The mafia boss switched to Russian to humiliate the waitress in front of his powerful guests, but when I answered him flawlessly, Natalia asked me one question that made the entire table go silent.

The descent into Vienna International Airport began at 5:14 AM local time. Below us, the Danube River wound like a dull silver ribbon through the sprawling, fog-draped geometry of the Austrian capital. The morning light was just beginning to bleed across the eastern horizon, painting the Gothic spires of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in shades of bruised violet and pale gold.

When the Gulfstream’s wheels kissed the tarmac with a smooth, effortless shudder, the transition from high-altitude isolation to ground-level reality was instantaneous.

We didn't go through the public terminal. A tarmac-cleared diplomatic van with Austrian federal security plates was waiting directly beneath the aircraft’s rolling stairs. Two men in dark suits and trench coats stood at attention beside the sliding door, their expressions carved from granite.

“Keep your passport ready, but you won't need to speak,” Natalia instructed as she adjusted her wool scarf and pulled on her leather gloves. “The Austrian interior ministry cleared our manifest before we crossed Irish airspace.”

The ride into the inner city—the historic Innere Stadt—took twenty minutes through empty, rain-washed streets where grand 19th-century architecture stood like silent sentinels of a forgotten imperial age. We pulled up behind a nondescript gray government building on Herrengasse, entering through a subterranean loading dock guarded by biometric scanners and armed federal police.

The conference room three floors underground bore no resemblance to the opulent dining room of Le Rêve. There were no crystal chandeliers, no white linen tablecloths, no murmurs of celebrity gossip. Instead, there was a massive, scarred oak table surrounded by ergonomic leather chairs, banks of secure telecommunication terminals glowing with amber diagnostic lights, and a wall-sized digital display currently mapping out natural gas pipeline manifolds across Ukraine, Slovakia, and Austria.

Three men were already seated around the table when we entered.

To the left sat Dmitri Sokolov, a veteran energy minister from Kiev whose rumpled suit and tired eyes belied a mind like a steel trap. Across from him was Stefan Berger, a severe, silver-haired Austrian banking executive who looked like he hadn't slept since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And at the far end of the table, leaning back with his fingers steepled beneath his chin, sat a man whose face I instantly recognized from the dossier: Milan Novak, a high-level broker representing private equity firms in Zurich with deep, shadowy ties to Balkan logistics networks.

As Natalia and I took our seats, Novak looked up, his pale blue eyes narrowing slightly as he took in my youthful appearance and plain camel-hair coat.

“I understood we were meeting with senior strategic advisors from the Swiss delegation, Natalia,” Novak said, his voice dripping with condescension as he switched effortlessly to accented English. “Not college interns.”

Natalia didn't even blink. She pulled out her chair, seated herself with absolute grace, and gestured toward me with an open palm.

“This is Miss Sterling,” Natalia said, her voice cutting cleanly through the sterile air of the bunker. “She is our chief linguistic and structural analyst for today’s proceedings. And if she tells me a clause in your draft agreement smells like a fraudulent offshore shell company, Mr. Novak, we won't be signing a single page.”

Novak let out a sharp, dismissive laugh, turning to Sokolov and Berger. “You brought a girl to audit a four-hundred-million-dollar infrastructure transfer? Is this a joke?”

I didn't wait for Natalia to answer. I leaned forward, resting my forearms flat against the scarred oak table, and looked Novak dead in the eye.

“We aren't auditing the transfer, Mr. Novak,” I said, my voice quiet, steady, and carrying the precise, clipped cadence of a senior diplomatic negotiator. “We’re auditing the fact that paragraph 14 of your annex uses a modified Serbian commercial arbitration clause—one that hasn’t been legally valid in Vienna since the 2018 corporate reform acts. Which suggests you aren't routing these pipeline maintenance funds through legitimate Austrian banking channels at all. You’re funneling them through a dormant shell company in Belgrade controlled by Dominic Pierce’s associates.”

The silence in the underground bunker was absolute.

Milan Novak’s smile vanished so fast it was as if someone had pulled the rug out from under him. The color drained from his face, leaving his skin the color of wet parchment.

Across the table, Dmitri Sokolov slowly turned his head to look at Novak, his tired eyes suddenly blazing with cold, dangerous fire.

“Explain that, Milan,” Sokolov whispered in Russian, his voice like grinding stones. “Why is an American street-level thug’s syndicate appearing in our transit maintenance protocols?”

Novak opened his mouth to speak, but before a single word could escape, my phone buzzed violently against the table.