Page 51 of The ARC Unit: Breach

Raven opened satellite imagery.

The property sat behind high stone walls on several acres of landscaped grounds. The main house curved around a large rear terrace, with a swimming pool stretching toward a line of trees and smaller structures positioned farther down the property.

“Pool party,” I said.

“Looks like it.”

“Guest list?”

“Private.”

“That sounded like a challenge.”

Raven smiled.

It took him longer than I expected but anything he could break into within thirty seconds probably wasn’t protecting useful information.

I used the time to pull every name associated with Aster’s previous Cerberus-linked invoices. Most went nowhere. Wealthy Europeans attended the same events as other wealthy Europeans, and proximity was not evidence no matter how much Wolf would enjoy hearing me say it.

Raven finally sat back.

“Got a partial.”

Names filled the screen and most meant nothing, until one name stopped me.

Luca Bellandi.

I had seen him in a financial report the night before because his investment firm had moved money through two companies that later appeared in Cerberus transactions. Nobody had labeled him a Cerberus member.

“Bellandi.”

Raven nodded. “Italian. Thirty-one. Finance, private equity, investments, property holdings. No criminal record. Likes expensive watches and appearing in photographs beside people who later become interesting.”

“That’s a skill.”

“Apparently.”

I pulled his file closer.

“How close to Kade?”

“No direct link.”

“Indirect?”

“Two degrees at best. He knows people who know people.”

“That’s still more than we had yesterday.”

Another name appeared lower on the list, tied loosely to a logistics company already in the Cerberus chart. A third guest had attended the Lyon event around the time one of Kade’s suspected intermediaries surfaced there. None of it proved Kade would be present, but truthfully, we could be looking at Kade’s real name and not even know it.

It was enough to make the party interesting.

Raven opened photographs of the estate from a property listing several years earlier. The pool occupied most of the rear terrace, with white stone around it and private cabanas lining the lower garden. Thick hedges concealed portions of the property from the road, and the surrounding terrain created enough elevation changes that Hawk would probably find several places to disappear.

I stared at the image.

“When was the last time ARC knew where something might happen before it already happened?”