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I total what I can see. The number makes my mouth go dry. And this is only what Petros touched. Only the channels that went through him.

I lean back slowly. "They're not stealing from you anymore."

Adrianos goes very still. "What are they doing?"

I look at the accounts lined across the screens. Money from companies that have no reason to know one another. Money shaved away quietly for years. Money somebody killed to protect. Money somebody is gathering faster now that we're looking.

One word arrives, cold and obvious. I turn to him.

"Saving."

Adrianos's eyes return to the screens. "For what?"

I look at the number again, at all that money sitting quietly in the dark, waiting for someone to spend it.

"I don't know."

And for the first time tonight, I wish I did. Because whatever costs this much hasn't happened yet.

20

Adrianos

Saving.

The word follows me long after Elena finally agrees to leave the office.

She doesn't agree willingly. Nothing Elena does unwillingly resembles agreement. It involves negotiations, objections, several insults disguised as observations, and a final declaration that she's going to bed because my face is interfering with her ability to think.

I let her believe she won.

By four in the morning, she's asleep in my bed again, curled on her side with one hand tucked beneath the pillow. I'm standing in the living room with a glass of whiskey I haven't touched, staring through the windows at Athens while fifty-seven million dollars sits inside my head.

Fifty-seven million that Elena found because one man died.

One fragment of one network.

Money doesn't accumulate like that without purpose. Criminals spend. Governments spend. Men with power spend faster than anyone because power is expensive to maintain. Fifty-seven million sitting quietly across accounts isn't profit.

It's preparation.

Weapons. Soldiers. Bribes. Intelligence. Politicians. Judges. Police. Assassins. Safe houses. Transportation. False identities. A private army if someone knows where to shop.

Operational capital.

And if Elena is right that these accounts have been accumulating for years, fifty-seven million might be pocket change compared to whatever is actually waiting beneath the surface.

I sip on my drink.

Someone is preparing for war.

The conclusion is obvious enough that I don't need Elena's spreadsheets to reach it, but obvious conclusions get men killed. I need proof before I tell her what I think she's found. Elena doesn't frighten easily. That's becoming one of the things about her that irritates me most.

A normal person sees a man carved with the Crown's symbol and understands the message.

Elena sees a data point.

A car tries to run her down, and she analyzes the driver's route. Petros is murdered, and she turns his death into a timeline. Give her a bullet, and she'll probably weigh it before asking who fired it.