“Jack,” he said. “You’re going to want to see this.”
The tone of his voice made the room go still. Even Lily looked up.
“Margot just finished the known associates cross-reference on Vic Caruso,” Doug said. “Second-degree connections. One name keeps coming up. Margot, transmit everything to the wall screen.”
A web of connections expanded outward from Vic Caruso’s node—through the New York bookmaking contacts, through a series of business relationships in Virginia, through property records and campaign finance reports and corporate filings—all of them converging on a single name at the center of a much larger web.
Nikolai Stavros.
I’d heard the name. Everyone in King George County had heard the name. Niko Stavros was a fixture of the community—a Greek-American businessman who’d built a small empire in the dock district over the past twenty years. Restaurants, a marina, commercial real estate, a couple of waterfront bars that were popular with the naval base crowd. He sat on the board of the chamber of commerce. He donated to every charity gala and youth sports league in the county. His face showed up in the King George Gazette every other month, shaking hands with politicians and cutting ribbons on new developments.
He was the kind of man people described as a pillar of the community. The kind who smiled at fundraisers and remembered your kids’ names.
“Stavros owns fourteen commercial properties in the dock district,” Margot said. “Including three warehouses directly above coordinates documented in Andre Washington’s notebook. He is also the silent partner in Monarch Holdings Group—the Delaware shell company linked to one of the account numbers in the notebook. His name doesn’t appear on the incorporation documents, but his personal attorney, Richard Falk, is the registered agent for both Monarch Holdings and Regent Capital Partners.”
“Niko Stavros,” Jack said quietly.
“He’s connected to Vic through a man named Anthony DiNapoli,” Derby said, reading from his screen. “DiNapoli ran book for the Moretti organization in New York in the nineties. He relocated to Virginia in 2013—same year Vic Caruso moved to King George. DiNapoli is currently employed as the general manager of Stavros’s marina.”
“So Vic and Stavros are connected through the same organized crime network in New York,” Cole said. “And they both end up in King George within the same year.”
“And Stavros owns the buildings sitting on top of the tunnels where the fights are being held,” I said. “Using the money from those fights to fund offshore accounts and shell companies that trace back to his attorney.”
Jack stared at the board for a long moment. Nikolai Stavros’s name glowed on the screen, connected by red lines to properties, shell companies, known associates, and—through Vic Caruso—to every fighter in Iron House gym. Including a dead twenty-four-year-old Marine named Andre Washington.
“All right,” Jack said. “Now we know who we’re hunting.”
He picked up a marker and drew a circle around the name. Then he looked at the room.
“Nobody outside this room hears that name. Not yet. Not until we know how many people he owns.” He let that sink in. “A man with this much money and this many connections doesn’t operate without protection. He’s got people in places that can hurt us—could be a judge, could be a cop, could be someone on the town council. We move carefully, we build the case clean, and when we come for him, we come with enough to bury him.”
“And what about the fighters?” I asked. “T-Bone, Marco, Darnell—they talked to us. If word gets back to Stavros?—”
Jack looked at Cole. “Quiet check-ins. Nothing that draws attention. I want eyes on those three.”
Cole nodded, his expression serious beneath the easy exterior.
The meeting broke up slowly after that. Daniels packed up first. Derby followed, his bag over one shoulder, already muttering about property records and tunnel surveys. Cole unwound himself from his chair and crossed to the fireplace where Lily had fallen asleep with her book open on her chest. He lifted her gently, tucking the book under his arm, and she murmured something against his shoulder that made him smile.
“Night,” Cole said quietly, carrying her toward the door.
Doug was the last to pack up, carefully closing Margot’s laptop with the tenderness of someone putting a child to bed.
“Good night, everyone,” Margot’s voice drifted from the speakers, muffled now. “Sweet dreams. Especially you, Jack.”
“Good night, Margot,” Jack said, his tone carefully neutral.
Doug tucked the laptop under his arm and headed for the stairs. “She really does like you,” he called over his shoulder. “You should be flattered.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jack said.
The door closed behind him and it was just us, standing in the glow of the murder board in a room that smelled like Chinese food and leather and the brand of exhaustion that came from hunting killers.
Jack came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, his chin resting on top of my head. We stood like that for a moment, staring at the web of evidence and connections that now covered both walls. Nikolai Stavros’s name at the top, circled in red, connected to everything.
“When I was in the ring with Vic today,” Jack said quietly, “I could feel it. The fear underneath the bravado. He’s not scared of us. He’s scared of whoever he works for.”
“Now we know why.”
