-narrative and creating legal obstacles." Romano's voice was measured. "He's very good at this."

"I know."

"Are you listening to me?" She leaned forward slightly. "This isn't him panicking. This is him being strategic under pressure. Scared men do unpredictable things, Mr. Moretti. Bruno Salvini is scared and he's smart. That combination requires you to be careful."

Dante looked at the complaint document.

His name. Bruno's lawyers. Eight in the morning, an hour after Romano received the files.

Bruno had moved fast. Which meant Bruno had people watching Romano's communications, or had people watching Dante's movements, or had simply anticipated that something like this was coming and had the response already prepared.

Possibly all three.

"He's scared," Dante said.

"Yes." Romano closed the folder. "Be careful anyway."

Dante stood. I looked at her. "The files. The originals. When you find them through official channels."

"When we find them."

"Page fourteen," he said. "There's an entry on page fourteen of the third file. November 2004."

Romano looked at him steadily. "I'll look at it carefully."

"Thank you."

He left.

In the lobby he collected his visitor pass receipt and went out through the front door into the morning. Romano's building behind him. Bruno's lawyers' letterhead in his head. A complaint designed to move him out of Rome sitting in a formal record somewhere.

He called Rocco.

"Bruno filed a harassment complaint against me this morning," he said when Rocco picked up. "He's building grounds to have me restricted or removed."

"How long do we have?"

"Depends how fast his lawyers move and whether they can find a sympathetic judge." Dante walked toward where Leone was waiting three blocks over. "We need everything to accelerate. Romano has what she needs. Push Marco to make sure every official channel gets pointed in the right direction today."

"Done," Rocco said. "Anything else."

Dante thought about Aria at his kitchen counter this morning with her tea and her still-disordered hair and the way she'd said okay when he'd told her Romano wanted to meet, just okay, no panic, no questions he hadn't answered yet.

"Make sure no one gets near her," he said. "Anyone watching her building, watching the hospital, watching anywhere she goes. I want to know immediately."

"Already on it," Rocco said.

Dante hung up and kept walking.

Bruno was scared.

Scared was progress.

Scared was also dangerous and he'd heard what Romano had said and he intended to take it seriously.

He just intended to be faster.