Then again, he wasn't feeling particularly regal at the moment and this battle with that awful Kostopoulos person was taking its toll on his family. He was not concerned with Kostopoulos' economic attacks; the fool had no idea of the reach of his family's resources. One could not have his finger on the pulse of generations of Greece's most powerful without learning their secrets. It was Sarantis' discretion in using what he learned that earned him their confidence and gave him his true influence. There was not a person of position in Greece who did not owe the Linardos family at least a bit of gratitude, measurable in euros. He knew there was far more than enough available to withstand any financial siege.

Still, many of Sarantis' long-time friends had warned him Kostopoulos was not the sort of man who could be trusted to act civilly, and he should take the threat more seriously. Some had offered to intervene to try convincing Kostopoulos to stop. Sarantis refused. He would not speak, much less negotiate, with such rabble, nor allow any of his friends to stoop to doing so on his behalf. He was convinced if he simply ignored Kostopoulos' weekly offers and the half-truths and lies he planted in the tabloids, items of little interest to the public for even their brief time on the newsstands, Kostopoulos would simply give up and go away.

He never saw it coming.

The video of his granddaughter with those two men was a brutal, merciless assassination. It left no doubt as to how far Kostopoulos was prepared to go. The humiliation would haunt her on the Web forever. Her boyfriend no longer spoke to her, no socially prominent girlfriend dared be seen with her, and the tabloid-media harpies now called a racially mixed menage a trois 'doing the Elena.' Whispers and snickers accompanied her everywhere. His favorite grandchild had no choice but to flee Greece in shame. For how long he did not know. Elena might never recover.