22. Adrianos
Adrianos
By noon, I know two things with absolute certainty.
Someone has been siphoning money through Crown infrastructure for years, and Elena is going to make protecting her as difficult as humanly possible.
The first problem can be solved with information, patience, and enough violence applied to the correct people. The second is currently standing in my dressing room, criticizing my taste in hangers.
"I didn't know hangers could look arrogant."
I glance up from my phone. "They're hangers."
"Exactly. Yet somehow yours look as though they own property."
Elena pulls another blouse from the garment bag one of my men delivered from her apartment and hangs it beside three others.
Half her wardrobe arrived this morning along with her laptop, work files, toiletries, and the collection of notebooks she insisted contained nothing important while simultaneously threatening bodily harm if anyone misplaced them.
I ordered the transfer before breakfast.
She doesn't know that yet.
Technically, she thinks the men went to retrieve the things she requested after our argument yesterday. I haven't considered it necessary to mention that I instructed them to bring everything she might reasonably need for several weeks.
There are several such details.
Her apartment now has twenty-four-hour surveillance. Two men rotate outside the building. Another monitors the street from a parked vehicle. Her mother has a discreet security detail that follows her to work, home, and anywhere else she decides to go.
Elena knows none of it, and I intend to keep it that way.
"Why did they bring six pairs of shoes?" she asks.
"Because you own them."
"I own considerably more than six."
"Then be grateful for restraint."
She narrows her eyes. "Did you tell them what to bring?"
"I told them to bring what you need."
"I asked for clothes, my laptop and two folders."
"And you received them."
"I also received enough underwear to survive a minor apocalypse."
I look at the garment bag.
"Preparedness matters."
Her mouth twitches despite herself. "You're impossible."
"Yet here you are."
"Against several better instincts."
She leaves the dressing room and walks toward the investigation room with coffee in one hand and a folder beneath her arm. I watch until she disappears around the corner, then return to my phone.
Evander's message arrived five minutes ago.
Mother left work. Security following. Nothing unusual.
I delete it.
After what Elena and I found yesterday, I'm no longer willing to assume anyone connected to her is irrelevant.
OB6 has spent years operating inside structures the Crown believed secure.
They knew Petros had become a liability before his death became public.
They knew where Elena and I would be when the car came for us.
And now we know they've accumulated hundreds of millions.
That changes everything.
Money at that scale buys access. It buys information. It buys loyalty from people who insist they cannot be bought until someone discovers the correct number.
I have no idea whose number OB6 has already discovered. Until I do, I trust very few people. Unfortunately, Elena believes trust is something that should involve consent.
She's about to discover we disagree.
The explosion comes at three seventeen.
I'm in my office with Evander and two of my financial advisers, reviewing companies Elena identified as possible collection points, when my office door opens without a knock.
Elena stands there holding an empty file box. Not a folder. Not a laptop. An empty box.
Evander takes one look at her and mutters, "Fuck."
My advisers wisely become fascinated with the table.
"Out," I tell them.
They leave immediately. Evander starts to rise.
"Not you," Elena says, and he stops.
I look at him. "Out."
"She'll only drag me back."
"Evander."
"Fine." He stands and points toward Elena as he passes. "For the record, I knew nothing."
"Liar," she says.
"Prove it."
"Give me time."
He leaves and closes the door. Elena sets the empty box on my desk with deliberate care.
"Where are my files?"
I lean back. "Which files?"
"The ones from the locked cabinet in my apartment."
"They're here."
"Why?"
"Because you need them."
"That isn't what I asked."
I say nothing. She stares at me.
Yesterday's argument had anger in it, but there was still humor around the edges. She threatened to investigate me. I negotiated her security down to two men. We both walked away irritated and strangely satisfied.
There is nothing playful in her face now.
"Did you have my apartment emptied?"
"No."
"Interesting answer."
"It's the accurate one."
"Did you have things removed from my apartment without asking me?"
"Yes."
Her jaw tightens. "How much?"
"Anything important."
"Define important."
"Work files. Financial records. Electronics. Documents. Personal items you might need."
"For how long?"
I don't answer.
"For how long, Adrianos?"
"Until this is finished."
The silence that follows has weight.
"You moved me in."
"I moved your belongings."
"Without asking."
