24. Adrianos #2
Then server addresses. Shell corporations.
A trust administrator in Luxembourg. A brokerage account under a false charitable foundation.
A secure communications portal hidden behind a dead corporate domain.
Names of intermediaries, though most are probably false.
Some may be dead. A few might still be useful.
For the next twenty minutes, Elena drains everything she can from him. When she finally closes the laptop halfway, Karras turns toward me. He knows he is a finished man.
I see the understanding settle into his face before I even stand.
“Adrianos.”
Elena turns too.
I rise.
Karras grips his cane harder. “I’ve given you everything.”
“I know.”
“Then we’re done.”
“No.”
Elena's chair scrapes softly against the floor.
“Adrianos.”
I look at her. She shakes her head once. Barely.
Karras sees the exchange.
“I can help you,” he says quickly. “There will be more instructions. New contacts.”
Elena looks at him. “When?”
“I don’t know.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know they’ll contact you?”
“Because they always do.”
That interests her. I can tell. She wants time to watch him, use him, and let the network reach back toward him.
In another situation, I might agree.
But I have spent the last hour watching Karras. His pauses. His answers. His fear. The limits of what he knows.
He is not important enough. That is why the network kept him alive this long. Old. Trusted. Greedy enough to obey. Cowardly enough not to ask.
He’s disposable, and worse, he can tip off whoever it is that contacts him that we are hot on their trail.
Elena still thinks uncertainty means opportunity, but I know uncertainty also means risk.
“Karras.”
He looks at me.
“Who killed my son?”
His face empties.
“I don’t know.”
“My parents.”
“I don’t know.”
“Kalliopi.”
Something changes. Not guilt, but ecognition.
Elena catches it immediately. “You knew her.”
Karras looks at her.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She asked questions.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
Elena's expression goes still.
“What questions?”
“Old transfer structures. Processing fees. Accounts that didn’t reconcile.”
For the first time, Elena says nothing.
Kalliopi came this close. Closer than either of us understood.
“Did you report her?” Elena asks.
Karras looks down, and that is answer enough. The cold inside me becomes absolute.
“You reported her.”
“I followed protocol.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sent her name into that network.”
“I sent a warning that someone was looking.”
Elena's face loses color. Karras realizes too late what that means to her.
“I didn’t order what happened.”
“No,” Elena says quietly. “You just opened the door.”
His eyes flick to me. Wrong choice. The pistol is already in my hand.
Elena sees it.
“Adrianos.”
Karras rises too quickly, knocking the cane aside. “Wait.”
I don't.
The shot cracks through the room. Karras drops beside the chair. No final speech. No second chance. No theatrical last words. He is dead before his body finishes settling against the floor.
The room goes silent.
My men outside do not enter. They know better.
Elena doesn't move.
For several seconds, she stares at Karras. When she finally turns toward me, there is no horror in her expression. That would have been easier.
She already knows what I am.
What I see instead is fury. Pure. Controlled. Personal.
“You killed him.”
“Yes.”
“He said they would contact him again.”
“They wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“They burned Petros the moment he became compromised. Karras was finished the second we contacted him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He gave us the terminals. The accounts. The access routes.”
“And maybe there was more.”
“There wasn’t.”
Her jaw tightens. “How could you possibly know?”
“Because I’ve spent thirty years questioning men who think secrets make them valuable.”
“You killed the only man who could have taken us higher.”
“He had given us everything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
The words land between us. She looks at me as if I have struck her, not because the answer is cruel but because it is true. Neither of us knows.
That is the point.
Elena looks down at Karras again, then back at me. “He reported Kalliopi.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to turn every answer into a corpse.”
“He helped kill her.”
“He may have helped us find who ordered it.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“You decided that.”
“Yes.”
There it is. The actual argument. Not whether Karras knew more. Not whether he deserved to die. But whether I had the right to decide when the questions ended.
Elena's eyes burn.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Take the final decision before anyone else gets a vote.”
“I’m not running a committee.”
“No.” Her voice turns colder. “You’re running a graveyard.”
That one reaches me.
I let it.
She waits for anger, but I give her none. After a moment, she gathers her laptop and folders.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere I don’t have to look at you.”
Normally, I would stop her. Normally, I would remind her about security, tell her where she can go, send someone after her whether she wanted it or not.
Instead, I watch her walk toward the door. Her hand closes around the handle. She pauses once but does not look back. Then she leaves.
For the first time since Elena entered my life, I let her walk away from me without following. The door closes behind her. Karras lies dead beside the table, blood spreading slowly across the floor, and I stare at the space where Elena was standing.
I know why I killed him. I know the network would have cut him loose. I know waiting would have created risk for almost no return. Every part of the decision makes sense.
That should be enough. It always has been. But when I look at the closed door Elena just walked through, certainty feels far less clean than it used to.