The conference room felt smaller than it had an hour ago. The air conditioning hummed with a low, persistent vibration that seemed to drill into the base of my skull. David was standing at the head of the table, projecting a complex flowchart onto the screen. It looked like a spiderweb of shell companies, offshore accounts, and legal entities. Red lines connected them, pulsing slightly as the software updated in real time. Sarah stood by the door, her hand resting near her hip where her weapon was concealed beneath her blazer. Marcus was beside me, his presence a solid anchor in the room, but I could feel the tension radiating off him. He was scanning the exits, the windows, the faces of the team. He was in protection mode.
"Zhang isn't just funding Kovács," David said. His voice was tigh
