"Oh, hell!" Johanna Welander hid her face in her hands and turned to her husband. "Martin, sort this shit out!"

  "Done."

  One of the many reasons she married him all those years ago just made itself reminded. He did things. She fell in love with that part of him. "What's your definition of done?" He didn't always do the right thing. She stayed in love with him despite that.

  Martin leaned back in the sofa. "Nakagawa called me a few days ago. Seems the Clevasti arsehole tried to assault Ai."

  Johanna nodded, but she hadn't heard that part, only that Nakagawa's daughter was involved somehow, which meant Johan was involved as well, Her son was the only living being in their extended social circles who believed that no one knew about his crushing on Ai for half a decade. Well, those feelings were mutual, but since Ai shared Johan's very peculiar kind of blindness she was alone in her own alternate universe where she kept her feelings a secret. In her case, she belonged to the people the secret was being kept from, so that proved she had a personal quirk all of her own, Johanna guessed.

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  "I understand that Nakagawa is angry, but what can he actually do?" she asked.

  Martin sighed. "It seems we kept secrets from each other, I'm afraid. Nakagawa doesn't know the extent of our connection to Isjase."

  "Yes?"

  "He has a lot more clout both in Japan and Sweden than I knew. There's something shady going on, but I'm not asking. He had some terrifying people gating over yesterday."

  Something cold crept around in her stomach. "And you've done exactly what?"

  "I called Constantin."

  Did he call Isjase's president? "Asking for what?"

  "Johan might not understand it fully, but if he was the one attacking Anthony Clevasti, and I believe he was, then what he did was proportional. Not here, of course, but on the other side of the gate, definitely."

  "I get that, so what's your proportional reaction?"

  Martin scratched his hair with one hand. "I called in a favour. Constantin sent his own version of scary people over earlier this morning. Not the black suits and ugly earplugs kind of people Nakagawa's contacts in Japan sent, but rather the Brussels style of bureaucrats who dismantle your multinational company over the course of ten years."

  "Are we planning to bankrupt house Clevasti?"

  "We'll threaten to. Lord Clevasti either reins in his little swine or we crash his domain capital economically."

  Johanna smiled. Martin didn't always do the right thing, but this time he had. She moved over to the sofa.