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"No, it isn't."

She steps closer to the desk.

"What else?"

"Nothing that concerns you."

Wrong answer.

I know it the second the words leave my mouth. Her expression empties.

"Nothing that concerns me."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then try again."

I stand. "There are precautions in place."

"What precautions?"

"Elena."

"What precautions?"

I could end this conversation.

I've ended negotiations with men more powerful than she will ever be by simply refusing to continue them. But Elena doesn't respond to power the way other people do. Push harder and she doesn't bend. She starts looking for structural weaknesses.

"Your mother has security."

The room changes. Not visibly. Nothing moves. Yet somehow the distance between us becomes dangerous.

"My mother."

"Two men. She doesn't know they're there."

"You put armed men around my mother without telling me?"

"Discreet protection."

"Without telling me?"

"Yes."

Her face loses color. For one second, I expect fear. Instead, fury arrives so cleanly that I almost admire it.

"Cancel it."

"No."

"Cancel it now."

"No."

"She has nothing to do with this."

"Neither did Petros's family."