The first man Marius Veyre ruined that evening was still apologizing when the champagne arrived.

It was a particularly good champagne, too. A 2008 Dom Pérignon, chilled to precisely the temperature Marius preferred, delivered to the owner's penthouse aboard the Elysian Crown by a steward who had the good sense to knock twice and depart without lingering. Marius accepted the bottle himself, thanked the young man with a generous tip, and returned to the sitting room, where one of his employees was having a considerably less pleasant evening.

"Now," Marius said cheerfully, examining the label as he crossed the carpet. "Where were we?"

On the floor between two of Viktor Sokolov's men, Tomas Bellanger made a miserable attempt to straighten himself. Blood had dried beneath his nose, staining the collar of a shirt that had cost more than most people's monthly rent. His right eye was swelling shut. He had been crying intermittently for the better part of twenty minutes, and the sound had begun to irritate Marius.

"Monsieur Veyre, please. I swear to God, I didn't know—"

"Oh, fuck off with God." Marius laughed, setting the bottle into its waiting silver bucket. "He wasn't involved in the transaction, was he? Unless you've been conducting unauthorized business with the Vatican as well. In which case, Tomas, we really must discuss your workload."

Lucien Moreau, reclining on the nearest sofa with a tablet balanced against one knee, closed his eyes briefly.

"You're going to make yourself late," Lucien observed.

"I have forty minutes."

"Thirty-two."

"Then I have thirty-two minutes."

Across the room, Nadia Kovač stood beside the windows, consulting the report that had brought Tomas's spectacularly unsuccessful career to its conclusion. Outside, the Mediterranean stretched black and silver beneath a cloudless sky. The distant lights of another vessel drifted across the horizon, dwarfed by the enormous illuminated decks of the Elysian Crown.

"Bellanger transmitted portions of our passenger accommodations and security assignments to an intermediary in Marseille," Nadia reported. "The payment was forty thousand euros. We haven't established who ultimately purchased the information."

Marius looked down at Tomas.

"Forty thousand?"

Tomas swallowed.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Euros?"

"Yes."

Marius stared at him for another moment before turning toward Lucien with an expression of genuine bewilderment.

"Forty thousand fucking euros. I spend more than that on a weekend."

"Frequently on things considerably less disappointing," Lucien replied.

Marius laughed, delighted, and poured himself a glass of champagne. He was thirty-one years old, handsome enough to have attracted attention long before inheriting any meaningful wealth, and currently dressed in a black tuxedo tailored so exquisitely that the shoulder seams appeared almost painted onto him. His dark hair had been swept back from his face, although a few obstinate strands had already escaped. A heavy gold signet ring glinted against the stem of his glass.

He looked like someone whose greatest concern ought to have been deciding which beautiful stranger to take dancing.

Instead, he approached Tomas, crouched before him, and took the man's trembling right hand.

"You know what's genuinely offensive about this?" Marius asked conversationally. "It's not the betrayal. Betrayal is ordinary. People do it all the time. It's that you apparently believed my entire organization could be compromised for the price of a moderately equipped Volkswagen."

Tomas began pleading again. Marius listened for several seconds, his expression almost sympathetic, before tightening his grip and wrenching the man's thumb backward.

The crack was small. Tomas's scream was not.

"Christ, that's loud." Marius released him and rose, grimacing at his own hand as though the encounter had been unpleasantly inconvenient. "Viktor, take him somewhere I can't hear him. Nadia, find out who paid him. Lucien, remind me to review our compensation structure. Apparently we're employing fucking idiots at bargain prices."

Viktor hauled Tomas upright, heedless of the man's cries. Marius didn't look back as the security lieutenant dragged him toward the adjoining room, where the muffled sound of another door closing finally restored some peace to the penthouse.

Nadia watched the proceedings without visible surprise.

"He's still useful alive," she said.

"Then keep him alive."

"And if he refuses to identify his contact?"

Marius took another sip of champagne, considering.

"Be persuasive."

With that settled, he turned toward the enormous windows and admired the view.

The Elysian Crown was a magnificent ship, all polished brass, pale marble, smoked glass, and aggressively tasteful luxury. Six hundred passengers, almost all of them wealthy enough to mistake money for immunity, were enjoying the first evening of a seven-night Mediterranean voyage. Somewhere below, a string quartet was preparing for the captain's welcome gala. In the casino, fortunes were already changing hands. Restaurants were filling, champagne was flowing, and the ship's entertainers were preparing to convince a collection of millionaires that their existence constituted an event of historical significance.

Marius adored cruises.

Not necessarily the cruises themselves, which tended to involve too many strangers wearing too much perfume, but the absurd theatricality of them. Hundreds of privileged people voluntarily confining themselves aboard a floating palace, surrendering their schedules to a captain and their privacy to a thousand cameras, all for the privilege of pretending they had escaped civilization.

And this particular voyage promised to be exceptionally entertaining.

In three nights, during a carefully arranged passage through international waters, he intended to complete an eighty-six-million-dollar transaction involving stolen intelligence, a politically connected buyer, and a collection of names powerful enough to destabilize several governments.

The Orpheus Index.

An expensive little collection of secrets, and one whose ownership had already cost a remarkable number of people their lives.

"Vale wants another meeting," Nadia said, interrupting his thoughts. "Tonight. Before the gala ends."

Marius made a face. "Of course he does."

"He says his principals require additional assurances concerning the integrity of the archive."

"His principals can develop some fucking patience."

"They're paying eighty-six million dollars."

