THE PRICE OF HIS NAME

CHAPTER FIVE: THE MEETING

Adrian called me into his office the next morning. Not through his assistant. Not through official channels. He called me directly at 7 AM and told me to come up before the building was fully populated.

When I arrived, he was waiting with coffee. Two cups, black, the kind of coffee that suggested he'd ordered one for me without asking how I took it. The office was different in the early morning light. Less intimidating. More like a space where someone actually worked rather than a stage where someone performed authority.

I hadn't slept. My eyes felt gritty. My hands were shaking slightly from too much caffeine and not enough rest. Adrian looked equally exhausted. He'd probably spent the night the same way I had. Building spreadsheets. Tracing patterns. Trying to understand what his uncle had done and why.

"Sit," he said.

I sat. He placed a folder on the desk between us. The folder was heavy. Thick with documentation. He opened it slowly, deliberately.

"These are my father's personal financial records from the year before his death," he said. "I want you to look at them. Tell me if you see what I see."

I opened the folder. The records were meticulously organized. Bank statements. Investment accounts. Transfer documentation. At first, everything looked normal. Legitimate business expenses. Personal investments. The kind of financial activity you'd expect from a wealthy man managing his personal wealth.

Then I turned the page and saw it.

Money was being moved between accounts in a specific sequence. Different amounts, but the same order. The same frequency. It looked random unless you'd been trained to recognize financial patterns. Which I had been.

€45,200 on the 15th of January.

€78,500 on the 22nd.

€23,800 on the 28th.

Then February:

€42,100 on the 14th.

€76,900 on the 21st.

€24,300 on the 27th.

The amounts varied slightly. But the sequence was identical. The timing was identical. The pattern was deliberately mathematical.

"Your father was encrypting information in his transactions," I said slowly.

"Yes."

"He was using the amounts and the sequence to communicate something."

"Yes."

"What?"

Adrian sat back in his chair and studied me. His exhaustion was visible now that the morning light was harsh and unforgiving. There were dark circles under his eyes. His jaw was shadowed with stubble. He looked like a man who'd been carrying something heavy for a very long time.

"I've been trying to figure that out for three years," he said. "The pattern repeats every month, like clockwork. But the key to understanding it is somewhere in Asterion's original structure. And the only person who can help me understand that is someone who knew my father during that period."

"Which would be?"

"His old employee. Someone my father trusted enough to confide in. Someone who worked in finance."

I understood where this was going. My stomach tightened.

Adrian nodded as if he could read my thoughts. "Your father worked for my father. In the accounting department. During the exact period when Asterion was being set up. He would have known the structure. He would have understood how it worked. He would have understood what Victor was building."

The room felt smaller suddenly. The windows seemed farther away. The city beyond them seemed like a separate world entirely.

"My father is a quiet man," I said. "He's not the type to be involved in corporate conspiracies."

"No. Which is probably why your father is still alive."

The implication hung between us. Adrian believed his father was dead because of Asterion. Because of whatever his uncle was protecting. Because secrets this big didn't stay buried without casualties.

I thought about my father. About his careful nature. About the way he'd never quite explained his concerns about corporate work. About the reason he'd been so relieved when I'd gotten my job at Bellavere Meridian, which was far enough removed from Voss International that it seemed safe.

Except I wasn't safe. I was standing in Adrian Voss's office being asked to investigate secrets that had already cost one person his life.

"I need to talk to him," I said.

"I know."

"Today."

"Yes."

Adrian leaned forward. His expression was careful, controlled. But underneath, I could see something else. Fear. Genuine fear. The kind of fear that comes from understanding you're standing on the edge of something catastrophic.

"When you talk to your father," Adrian said, "ask him about 1994. Ask him what happened between my father and my uncle. Ask him what Asterion was really built to do."

"And if he doesn't want to tell me?"

"Tell him that his silence is what's put you in danger. Tell him that everything he was trying to protect by staying quiet is unraveling anyway. Tell him the only way to protect you now is the truth."

Adrian stood and walked to the window. He looked out at the city, his shoulders squared, his posture suggesting someone carrying significant weight.

"My father died before he finished whatever he was trying to do with those encrypted messages," Adrian said. "I don't know if he was warning me about something. I don't know if he was building a case against my uncle. I don't know if he was trying to hide additional evidence or destroy it."

He turned back to face me.

"But I know that you've stumbled onto something that someone wants kept hidden. And I know that the only way we both survive this is if we understand what Asterion really was before my uncle realizes how close we're getting to the truth.”