Alessio wanted Nari moved immediately.
She refused his penthouse.
She refused a hotel.
She refused three different secure apartments.
Eventually, she agreed to stay in a guest suite inside one of Franks Corporation's protected properties in Manhattan.
“This is temporary,” she warned him.
“Of course.”
“You're lying.”
“Yes.”
Nari glared.
Alessio handed her a key.
At least he had learned not to insult her intelligence.
The investigation accelerated.
Dominic finally talked.
The conspiracy stretched farther than anyone expected.
A rival network had been feeding manipulated translations through intermediaries for months. Some interpreters had simply been incompetent.
Others had been paid.
The goal was elegant.
Make Alessio believe Navarro was unreasonable.
Make Navarro believe Alessio was insulting him.
Escalate.
Provoke retaliation.
Let two powerful organizations destroy each other.
Then move into the vacuum.
Nari had ruined everything by emptying a trash can at 2:14 in the morning.
But one question remained.
Who had coordinated the translators?
Dominic knew only a code name.
The Professor.
Three days later, a message arrived.
Russian.
Nari translated it.
A meeting was proposed.
No weapons.
One representative from each side.
The Professor claimed to possess evidence exposing everyone involved.
“It could be a trap,” Alessio said.
“It is a trap.”
“You sound certain.”
“Because the Russian is wrong.”
Alessio stared.
“Wrong how?”
“It's written by somebody who learned Russian academically.”
She pointed at a phrase.
“A native speaker wouldn't structure this sentence this way.”
“So?”
“So whoever wrote this wants us to think they're Russian.”
Nari examined it again.
Then she noticed punctuation habits.
Spacing.
A borrowed idiom.
Her pulse quickened.
“I've seen this before.”
“Where?”
She searched old correspondence.
Marseille documents.
German contracts.
Portuguese shipping messages.
Tiny abnormalities appeared across all of them.
Different languages.
Same habits.
The Professor wasn't hiring translators.
The Professor was the translator.
One person had been manipulating multiple sides.
Nari leaned back.
“My God.”
“What?”
“He speaks several languages.”
“How many?”
“I don't know.”
Alessio looked at her.
“Seven?”
“Maybe.”
His expression changed.
Nari understood why.
Everyone had been stunned by a cleaning woman who spoke eight languages.
But perhaps she wasn't the only multilingual person hiding in plain sight.
“Who has access to every international negotiation?” she asked.
Alessio went still.
“Interpreters.”
“Who else?”
His eyes moved toward the glass wall.
Beyond it sat assistants, security personnel, lawyers, executives.
Then Nari saw him.
An older man carrying a leather folder.
Quiet.
Polite.
Always nearby.
Sebastian Crowe.
Alessio's international legal adviser.
Harvard educated.
Former diplomatic consultant.
Fluent in seven languages.
Nari had barely noticed him.
Because Sebastian had perfected the same survival skill she had.
Invisibility.
Their eyes met through the glass.
Sebastian stopped walking.
Nari knew instantly.
So did he.
She whispered, “Alessio.”
Sebastian ran.
Security moved.
The hallway erupted.
Nari heard shouting.
A door slammed.
Alessio pulled her behind him.
Within seconds, Sebastian was trapped at the elevators.
He turned.
For the first time, the quiet lawyer's face showed what had always been underneath.
Hatred.
He shouted something at Nari.
French.
“You should have stayed with your garbage.”
Nari stepped from behind Alessio.
“No.”
Her voice was calm.
“You should have hired a thirteenth interpreter.”
Security took Sebastian away.
But as the elevator doors closed, he smiled.
Nari's stomach tightened.
“What?”
Alessio asked.
“He's smiling.”
“So?”
Nari looked toward the conference room.
Then toward the computers.
Because men didn't smile when they had lost everything.
Not unless losing had been part of the plan.
She ran toward Alessio's office.
“Shut down the network.”
“What?”
“Now!”
Alessio didn't argue.
He called IT.
Seconds later, alarms began sounding.
Someone had initiated a massive transfer of confidential files.
Shipping routes.
Accounts.
Names.
Locations.
Everything.
Sebastian hadn't been running away.
He had been buying time.
And somewhere outside Franks Corporation, another person was waiting to receive the entire empire.