"And I'm providing eighty-six million dollars' worth of reasons not to annoy me." Marius turned from the window, pointing his champagne flute toward Nadia. "Tell him tomorrow morning. Eleven o'clock. If he complains, make it noon."

Lucien looked up from his tablet. "You realize the entire point of conducting this transaction aboard a cruise ship was supposed to be discretion."

"Yes?"

"Breaking your own employee's hand thirty feet from the hallway isn't especially discreet."

"He shouldn't have sold my fucking security arrangements, then."

"An excellent point. I'm sure the maritime authorities will appreciate the distinction."

Marius grinned at him.

"Oh, Lucien. You're such a miserable cunt when you're worried."

"And you're a considerable liability when you're entertained."

"Yet here we are. Still friends."

Lucien returned his attention to the tablet, evidently deciding that further argument would only encourage him.

Nadia, who possessed considerably less patience for either man's nonsense, stepped away from the window.

"Six personnel will accompany you tonight. The remaining eighteen will maintain their assignments. I want you to stay away from Bellini's guests until we've confirmed the security arrangements."

Marius gave her an incredulous look.

"Nadia, it's a party."

"It's an unsecured public event."

"It's a party with excellent catering."

"It's a room containing several hundred people whose backgrounds we haven't personally verified."

He considered this for a moment, then smiled.

"Well, that's exciting."

Nadia stared at him.

Marius laughed again and finished his champagne.

---

By nine o'clock, the Grand Ballroom had become a glittering monument to everything Marius loved about being obscenely wealthy.

Crystal chandeliers scattered light across polished floors. An orchestra played something pleasant and forgettable from a raised platform beneath an enormous arrangement of white orchids. Waiters circulated between beautifully dressed passengers carrying trays of champagne and hors d'oeuvres so elaborately constructed that eating them seemed almost disrespectful.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Mediterranean rolled beneath an immense black sky.

Marius entered with Lucien at his side and Nadia following several paces behind.

He had discarded his tie somewhere between the elevator and the ballroom, leaving the first two buttons of his white shirt open beneath his tuxedo jacket. Lucien had complained about this. Marius had responded by asking whether Lucien intended to spend the evening admiring his chest.

The answer had been an immediate and thoroughly disgusted no.

Within three minutes of entering, Marius had acquired another glass of champagne, insulted an acquaintance's recent investment portfolio, and convinced an elderly Italian shipping magnate that he had lost a substantial wager concerning the outcome of a football match.

The old man was still laughing when Marius kissed his wife's hand and wandered away.

"Your father's contacts are going to stop speaking to you eventually," Lucien remarked.

"Most of my father's contacts are dead."

"Some of them are merely retired."

"How unfortunate for them."

Marius lifted his glass toward a passing waiter and exchanged it for another, apparently more satisfactory one.

On the far side of the ballroom, Adrian Vale was conversing with a silver-haired woman in emerald silk. He wore a perfectly fitted dinner jacket, his expression arranged into the polite vacancy of a man pretending he hadn't spent the afternoon discussing stolen intelligence and international blackmail.

Marius caught his eye.

Vale inclined his head.

Marius smiled brightly and raised his middle finger just high enough for the gesture to be unmistakable.

Lucien made a strangled sound beside him.

"You're thirty-one years old."

"Thank you. I look fantastic."

"You're negotiating with that man."

"And he's boring me."

"He's representing your buyer."

"Then he should represent someone more interesting."

A particularly lively piece began on the orchestra's platform. Marius tilted his head, listening, and caught sight of a young woman in a silver dress laughing beside the dance floor. She had an extraordinary smile and appeared to be having the time of her life.

He considered introducing himself.

Before he could, Nadia approached from his left, her expression sufficiently severe to suggest that someone had done something profoundly stupid.

Again.

"We have a problem," she said quietly.

Marius sighed.

"Nadia, darling, I am begging you to occasionally approach me with good news."

"The captain's office has received an inquiry concerning one of the ship's private tender arrangements."

That got his attention.

"From whom?"

"We're establishing that."

"And the captain?"

"Hasn't connected it to us. As far as we know."

Marius's smile faded by degrees. He glanced toward the ballroom entrance, then toward Vale, who was still pretending to enjoy his conversation.

"Find out who made the inquiry," he said. "And tell Viktor I want an update on Bellanger before midnight."

Nadia nodded and withdrew, already reaching discreetly for her phone.

For several seconds, Marius remained where he stood, turning his champagne glass between his fingers. His thoughts moved through the possible explanations: a careless intermediary, a nervous buyer, an overeager customs official, someone within his own organization making an exceptionally poor decision.

He disliked coincidences.

He disliked inconvenient ones even more.

Then the orchestra shifted into another piece, and Marius's attention returned to the woman in silver.

"Oh, fuck it," he announced, handing Lucien his champagne. "I'm going dancing."

"Marius."

"What?"

"We have a potential security problem."

"We always have a potential security problem. It's practically our company motto."

Lucien watched him straighten his jacket and smooth his hair back into place.

"At least try not to cause an international incident before dessert."

Marius gave him a dazzling, utterly unrepentant smile.

"No promises."

He stepped into the crowd, exchanging greetings, brushing shoulders with strangers, laughing when someone recognized him, and pausing long enough to compliment an older woman's magnificent diamond necklace. Around him, the ballroom glittered beneath its chandeliers, full of expensive clothing, carefully constructed identities, private ambitions, and conversations that would never survive the light of day.

For all his suspicion, all his carefully placed security, and all his considerable confidence in his ability to recognize a threat, Marius Veyre's gaze passed over {{user}} without the slightest hesitation.