Page 47

He doesn’t move. His face stays blank. I’ve seen that face on men who’ve survived things. It’s a trained thing, not a natural one. I pull the page from my jacket and slide it across the desk. He reads it once, sets it down.

“I don’t know this company,” he says.

“I know you don’t,” I say. “That’s why I’m here instead of at a council table.”

His eyes come back to mine. He’s thinking fast, I can tell, the charm still on the outside while his brain works the problem. Smart enough to know there’s always an angle. I let him work it.

“Someone built the trace to point at you,” I say. “And they knew your network better than you do. That’s not an outsider.”

He puts two fingers against his mouth. “As it happens,” he says, “I’ve been finding irregularities in my own network for three weeks. Small amounts, wrong routing, nothing that announces itself.” A half-smile, no warmth in it. “I have someone on it. I haven’t brought it to the council because a man who tables his own problems without solutions tends to find the table turned on him.” He taps the page. “How far back does your trace go?”

“Six years minimum on the shell registration,” I say. “Possibly older.”

His jaw tightens. “Mine too.”

So we’re both looking at the same hole, and neither of us can see the bottom. Six years of patience. Whoever built this has been in these rooms a long time, and they were careful enough that nobody caught it. That’s not muscle. That’s someone with a seat at the table.

“We don’t bring this to the council,” I say. “Not yet.”

“Agreed,” he says, no hesitation. “I walk into a Crown meeting to announce my network’s been compromised, with a murder scene pointing back at my door, and whatever I say after that is just noise. The room makes up its mind before I’ve finished the sentence.”

“Santiago’s already pulling threads on the symbol,” I say. “He gets there before us, he won’t ask questions. You know how he is.”

Adrianos smiles. “I know exactly how he is. He’s been looking for a reason to push into my routes for two years.” He stands, which is how this conversation ends, and I stand with him. “We investigate separately. When either of us has something solid, we talk before the council does.”

“Da,” I say. “And if the threads cross before that, we talk anyway.”

He comes around the desk and extends his hand again. Not the greeting handshake this time, the other kind.

“Thank you,” he says. “For coming here instead of letting me walk into the next meeting blind.”

I nod, take his hand, and leave.

The drive back to Brooklyn gives me forty minutes with Marka’s silence. I think about Adrianos’s jaw tightening when I said six years. He controlled it fast, but I caught it, and what it told me is that his irregularities go back further than three weeks of investigation has shown him yet. He’s still digging. That’s either honest or it’s the best act I’ve seen in a while, and I can’t tell which from forty-two floors up with good cologne in the air.

Lavro would’ve known. He’d have spent the whole drive back breaking down every second of that conversation until I told him to shut up, and then he’d point something out, and he’d have been right.

Back at the estate, I find my wife in the library.

Laptop open, legal pad covered in handwriting, two books propped beside her. She hears me come in but stays on the page. I drop my jacket on the chair and sit across from her.

I watch her for a second. Pen moving, hair loose. She only pins it up when she’s got a room full of men to deal with. She’s still running her operation. I can’t forget that she’s Berezin’s daughter.

“Adrianos,” I say.

She puts the pen down and turns to face me fully. Most people get the side of her attention. I get the front.

“He doesn’t know the company,” I say. “But his own network’s been leaking for three weeks. Small amounts, wrong routing, at least six years back. He’s got someone on it. Hasn’t told the council.”

She pulls the legal pad closer and writes. “Same window as the reserve shells.”

“Da.”

“Did you give him the reserve shell detail?”

“No.”

Her pen moves again. “Good. If he already knows about them through his own investigation, he tells you. If he doesn’t, you’ve kept your card.” She taps the pad twice. “What’s his timeline on the irregularities?”