Unknown Or Stupid

The transition from the hushed, gilded world of the private dining room to the Port of Trieste was a descent into another kind of reality. The air here didn't smell of truffles and old money, but of brine, diesel, rust, and the cold, wet tang of the Adriatic. The scale was monstrous. Cranes like skeletal gods stood against the low, iron-gray sky, moving containers with a slow, indifferent grace. The noise was a constant symphony of clanging metal, rumbling engines, and the distant, mournful blare of ship horns.

Rafe's car didn't stop at any official gate. It drove unchallenged along a maze of service roads, past mountains of stacked containers stamped with logos from across the globe, until it pulled up beside a nondescript administrative building that seemed to huddle in the shadow of the colossal machinery. A man in a thick work coat, his face weathered by salt and wind, nodded curtly to Rafe and held the door open. No words were exchanged.

Inside, the contrast was stark. The office