Captain von Essen is under increased pressure from Lieutenant Colonel Kappler to dismantle the underground network supporting hidden Jewish people. They are working closely with the Italian Fascists to find all the Jewish people in Rome. Captain von Essen enlists Eva’s help in planning a dinner for the German officers because SS commander Heinrich Himmler is visiting. She gives him the name of the finest hotel in town and reluctantly agrees to play the violin for the festivities. Greta will help Eva find a dress for the occasion. Greta selects a dress that makes Eva uncomfortable, and Greta jokes that Himmler will fall in love with her. Eva says she doesn’t want to fall in love until after the war, but Greta can tell she loves someone. Eva says it was someone she knew long ago back home. Greta says love is all they have. Eva is too fearful to love. Greta proclaims, “There are worse things than being afraid […] Being resigned is far worse. Being afraid lets you know you still want to live” (253). Greta tells Eva to invite her brother to the party.

Eva doesn’t want to perform for the murderous Germans, but Angelo encourages her to think of it as another way to resist. While she plays, he can hardly take his eyes off her. After the performance, Captain von Essen gives her an envelope and whispers in her ear. Angelo fears he is making an inappropriate advance. Eva meets him secretly in the cloakroom and explains that he gave her a key to a room for the evening and told her not to return to the convent, hinting that the Gestapo will be raiding all the churches. Angelo lies to the front desk and gets Eva’s room switched. Then he uses the phone to deliver the code phrase “Midnight mass” to as many churches as he can. Some churches don’t have phones, and he must go to warn them in person. He reluctantly leaves Eva in the room alone, promising to return.

As Angelo is walking to warn the churches, Captain von Essen pulls up and offers him a ride home. Instead of taking Angelo home, the Captain forces him to help with a raid on Saint Cecilia. The Captain orders Angelo to translate for him as he shouts over a bullhorn for everyone in the convent to come outside. Mother Francesca slowly opens the gate and tells the Captain that the nuns will not come outside, because they are cloistered. The Captain sends his officers inside to investigate. The nuns, several of whom are Jewish people in disguise, line up. An officer demands they remove their wimples and head coverings, and Angelo fears this will blow their cover, as the Catholic nuns shave their heads. All the nuns begin reciting the Lord’s Prayer and remove their head coverings, revealing all their shaved heads. The officer is embarrassed by his mistake and reports to the Captain that all is well inside.

Outside, the boarders are lined up, including Mario and his family, but their false papers save them. The Captain isn’t satisfied and demands that Mother Francesca let the officers inspect the underground crypts. Mother Francesca refuses to let them in the crypt as it’s a sacred burial site for martyrs and proclaims that anyone who desecrates the tomb will be cursed to die like a martyr. Mother Francesca’s words disturb the officers, and they hastily leave the catacombs. They don’t know that behind the crypt is a hidden space where those without papers are hiding. Captain von Essen offers Angelo a ride home, but he refuses. The Captain leaves with a warning that if he returns and finds hidden Jewish people, the convent will be punished. Angelo tells Mother Francesca to ring the bells to warn the other churches.

On March 18, 1944, Eva chronicles her performance for the Germans in her journal. She recalls a memory of when she and Angelo went to the circus and a tarot card reader told him his fortune. She told him he would “slay dragons, but not before they slay you […]” (273), causing Angelo to run away in fear.

Angelo returns to the hotel room and finds Eva asleep. He bathes and then watches her sleep. He picks her up and cradles her, and she awakens as he begins kissing her. Filled with overwhelming love for her, Angelo relinquishes every fear he has over failing as a priest. He takes Eva to bed and pledges that he will be hers now, after the war, and forever. The next morning, they hold each other in bed and wish that the world around them were a different place. Angelo doesn’t want Eva to fear and comforts her with kisses.

They stay an extra night in the hotel, feasting and enjoying each other. The next day, Eva leaves to return to her job, despite Angelo’s worrying about her. Captain von Essen is sullen and distracted, but Eva barely notices as she is blissfully happy. She and Angelo meet later at the Church of the Sacred Heart, where Angelo says he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about her. They go to a secret room and kiss passionately.

