The wind off the Aegean cuts through my coat like a knife, carrying the heavy, stinging scent of salt and diesel fuel. We aren't at a club tonight. We aren't at a gala. We are standing on the desolate concrete edge of the Piraeus cargo terminal, surrounded by shipping containers stacked like rusty metal skyscrapers that block out the moon.
"You wanted to know the cost," Stavros says. His voice is flat, devoid of the heat he usually directs at me. He stands behind me, a solid wall of warmth against the biting cold, but he’s not touching me. Not yet. "You read the numbers in the ledger. Now you see the reality."
He nods toward a clearing between two massive red containers. A black van idles there, its headlights cutting through the gloom. The back doors fly open.
Two of Stavros’s soldiers
