Demien's Apartment, Bergamo4:47 PM
The phone was still on the coffee table where he'd left it after locking it, and the screen stayed dark while the apartment held the particular quiet of a Monday afternoon with nowhere to be and no particular reason to move.
He was looking at the ceiling when it buzzed.
Unknown number. UK area code.
He picked it up and his thumb hovered for a second before he answered.
"Hello?"
"Demien." The voice was measured and distinctly English, with the kind of considered delivery that belonged to someone who spent their professional life choosing words carefully. "It's Gareth Southgate."
Everything in his body went still.
He sat up slowly while the phone stayed pressed to his ear, and his mouth had gone completely dry in the two seconds between hearing the name and forming any kind of response, and the ceiling he'd been staring at for the past hour became the most irrelevant thing in the room.
