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"You can ask some."

"I have the evidence."

"And I have Karras."

"That's precisely what concerns me."

For the first time since I entered the office, the darkness in his expression eases.

Barely.

"Compromise," he says.

I narrow my eyes. "You're learning."

"Don't make me regret it."

I grab my laptop.

By the time we reach the elevator, two security men are already waiting. Adrianos must have sent the order while I was arguing with him, which is irritatingly efficient.

The doors open.

I step inside beside him with nine years of blood money sitting on the computer beneath my arm.

Somewhere in Athens, Dimitris Karras is probably having an ordinary afternoon. Perhaps he's drinking coffee. Signing documents. Moving money. Living inside the safety of a reputation built over decades.

He has no idea that four hundredths of one percent just betrayed him.

And we're coming to get him.

24

Adrianos

Dimitris Karras arrives angry, which tells me almost everything I need to know before he says a word.

Innocent men usually arrive demanding explanations. Guilty men who know they have become useful arrive calculating exits. Karras does neither. He walks into the private conference room with his coat still buttoned, silver hair immaculate, cane in one hand, and the expression of a man who has spent nearly five decades being treated as indispensable. He looks at the two men stationed behind him, then at me, and whatever irritation he feels only deepens.

“Adrianos.”

No title. No courtesy. History has made him careless.

“Dimitris.”

His gaze shifts to Elena, and there it is. Half a second. No more. The smallest break in his composure, but Elena catches it too. I know because something changes in the way she sits, her attention sharpening without her body moving.

“And you are?” Karras asks.

“Elena Markides.”

“Should I know the name?”

“You will.”

Her answer is calm, almost bored, and I have to stop the corner of my mouth from moving. She has arranged three folders, her laptop, and a stack of transaction records on the table in front of her. I sit farther away, near the end of the room, because I want Karras looking at her instead of me.

He expects me to be the threat.