“Ms. Romanos—”

“You only call me that when you’re about to tell me something I won’t like.”

Jake’s expression acknowledged the point.

“We need more time. We have to let this play out.”

Athena pulled a sheet of paper from her jacket and unfolded it on the table.

“This is the crew list for the Symi. Twenty-three men: sixteen Filipinos, four Eastern Europeans, and three Greeks.”

She read each name aloud and gave the paper to Jake.

“I will not send them to their deaths.”

She walked out of the conference room.

—

JAKE WAITED IN the reception area. Athena passed by half an hour later, surprised to see him.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” she said.

“There is.”

She kept walking.

Jake kept waiting.

An hour later, the receptionist picked up her phone, looked up at Jake, and said something in Greek into the phone.

Athena stepped out of her office.

“I have a lunch meeting,” she said to Jake. “Walk me downstairs.”

When they were alone in the elevator, she said, “Just so it’s one hundred percent clear, the Symi left Kuwait two days ago. In two more days, it will be in the Arabian Sea. You have until tomorrow to arrest the pirates, otherwise I’m turning the ship around.”

Two men entered the elevator on the third floor, and the rest of the trip passed in silence.

Athena strode through the lobby to her reserved parking space and left in the silver Jaguar.

Jake was waiting in the reception area again when she returned.

She shook her head and walked past him.

It was six thirty p.m. when she finished work.

Jake was still waiting.

“I need five minutes,” he said.

“I’m late.”

“I’ll wait.”

She cursed at him in Greek. At least he thought it was a curse. He’d been cursed at before, and though the language was different, the tone and the facial expression seemed consistent.

“I have dinner plans,” she said.

“I’ll wait.”

“Fine!” she said, exasperated. “Five minutes, eight o’clock, at the house.”

Jake was ten minutes early when he turned onto the gravel driveway. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see—maybe the fiancé, maybe a whole dinner party—but the parking area was empty and the house looked the same.

Maybe they had an underground garage.

One of the household staff escorted him inside, and Jake saw Athena sitting alone at the dining room table with her back to him. The room was bathed in candlelight, and the table set intimately for two. Across from her was a napkin on the table and a half-finished glass of red wine.

Jake turned and nearly collided with Giánnis.

The older man greeted Jake warmly and invited him into the dining room.

Athena turned and glared.

“He and I are meeting after dinner, Father. He can wait in the living room.”

“Can’t he have a glass of wine first?”