"You were already staying here."
"Because somebody tried to kill us, not because I surrendered the lease on my life."
"Your apartment isn't secure."
"Then secure it."
"I did."
She goes still. The change is immediate.
"What does that mean?"
I should lie. I don't.
"There are men watching the building."
"Since when?"
"Yesterday."
Her laugh is quiet and completely humorless. "Of course there are."
"Elena."
"How many?"
"Enough."
"Stop answering me with that word."
"Three."
She closes her eyes briefly, then opens them again. "Three armed men are watching my apartment."
"They're not standing outside the door with rifles."
"Thank you for clarifying. I was worried subtlety had died."
"This isn't a joke."
"No, it isn't."
She steps closer to the desk.
"What else?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
Wrong answer.
I know it the second the words leave my mouth. Her expression empties.
"Nothing that concerns me."
"That's not what I meant."
"Then try again."
I stand. "There are precautions in place."
"What precautions?"
"Elena."
"What precautions?"
I could end this conversation.
I've ended negotiations with men more powerful than she will ever be by simply refusing to continue them. But Elena doesn't respond to power the way other people do. Push harder and she doesn't bend. She starts looking for structural weaknesses.
"Your mother has security."
The room changes. Not visibly. Nothing moves. Yet somehow the distance between us becomes dangerous.
"My mother."
"Two men. She doesn't know they're there."
"You put armed men around my mother without telling me?"
"Discreet protection."
"Without telling me?"
"Yes."
Her face loses color. For one second, I expect fear. Instead, fury arrives so cleanly that I almost admire it.
"Cancel it."
"No."
"Cancel it now."
"No."
"She has nothing to do with this."
"Neither did Petros's family."
"You don't know that anyone is targeting her."
"I don't know that they aren't."
"That does not give you the right to put strangers into her life."
"They're protecting her."
"From a threat she doesn't even know exists."
"Exactly."
She stares at me as though I've begun speaking another language. Then she walks to the window.
I let her.
She needs time to understand that anger doesn't change the reality. OB6 knows who she is. If they decide Elena is too difficult to reach directly, they'll look for leverage.
Her mother is leverage, and I'd do the same thing. That's precisely why the woman needs protection.
Elena turns around. "Do you know what the worst part is?"
"You're going to tell me."
"I understand every decision you made."
That isn't what I expect.
She crosses her arms. "My apartment is vulnerable. My mother could be used against me. My files contain information OB6 might want. From a security perspective, everything you've done makes sense."
"Then we agree."
"No." Her voice hardens. "That's the problem. You keep confusing being correct with having the right."
I study her.
"If I had asked, would you have agreed?"
"To some of it."
"Some isn't enough."
"To you."
"To keeping you alive."
"You don't get to make every decision because your version of safety is more absolute than mine."
"My version involves you breathing."
"And mine involves me living."
"You can live very comfortably here."
The second I say it, I know how badly I've chosen the words.
Her eyes flash.
"This isn't about your penthouse. I could live in Buckingham Palace and still be a prisoner if somebody else decides when I leave."
"You're not a prisoner."
"You emptied my files, put guards around my home, assigned surveillance to my mother and made every one of those decisions without speaking to me."
"Because speaking to you turns basic security into a fucking parliamentary debate."
"Because it's my life!"
Her voice cracks through the room. I go still.
Elena rarely raises her voice. She weaponizes precision instead. Hearing her shout tells me exactly how far I've pushed her.
I don't back down.
"Your life is currently being targeted by people who murdered Petros, killed Kalliopi, and tried to run you over in broad daylight. Forgive me if I'm unwilling to submit your security arrangements for committee approval."
"Protection without choice is still control."
"Choice means very little when someone is trying to put a bullet through your skull."
"It means everything when it's my skull!"
I step around the desk.
"Do you think they care whether you consent when they come for you? Do you think Petros had a vote? Kalliopi? My son?"
Her face changes at the last two words.
I keep going because stopping now would mean examining why I'm this angry.
"These people knew Petros was compromised before anyone else.
They have access inside Crown businesses.
They have hundreds of millions at their disposal, possibly more, and we don't know who they are.
You want me to wait until they put a gun to your head before I decide your mother needs protection? "
"I want you to talk to me."
"Talking wastes time."
"Then make time."