Giánnis was seated at the head of the table, with Athena on his left. He pulled out a chair for Jake on his right—directly across from Athena.

The glaring intensified.

One of the staff brought a glass for Jake and filled it with a French Bordeaux that was at least a decade older than he was.

“You’ve been here before,” said Giánnis. He remembered Jake’s face, but the dementia had erased the details. “Are you Athena’s fiancé?”

Athena put her face in her hands.

“No, Father. He’s here for work.”

“Are you in shipping?”

“I work for the U.S. Department of State, Mr. Romanos.”

“And what brings you here?”

“I’m part of a counterpiracy task force.”

Giánnis nodded slowly. “My son is a ship captain.”

Athena stood, took a deep breath, and placed her napkin on the table.

“Father, would you mind if we finished dinner so I could meet with this man from America?”

Giánnis stood. “Of course.”

One of the staff led him to his room.

“I need some air,” said Athena. “There’s a Land Rover parked around the corner. Would you bring it around? The keys are in it, but I can’t walk across the driveway in these heels.”

Jake nodded. It was a steel-gray Defender with a Bimini top and the doors removed. He pulled to the side of the house and picked her up. She’d put on a jacket and pointed to a road on the edge of the property. It ended at a private beach. He parked facing the water.

The rain had stopped, but it was barely fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and Jake left the engine running and turned up the heat. They stayed in the car.

“Sometimes my father asks me when my brother is coming home,” said Athena. “He thinks he’s still on a ship somewhere.”

A tear slid down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away.

“Have you ever lost anyone close to you?” she asked.

Jake hesitated for a minute. His life as Zac Miller was top secret, code-word classified, but he understood the pain she felt.

“I lost both my parents when I was fourteen,” he said.

Athena didn’t know what answer she’d been hoping for, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”

“It was. I went to live with an aunt and uncle, but they had their own issues. It wasn’t a happy childhood.”

She turned to face him.

“Yet you still think I should send the Symi into the Gulf. That I should risk the lives of all those men and potentially leave their children with that same lifetime of loss?”

“You’re in a terrible position,” Jake said. “If I had never come to Greece you wouldn’t know that your men might be in danger, but now you do.”