Eva writes on March 21, 1944, that despite the Americans landing in Italy in January, they’ve made no progress in liberating the country from the entrenched German army. She feels as though she’ll never be free.

Someone at the dinner party recognizes Eva from Florence and informs Greta that she is Jewish. Greta informs Captain von Essen, who then sends a message to Angelo, stating that Eva is in jail, with the intention of luring him into his trap. Monsignor Luciano begs him not to go, but Angelo can’t leave Eva on her own. As soon as he arrives at Via Tasso, guards take Angelo into a holding cell, and Captain von Essen questions him. The Captain knows everything, including that Angelo and Eva were raised together. He makes a deal with Angelo that if he reveals the location of 10 hidden Jewish people, he will let Eva go. Angelo refuses to give him any information. The Captain threatens to send Eva to a camp where “she won’t fare well” (293).

The guards bring in Eva, and though she is unharmed, she looks terrified. The Captain offers Eva the same deal, asking for the names of Jewish people Angelo has helped. She responds that she is the only Jew he’s assisted. The Captain strikes Angelo in the head with his gun repeatedly, each time Eva refuses to answer the question. When the Captain asks where Eva got her false papers, she says she got them from Aldo, whom the Captain murdered. Angelo attempts to bargain, saying that when the war is over, the Germans will face trial for war crimes. If he lets Eva go, Angelo will testify in his favor. The Captain is unmoved, saying no one cares that he killed one Jewish person. The guards take Eva back to her cell and take Angelo away to be tortured. Thirty-six hours later, Angelo still doesn’t break, and they take him away to be executed with other prisoners accused of bombing Via Rasella.

Eva writes on March 24, 1944. Angelo is taken away, and now she is alone.

Angelo is badly injured, with one eye swollen shut and his hearing damaged. He is bound and hauled off to a quarry for execution along with the three hundred other prisoners. The soldiers lead five men at a time into the quarry caves and shoot them in the head. They let Angelo perform the last rites for all the prisoners. When the cave is piled high with bodies and Angelo is the only prisoner remaining, a soldier unbinds his hands and leads him out of the cave and into the forest. The soldiers refuse to execute a priest, so they let Angelo go. He can’t hear and can barely walk, but he slowly begins moving toward the road back to Rome. The ground shakes with an explosion, and Angelo realizes the soldiers blew up the caves to hide the massacre. As he walks, Camillo’s words echo in his mind, and he feels he has failed in saving the family.

Eva continues to refuse to give any information to Captain von Essen despite his telling her Angelo is dead. She asks for paper and a pencil and writes her real name, confessing that she is Jewish and that Angelo isn’t her brother. The Captain already knows this, and her resistance angers him. Eva tells him to kill her now because everyone is going to die someday. She has lost all hope knowing Angelo is gone. Eva is loaded onto a cattle car along with other women and children. The conditions inside the vehicles are abysmal, and it shocks Eva to see the Germans’ willingness “to strip away a person’s dignity like stripping away flesh” (307). She thinks they pass through Florence and pick up more passengers, but she can’t be sure where they are or what is happening. The occupants realize that the train is going to Bergen-Belsen instead of Auschwitz, which they believe means they have a chance of survival. Eva feels she is ready to die rather than suffer any longer.

Angelo crawls into Rome, trying to get to Santa Cecilia. He is barely conscious when he arrives. When he wakes, he is in bed, and Mario is caring for his injuries. Angelo mourns not being able to save Eva. He wishes he’d married her before the war instead of becoming a priest, so they could have children. If both die, their family name ends with them. Mario comforts Angelo and thanks him for saving so many Jewish families. His legacy will live on through the children of the people he saved. Mario gives Angelo Eva’s journals, and he reads the last entry, dated March 22, 1944, in which Eva writes that kissing him was “a mitzvah.” He cries over the empty pages left in the journal.