22. The First Battle #2
Nikos had spent the flight from Taormina assembling the paperwork on Orion’s illegal dealings.
None of it was fabricated. Orion’s people had simply never expected anyone to look because, as Julian had said, the ocean was Orion’s domain.
No House had ever been motivated enough to challenge Poseidon’s land-based operations. They’d never had reason to. Until me.
The security checkpoint was a reinforced gatehouse manned by two guards in civilian clothes who carried themselves like former military. One stepped forward with his palm raised.
“This is a private facility. No entry without authorization from the terminal director.”
“My name is Alexander Stormwright. I’m here to conduct a review of this terminal’s compliance with Mediterranean trade regulations.” I gestured toward Nikos. “My associate has the documentation.”
The guard didn’t look at Nikos. His gaze stayed on me, flat and professional.
“I know who you and your brother are, Lord Stormwright. But we don’t listen to House Zeus here.
This terminal operates under the protection of House Poseidon.
You want access, you contact our legal office during business hours. ”
“Business hours.” I smiled sharply, not bothering to hide my hostility. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The second guard was already speaking into a radio. The first one hadn’t blinked.
He widened his stance. “You can wait in your vehicle. Or you can leave. Those are your options.”
I waited.
Sixty seconds later, a third guard appeared from behind the gatehouse, followed by a fourth.
Both were larger than the first two and carried weapons holstered beneath their jackets.
Within another two minutes, the original pair had been reinforced by six more, who spread into a loose semicircle that blocked the access road.
Several had weapons visible now—sidearms, a baton, a modified stun rod designed for use against enhanced physiologies.
Nikos shifted his weight beside me. He didn’t reach for anything, but his posture changed as he prepared for battle.
“Easy,” I told him, without turning.
“I’m perfectly at ease.” His voice was light. His eyes were not. “I’m just counting.”
The radio crackled again, and a different figure emerged from the main warehouse.
He was older than the guards, with the weathered complexion of someone who’d spent decades in salt air.
He wore a rumpled shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms and carried a clipboard.
The deference the guards showed him marked him as the terminal director.
“Lord Stormwright,” he greeted me. “I’m Antonin Galatas. I apologize for the reception, but we weren’t expecting visitors.”
“Mr. Galatas,” I said with a smile I didn’t feel. “I appreciate your coming out personally.”
“What is this about?”
Nikos stepped forward and opened the portfolio.
“We have documentation of sustained regulatory noncompliance across this facility. Import licenses filed under shell companies. Environmental compliance records that don’t match your cargo manifests.
Tax exemptions traced to a holding group in Malta that exists only on paper. ”
Galatas took the portfolio. He didn’t glance at it. He held it in both hands and looked at me. What I saw in his face wasn’t fear. It was the weary recognition of a man who had weathered storms before and did not fear them.
“Lord Stormwright, with all respect, these waters have been run by House Poseidon for millennia. You can bring all the paperwork you want. We have lawyers who will eat it for breakfast.”
“I’m sure you do. Excellent lawyers, funded by Lord Maris’s considerable resources.
” I put my hands in my pockets. “But lawsuits take time, Mr. Galatas. Years, usually. And in the meantime, a formal inquiry means your operations are frozen. Every vessel at berth stays at berth. Every container in transit gets held for inspection. Every contract you have with third-party shippers gets flagged for review.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. The first crack.
“That would cost millions.”
“It would cost Lord Maris millions. It would cost you your livelihood. Your workers, their jobs. The fishermen who depend on your fuel supply contracts, their boats.” I held his gaze.
“I’m not here to destroy this terminal, Mr. Galatas.
I’m here to assume temporary oversight while the compliance issues are addressed.
Your staff keeps its positions. Your ships keep their schedules.
Everything continues to function. The only thing that changes is who signs the manifests. ”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I file the formal inquiry tonight. Your terminal is frozen by morning. The Italian maritime authority conducts its own review, which will take months and which you will not control. Lord Maris’s lawyers fight it, and while they fight it, every dockworker in this facility sits at home without a paycheck. ”
Galatas looked down at the documents. He opened them this time, turning pages with the slow deliberation of someone looking for the flaw in the argument.
The guards around him were restless, hands moving toward holsters, weight shifting forward.
The nearest one caught Galatas’s eye and gave a small, sharp nod. An offer. A question. Say the word.
Galatas closed the folder.
“No,” he barked. “I don’t know what you’re really after, Lord Stormwright, and I don’t much care. But I’ve run this terminal for twenty-three years under House Poseidon’s authority. I’m not handing it over because a Zeus Alpha showed up at my gate with a stack of threats dressed up as paperwork.”
The guards closed ranks. The big one with the stun rod thumbed it to active. A low hum filled the air between us.
Nikos took a step closer to my shoulder. “Alexander.”
I let my aura go.
It rolled outward in a slow wave. The guard nearest to me felt it first. His hand dropped from his weapon, and he took a half step backward before he understood why his legs had moved.
The second guard swallowed hard and looked away.
The semicircle didn’t break, but it loosened, one man at a time.
Each of them shifted his weight away from me without conscious decision. The stun rod lowered. The hum died.
Galatas held longer than any of them. He was older and harder, and he had spent twenty-three years working for a House that didn’t tolerate weakness.
His jaw clenched, and his knuckles whitened on the clipboard.
For a long moment he stood against the pressure the way a breakwater stands against a rising tide.
“Mr. Galatas.” I kept my voice level. The pressure did the rest. “I respect what you’ve built here. I respect your loyalty to Lord Maris. But he is not standing in front of you right now. The Italian maritime authority will not care to whom you answer when those filings land on its desk.”
The clipboard trembled. Galatas looked at his men—the lowered weapons, the averted eyes, the formation coming apart at the seams—and his shoulders slumped. “Where do I sign?”
“Page twelve,” Nikos answered. He was already holding out a pen.
It took another hour to complete the handover.
Nikos handled the logistics with the efficient ruthlessness that made him indispensable.
I stood in the terminal director’s office and watched through the window as the Poseidon livery was covered with neutral tarps.
Below, dockworkers stood in small clusters, watching the change of authority happen in real time.
Some of them had worked here for decades. None of them had been asked.
The terminal was mine. Orion Maris had just lost his first piece of dry ground.
“There’s one more thing.” I turned from the window. Galatas sat behind his desk with his hands flat on the surface, the posture of a man holding himself together through discipline. “I need you to make a call.”
“To Lord Maris.”
“Tell him everything that happened tonight. Every detail. Who came, what we filed, how it ended.”
Now that I wasn’t actively using my aura, Galatas faced me without flinching. In his eyes, I saw the grudging recognition of someone who understood and appreciated the workings of power, even if it was being wielded against him.
“And is there a message, Lord Stormwright?”
I straightened my cuffs. “Tell him I very much look forward to seeing him again.”
Galatas held my stare for a long moment. Then he picked up the phone.
We were halfway to the airstrip before Nikos broke the silence.
“That was cleaner than I expected.”
“It won’t stay clean,” I replied. “That was the first one. He has operations in every major port from Marseille to Istanbul. By the time he understands what’s happening, I want half of them under review.”
Nikos pulled a tablet from his bag and began typing. “Marseille, Genoa, Piraeus, Izmir, and the Adriatic corridor. I can have filings ready for all five by morning.”
“Do it.”
Julian had told me that the only way Andromeda would come back was if she chose to.
He was right. I couldn’t force her, couldn’t fight my way across Poseidon’s water, couldn’t drag her home the way my instincts screamed at me to do.
But I could make sure that the man who’d taken her understood exactly what it was going to cost him.
And then we’d see how long patience lasted when the tide was going out.