A year later, I watched the annual Solstice Auction in Geneva from a control room suspended above the floor. The one-way glass concealed me from the largest black-market gathering in the world.
Below me, Russian oligarchs, cartel queens, and arms dealers bid in evening clothes beneath a frescoed ceiling. Every major transfer still required my approval. During the past year, none of them had forgotten it.
A request from the Bratva's top envoy appeared on my tablet. He had disguised a high-volume transfer as a ceramics acquisition and left enough gaps to make the challenge obvious. Ten years earlier, the old Curator would have charged him a steep fee and approved it.
I typed a single word, 'Denied,' and sent it. Then I attached three cleaner routes for half the volume with a message: *The
