Chapter 2

The container reached Piraeus before sunrise.

It never reached the buyer.

Nikos Drakos received the alert when his port security found three dead smugglers beside a refrigerated truck.

He arrived with twelve men.

The container lock carried a counterfeit Drakos seal.

He shot it off.

Inside, six wooden crates stood beneath a false wall.

The first five held medical equipment.

The sixth moved.

Nikos pulled the lid open.

Alba sat inside with tape around her wrists and a silver emergency pendant around her neck.

She kicked him in the shin.

“Good,” he said. “You still have strength.”

She tried to bite his hand.

He cut the tape and stepped back.

One smuggler rose behind him with a knife.

Alba pointed.

Nikos turned and fired once.

The man fell.

Blood crossed Nikos’s left sleeve.

Alba stared at it, then pulled a cartoon bandage from her pocket.

She pressed it over the tear in his shirt.

“That will not stop a bullet,” he said.

“It wasn’t a bullet.”

Nikos looked at the Vitali pendant.

“Your mother is Serafina Vitali.”

Alba held his gaze.

“My mother finds people.”

“So do I.”

He carried her out of the container.

At the terminal gate, his consigliere approached.

“Don Drakos, a Vitali aircraft requested emergency clearance.”

Nikos handed Alba to the female doctor waiting beside the ambulance.

“Open the private runway.”

“And the child?”

“She stays under my protection until I know who used my port.”