He leaves the office to make calls. I stay behind, staring at the screen, at the connections we've built.
Somewhere in there is the truth about what they did.
I'm going to find it, even if the truth kills me.
He's gone for an hour. I use the time to keep digging, following threads he might have missed. My brain works differently than his. He sees patterns. I see anomalies. The things that don't fit, the details that seem too small to matter until suddenly they're the only thing that does.
I find three more irregular transfers. Same pattern as before: wrong timing, wrong amounts, small deviations that would be invisible to anyone not looking for them. I flag each one, building a timeline that tells its own story.
Kreiss has been skimming for at least two years. Small amounts at first, testing the system, seeing what he could get away with. Then bigger. Bolder. By my calculations, he's siphoned off nearly four million euros in transactions that don't match the established patterns.
That's not greed. That's a fund for something big.
For what, I don't know. But I'm going to find out.
When Jagger comes back, I'm so deep in the files that I don't hear him until he's standing right behind me.
"You should eat something," he says.
"In a minute. Look at this." I point at my timeline. "Kreiss isn't just skimming. He's accelerating. The amounts are getting bigger, the intervals shorter. Whatever he's planning, it's coming soon."
Jagger leans over my shoulder, studying the screen. His breath is warm against my ear, and I have to force myself to focus on the data instead of the heat of his body.
"You did this in an hour?"
"I had motivation." I lean back, tilting my head to look at him. "Also, I'm really fucking good at my job. Former job. Whatever."
"I noticed." His hand comes up, resting on my shoulder. The touch is light, almost tentative. "You should still eat."
"Is that concern I hear? From the cold-blooded assassin?"
"It's practicality. Starving assets don't produce results."
"There it is. Knew the sentiment had to end somewhere." But I'm smiling as I say it, and he's almost smiling back, and somewhere between the death and the danger and the impossible situation we've found ourselves in, this has started to feel like a relationship.
I don't know what to do with that.
So I do the only thing I know how to do… I keep working.
We eat lunch at the desk, sandwiches he made while he was supposedly making calls. The bread is fresh, the cheese is expensive, and there's some kind of fancy mustard that gives it a depth of flavor.
"Where did you learn to cook?" I ask between bites.
"I didn't. This is just assembly."
"It's good assembly. Very competent. Like everything else you do."
He looks at me sideways. "Was that a compliment?"
"Don't get used to it."
We keep working. The afternoon passes in a blur of documents and discoveries, everything getting more complex with every hour. By the time the sun starts to set, we have a list of names, a map of money flows, and the beginning of a case that could bring down not just Kreiss, but everyone connected to him.
It's not enough. Not yet. But it's close.
Jagger pushes back from the desk, rubbing his eyes. He looks tired. Human. Nothing like the man who sat across from me in that interrogation room three years ago.
"We should stop for today," he says.
