29. Elena
Elena
By sunrise, Adrianos's penthouse no longer feels like a home.
Men move through the rooms carrying weapons, equipment cases and expressions that tell me nobody expects to sleep anytime soon.
The damaged security panel has been stripped from the wall.
The bedroom door hangs crooked where Adrianos forced his way through it, and a dark stain remains on the carpet where the man who came for me died.
I avoid looking at it.
My own bullet left a hole in the wall six inches from where I'd intended to hit him.
I keep remembering the recoil, the violent crack, and the terrible second afterward when I realized I'd missed.
Adrianos insists I bought myself time. Technically, he's right.
I hit the man's arm badly enough to slow him down, and those few seconds helped keep me alive.
Knowing that doesn't stop my hands from trembling whenever the memory returns.
So I do what I have always done when reality becomes too loud.
I bury myself in numbers.
"Elena."
I glance up from my laptop. Adrianos stands across the dining table in a fresh black shirt that hides the wound along his shoulder. Someone stitched the cut less than an hour ago while he answered phone calls as if a needle wasn't repeatedly piercing his skin.
"What?"
"You haven't eaten."
"Neither have you."
"I have."
I narrow my eyes. "When?"
His silence answers me.
"Exactly."
Something passes through his expression that might have become amusement on another morning. Today, neither of us quite gets there.
The man who held me while his hands shook has disappeared beneath the controlled exterior Adrianos wears for everyone else.
But I know that man exists now. I felt his fear against my body.
I heard him say he couldn't bury me. I watched him lose control because for several horrible minutes, he thought he might lose me.
And I told him I loved him.
There is no pretending that didn't happen. Strangely, neither of us seems interested in trying. Adrianos comes around the table and rests his hand against the back of my neck. His thumb moves once over my skin before he looks at the laptop.
"You should rest."
"I'll rest when the man who tried to abduct me no longer matters."
"He's dead."
"His phone isn't."
That gets his attention.
The attacker's phone sits inside a forensic evidence bag beside my computer. The device itself was almost useless. No contacts, messages, or photographs. No obvious connection to OB6. Whoever prepared him for the attack scrubbed anything that could identify the people behind him.
But people always leave something behind. Even when they're careful.
I turn the laptop toward Adrianos. "He accessed a secure financial portal six times during the last month."
"Which bank?"
"Not a bank. A private brokerage platform."
His gaze sharpens as he takes the chair beside mine.
"The account doesn't belong to him," I continue.
"The authentication token belongs to a company registered in Cyprus.
On paper, it's beautifully boring. Directors-for-hire, registered office, no meaningful employees.
But the company received three payments from a structure connected to one of Karras's intermediary accounts. "
"OB6?"
"Same architecture."
I bring up the portal records. "Our attacker accessed this platform forty-eight hours before coming here. Then he accessed it again yesterday afternoon."
"Payment?"
"Possibly. It could also have been instructions or access to operational funds. I can't tell without the administrator's records."
"Who administers it?"
I bring up the name.
Stefanos Drakos.
Adrianos goes still.
"You know him."
"I know of him."
"That distinction usually means something unpleasant."
"He arranges private transactions for people who don't want those transactions examined."
"So, a criminal banker."
"A broker."
"A criminal banker with better tailoring."
Despite everything, my mouth twitches.
I click into another record and show him the link between Drakos's platform and the Cyprus company. "If we can get his records, we might be able to determine what our attacker was paid for, where the money originated, and whether he was connected to whoever compromised your security."
Adrianos reaches for his phone. I catch his wrist. His gaze drops to my hand before returning to my face.
"Alive," I say.
His expression remains unreadable.
"Adrianos."
"I heard you."
"I want to make sure you understood the entire word."
"Would you like me to spell it?"
"After Karras, possibly."
He studies me for several seconds before turning his hand beneath mine. Our fingers briefly interlock.
"We bring him in alive."
The tightness inside my chest eases.
It's a small thing considering everything happening around us, but it matters. Yesterday, Adrianos made a decision for both of us and expected me to accept it. Today, he listens before reaching for violence.
That's what I asked him to do. I squeeze his hand once before letting go.
"Then let's find our criminal banker."
"Broker."
