CHAPTER 67 #2
“Two hours,” he said. “You have spent weeks making sure the article can survive without you watching it.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy testing the theory.”
“No,” he said.
His thumbs moved once against my sides. “But the release structure is working. The article is replicating. The documents are secured. There is nothing you can improve by refreshing the page every six seconds.”
He bent and kissed me.
It wasn’t deep enough to distract me completely, but it was close.
When he pulled back, I was still holding the front of his shirt.
“That was manipulative,” I said.
“It was effective,” he said.
“Also arrogant.”
“Still effective,” he said.
I hated that he was right almost as much as I loved that he was here to be right in person.
I released his shirt. “Two hours.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Then I’m checking everything.”
“I assumed you would,” he said.
***
By noon, the story had crossed a million views.
I knew because Marina told me.
She stood behind the counter at the shop with my article open on her phone, staring at the screen like it had personally offended her. “You wrote this?”
“I’ve mentioned being a journalist.”
“You write about honey,” she said.
“I contain multitudes.”
She looked back at the article.
The shop smelled like beeswax, lemon soap, and the warm bread someone had left near the register. Tourists drifted through the front room, lifting bottles toward the windows and pretending they understood the difference between olive oils.
Jameson was in the back, correcting the new inventory system Leo had apparently created out of spite.
Every few minutes, I heard him mutter something under his breath.
It had become background noise.
Marina scrolled again. “This woman is the one who tried to kill you?”
“One of them.”
Her head snapped up.
“Sorry. Poor phrasing.”
“There were others?” she asked.
“Technically.”
The shop door flew open hard enough to rattle the glass.
Leo came through it with his phone in one hand, his eyes wide as he crossed the room toward me. “This is what happened to you?”
“Most of it.”
Leo stopped in front of me. “Brynn.”
“I left out some details.”
His gaze dropped to the article, then lifted slowly back to me. “There were worse details?”
“Not worse,” I said. “Just less publishable.”
Jameson came through the stockroom curtain to join us. “That is not accurate.”
I looked over at him. “Whose side are you on?”
“Accuracy’s,” he said.
Leo stared between us. “Does anyone in this family know how to answer a question normally?”
Before either of us could respond, he launched into Greek.
The words came too fast for me to separate one from the next. His free hand moved with them, pointing at me, then Jameson, then the article on his phone before cutting sharply through the air.
I looked at Marina.
She had pressed her lips together, but her shoulders were already shaking.
“What is he saying?”
Marina lowered her phone and made the mistake of looking at Leo again. A laugh slipped out before she could stop it.
“Marina.”
She covered her mouth with one hand and shook her head. “I’m not translating that.”
Leo kept going.
Jameson watched him with the same expression he used when a system produced an unexpected error.
“I understood approximately twelve percent of that,” he said.
Leo stopped long enough to glare at him. “It was not the important twelve percent.”
Marina moved closer and lowered her voice. “Are you safe?”
The easy answer would have been yes.
We had taken precautions. Jameson had built routes around every foreseeable attempt to trace the publication back to Greece. My name was public, but my location remained buried beneath several months of carefully manufactured noise.
“It’s safer than staying quiet,” I said.
Marina studied my face.
Then she nodded once. “All right.”
That was it.
No argument.
No lecture about the baby.
No suggestion that fear should carry more weight because I was pregnant.
Just all right.
She locked her phone and slid it into the pocket of her apron. “You should sit.”
I stared at her. “You and Jameson have formed an alliance.”
“He brought spreadsheets,” she said.
“That’s how it starts.”
“He says you need more protein,” she said.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“After lunch,” she said.
***
By dinner, fourteen organizations had issued statements.
Nine denied everything.
Three announced internal reviews.
One blamed a former employee who had died two years earlier.
The last claimed the documents had been generated using artificial intelligence, which was ambitious considering several had been notarized before artificial intelligence became the preferred excuse for public embarrassment.
I turned my phone facedown on the long table at the big house.
It vibrated immediately.
Leo glanced at it. “That thing has not stopped moving since you arrived.”
“It’s excited.”
“It sounds angry,” he said.
“Also possible.”
The table stretched beneath the covered terrace, crowded with plates no one had allowed me to help prepare. Roasted fish. Potatoes with lemon. Bread still warm enough to release steam when torn through the middle. Bowls of olives, tomatoes, and greens dressed with enough oil to qualify as a threat.
Mama sat at the opposite end of the table, watching everyone’s plates with the authority of a woman who considered an empty stomach a personal failure.
Marina sat across from me.
Jameson sat at my right, quiet but not withdrawn. His attention moved between the road, the terrace entrance, and every vibration of my phone against the table.
He had not asked me to turn it off.
That mattered.
Mama pointed her fork at me. “Eat.”
“I am eating.”
Everyone looked at my plate.
I had taken three bites.
Traitors.
I had also finally popped over the last few weeks. There was no mistaking the round curve beneath my dress now, and no reason to keep blaming every comment about the baby’s size on the months I had spent barely eating.
She was growing.
Apparently, so was everyone’s interest in feeding me.
Jameson moved the bowl of potatoes closer.
I looked at him.
He lifted one eyebrow.
I put two on my plate.
Leo leaned back in his chair. “Apparently, exposing an international conspiracy removes your ability to use a fork.”
“It’s a very consuming article.”
Marina smiled into her wine. “That was terrible.”
“It was accurate.”
Mama said something fast in Greek and pointed at my potatoes.
I looked at Marina. “Was that about me?”
“I’m not translating that either,” she said.
Leo laughed. “She said you need three.”
“Your entire family is oppressive.”
“Eat the potato,” Jameson said.
I added a third.
Satisfied, Mama returned to her own plate.
My phone vibrated again.
I did not reach for it.
Jameson’s hand settled against my thigh beneath the table. His thumb moved once against the fabric of my dress.
“You can check,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
His eyes moved to mine.
I turned my hand beneath the table and threaded my fingers through his. “I’m eating.”
Something shifted in his face, small enough that no one else would have caught it.