“That’s why you never asked?” When she’d come to his hospital bed, she’d straightened his blankets and said empty things. Never wondered aloud how he came to be there. Never asked why they’d had to haul his guts out of his belly, or where he’d been, or why he hadn’t written. Why he had stopped speaking to his father, except in small sentences, when they were forced together by circumstance.

“If I had,” she said, “would you have told me anything?”

He wondered if she had been more afraid he wouldn’t tell her, proving some deep connection between them well and truly severed, or more afraid he would, revealing his absolute lack of integrity. Perhaps she feared whatever character defect he had was catching.

“I was walking the edge of that cliff anyway,” he said.

“Still.” She laced her fingers and he saw the skin where they touched go white with the pressure of her grip. “He shouldn’t have pushed you off.”

“Why are you apologizing for him?” This was a betrayal of everything Cyril had ever understood about his sister. The diplomat, the perfect daughter. The DePaul worthy of the name that he, Cyril, had summarily destroyed.

“Because someone has to. Somebody has to apologize for our entire rotten family.” Anger made a thin line of her lips, pushed her gaze down and to one side. “I just wanted to do it before…”

“Before what, Lil?” The arraignment? Whatever came after the election? She had plenty of time for that, surely.

Pryzbieza cleared her throat. “Time’s up.”

“See you in court, I suppose,” he said, trying for a smile.

She failed to return it, and shook her head. “I truly hope you don’t.”

That threw him. “Lil?”

But she shook her head and buttoned her coat and only said, “I love you, Cyril. Goodbye.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

Aristide woke before dawn, aching and nauseous, heartburn clawing up the back of his throat. A lesser—or maybe better—man would have been defeated by the sensation, but Aristide was habituated to hangovers. Struggling from sweaty, tangled sheets he reached for the glass of water at his bedside but found it missing.

He had on last night’s clothes. The light was still on. His head spun when he sat up.

He hadn’t been able to sleep. Why had he been awake so late? Why had he opened the fresh bottle of gin on the bar cart?

Ah. Because today, today he would meet with two of Jamila’s unofficial employees, Tabby and Chido, at the corner where they had spent the two days previous mapping escape routes, obstacles, advantages.