I stare at him. His mouth curves. Apparently, he's learning sarcasm too.
Stefanos Drakos doesn't look like a man who helps finance wars.
He looks like a man who sends wine back when it isn't chilled to the exact temperature he requested.
He's in his mid-fifties, silver at the temples and dressed in a navy suit that probably costs more than my first car. His hands are soft, his nails immaculate, and he carries himself with the weary confidence of someone who has spent decades handling secrets belonging to powerful men.
That confidence falters when Adrianos's men escort him into a windowless room beneath a Crown-owned office building.
There are no chains, bloodstained floors or instruments of torture. Just a table and three chairs. Somehow, the simplicity makes the room more threatening.
Drakos looks at Adrianos first. Everyone does. Then he sees me. Recognition flickers across his face.
Interesting.
"You know who I am," I say.
"I know who he is."
"That wasn't what I asked."
His gaze returns to Adrianos. "I want an attorney."
Adrianos sits beside me rather than across from him. "You misunderstand where you are."
Drakos swallows.
I open my laptop. "We know you administer a private financial platform used by Petr Vasilev."
Nothing.
Petr Vasilev is the name attached to the man who attacked me.
I watch Drakos instead of my screen. His left thumb rubs once against his index finger.
Nervous.
"Vasilev accessed your platform six times this month," I continue. "Yesterday, he authenticated at fourteen seventeen. Several hours later, he entered Adrianos's penthouse using compromised security credentials and attempted to abduct me."
"I don't know anything about that."
"Good. Then this should be quick."
I bring up the Cyprus company.
"Recognize it?"
"No."
His thumb moves again. I glance at Adrianos.
He notices.
That's another thing that has changed between us. I don't need to explain every thought anymore. He understands enough of my rhythms to know when I've spotted something.
I open the payment records. "Three transfers entered this company through structures connected to OB6. One ultimately reached a platform you administer. From there, the money splintered."
"I manage hundreds of accounts."
"And apparently remember none of them."
"I don't memorize client activity."
"No. Software does that for you."
His eyes flick toward me.
There.
I smile without warmth. "The wonderful thing about financial systems, Stefanos, is that they don't care whether you remember. They remember for you."
I start laying out the transactions. Not everything. But just enough.
A payment to a private security contractor in Serbia. Another to a logistics company operating through Albania. A property acquisition outside Naples. Transfers into consulting firms with no identifiable employees and equipment companies that appear to sell very little equipment.
Drakos's composure begins to erode.
Adrianos says nothing. He lets me work. I notice that too. Yesterday, Karras would already be dead. Today, Adrianos sits beside me and listens.
I bring up another series of payments. "You aren't the architect."
Drakos's eyes snap toward me.
First real reaction.
"That's good news," I continue. "Because if you were, you'd be much better at hiding your administrative fees."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Point six percent."
His face changes.
"You take point-six percent from transactions moving through the private structures you administer. It's small enough not to attract attention, but consistent enough to make you very wealthy."
I turn the laptop around.
"Your mistake was taking the same percentage from funds connected to Vasilev."
Drakos stares at the screen.
Adrianos finally speaks. "Tell her what she wants to know."
The broker looks at him. "And then?"
"Then you continue breathing."
I look sideways at Adrianos. He doesn't return the glance, but I know the words were partly for me.
Drakos notices anyway. "You expect me to trust that?"
"No," I say. "I expect you to understand that your alternatives are significantly worse."
His face pales.
"Who paid Vasilev?"
"I don't know."
"Who gave him information about the penthouse?"
"I don't know."
"Who controls OB6?"
"I don't know."
I lean back. "You are becoming very boring."
"I'm telling you the truth."
"Then tell me something useful."
He hesitates. Adrianos shifts beside me, barely moving at all, and that makes Drakos start talking.
"I don't know who controls the network because there is no central contact. Not for people at my level."
My fingers still over the keyboard. "Your level?"
His jaw tightens as he realizes his mistake.
"How many levels are there?"
"I don't know."
"You've said that."
"Because it's true. Everything is compartmentalized. I receive instructions for specific movements. Sometimes funds. Sometimes vendor details. Sometimes I'm told to establish a structure and leave it untouched until another instruction arrives."
"Instructions from whom?"
"Different people."
"Names."