Chapter 5 - THE RED BOOK
The memory card changed everything.
It also made Eleni more dangerous to the wrong people.
Nikos understood that immediately.
“You're not going back to your apartment.”
She crossed her arms.
“You don't get to decide where I live.”
“No.”
That answer surprised her.
He continued.
“But I'm asking you not to sleep somewhere Delano already knows.”
That was different.
She hated that it was.
“Fine.”
“There's an apartment upstairs from Olympus.”
“No guards inside.”
“Agreed.”
“No locked doors I can't open.”
Nikos's expression changed.
“Agreed.”
“And I keep my phone.”
“Eleni, I'm not kidnapping you.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
“I need to hear you say it anyway.”
His voice softened.
“You are free to leave whenever you want.”
That was why she stayed.
Not because Nikos frightened Marcus.
Because Nikos understood that safety without choice could become another prison.
By afternoon, Thomas Vale was back.
This time with an attorney.
He admitted the later payments from Marcus.
Blackmail.
After taking Dimitri's money twelve years earlier, Vale became useful.
Then trapped.
Marcus learned about the payoff.
Years later, when Vale entered politics, Marcus started demanding favors.
Zoning.
Appointments.
Budget pressure.
“Why didn't you come to me?” Nikos asked.
Vale laughed bitterly.
“And say what? Hello, Nikos, I helped bury your sister's case and now the dirty cop involved is blackmailing me?”
“Yes.”
“That conversation seemed unlikely to end well.”
Nikos could not argue.
Vale agreed to cooperate with an outside investigative team.
Then he gave them one final detail.
“Your father kept a red appointment book.”
Nikos frowned.
“What?”
“Leather. No bigger than his hand.”
Andreas looked at Nikos.
“I remember it.”
“Where?”
“Old office safe.”
Dimitri Stavros's office had remained largely untouched since his death.
Not out of sentiment.
Nikos simply disliked the room.
Too much dark wood.
Too much cigar smoke trapped in curtains.
Too much of his father's voice still inside it.
The red book was exactly where Vale said.
Nikos opened it alone at first.
Then he stopped.
Eleni waited outside.
He looked toward her.
“Come in.”
It sounded less like an order than a request.
She entered.
The notebook contained appointments.
Initials.
Dollar figures.
Nothing explicit.
Until the week Callista died.
S.H. — 50.
T.V. — 25.
M.D. — 100.
Eleni looked at him.
“Halloran. Vale. Delano.”
“Probably.”
“Your father paid Marcus a hundred thousand dollars?”
Nikos closed the book.
“I don't know.”
“But it looks like it.”
“Yes.”
He did not defend Dimitri.
That mattered.
Andreas found another note three pages later.
M.D. HAS PHONE.
GET IT BACK.
Nikos's head snapped up.
“Callista's phone?”
Eleni's pulse changed.
“If Marcus had her phone, maybe that's what Dimitri was paying for.”
“A hundred thousand dollars.”
“To buy evidence.”
“Or destroy it.”
Neither possibility comforted him.
Then a sound rose from downstairs.
Not gunfire.
Voices.
Loud.
Angry.
Eleni went to the landing.
Police officers filled the restaurant entrance.
Her stomach dropped.
Marcus wasn't among them.
That was worse.
A lieutenant stepped forward.
“We received a report that Elena Costa is being held here against her will.”
Nikos's face became stone.
Eleni walked downstairs before anyone could stop her.
“My name is Eleni.”
The lieutenant looked at her bruised face.
“Ma'am, you can speak freely.”
“I am.”
“Has anyone prevented you from leaving?”
“No.”
“Threatened you?”
“No.”
“Taken your identification?”
“No.”
The officer glanced toward Nikos.
“Would you be willing to come outside without Mr. Stavros?”
“Yes.”
Nikos said nothing.
No possessive move.
No warning.
He let her go.
Outside, standing beneath the awning while November rain fell beyond it, Eleni told the officers exactly why she was there.
Then she asked for Internal Affairs.
That sentence changed their faces.
Within two hours, she had given a formal statement to investigators unconnected to Marcus's unit.
The memory card was copied through counsel.
The original stayed secured.
For the first time, Marcus was not controlling the paperwork.
Eleni felt something she had forgotten.
Power.
Not Nikos's kind.
Her own.
Then Rosa called.
She was screaming.
“My God, Eleni, they're taking your father!”
Eleni was already moving.
“Why?”
“They found drugs in the delivery van.”
Her stomach dropped.
“What drugs?”
“I don't know!”
Nikos caught up beside her.
Eleni looked at him.
“Marcus.”
“Maybe.”
She almost snapped at him.
Then remembered.
Evidence first.
When they reached the bakery, Antonio stood on the sidewalk in handcuffs.
Two officers were loading wrapped packages from the van.
Neighbors watched from windows.
Rosa sobbed behind the yellow tape.
Eleni tried to reach her father.
An officer blocked her.
Then she saw Marcus.
He stood across the street beneath a black umbrella.
No uniform.
No visible badge.
Just a dark coat and that calm, familiar expression.
He did not smile.
He didn't need to.
His eyes found Eleni's.
Then he lifted two fingers toward his own wrist.
Exactly where his bruises had once marked hers.
A reminder.
He could still touch her family.
Eleni stopped shaking.
Nikos stood beside her.
“What do you want me to do?”
Weeks earlier, she would have expected him to decide.
Instead he asked.
Eleni watched her father disappear into a police car.
Then she looked at Marcus.
“Nothing illegal.”
Nikos's jaw tightened.
“Eleni—”
“No bodies.”
She met his eyes.
“No threats.”
Marcus turned and walked away.
Eleni's voice hardened.
“We beat him with the one thing he's spent his whole career destroying.”
May you like
“What?”
“The truth.”
