Karavakis shut his eyes. “Understood.”
Andreas left Karavakis in his office with Telly and went out to tell Yianni to keep an eye on Adina and Ino until the son was in custody. No reason to risk one of them warning him in a moment of misplaced loyalty. It always amazed him how often victims of longstanding abuse felt compelled to protect their abusers. Mostly out of fear, of course. And in the case of the son, these girls had legitimate concerns. He was likely sociopathic, if not psychopathic, which meant there was no telling what he might do next to protect his fantasy of becoming Mykonos’ boss of bosses.
After speaking to Yianni, Andreas turned on his phone and walked back toward the office. A half-dozen missed call alerts from Lila popped onto the screen, plus a voicemail message from her. He stopped just short of Karavakis’ office door, his mind racing with nightmare scenarios. He checked the time of the message. About five minutes ago.
He hit play.
“Where are you? You’re not answering. A boat sailed into the cove about a half-hour ago, and a couple swam to shore and are lying on the beach.”
She couldn’t be calling about that. That happened all the time. The cove appeared private, but under Greek law anyone could sail into it and use the beach. Most who stopped, though, felt uncomfortable once they realized it served a private home and left. But some didn’t.
“A few moments ago a Zodiac roared into the cove with six men aboard. They ran their boat up onto the beach, and five got off dressed like security guards. They’re just standing around doing nothing. Toni’s looking at them through binoculars, but doesn’t recognize any of them. The man still on the boat is behind a canopy. She can’t see his face.
“I don’t think the men are with the couple. The couple looks uneasy around them. I think the men are waiting for the couple to leave. Andreas, I’m worried. Toni is too. We’ve told Anna to lock herself and the children in our bedroom and shutter down the windows. Toni’s trying to make out the name on the men’s shoulder patches. Uh-oh, the couple’s swimming back to their boat.
“Where are the police who are supposed to be here?”
A chill ran up Andreas’ spine. No police? How could that be? They’d passed him and Yianni on the road headed toward the house.
“What’s the name on the patch?” he muttered aloud, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him.
Andreas opened the door to Karavakis’ office as a text message alert sounded on his phone.
“Telly, I’ve got to get home. There could be some trouble at the house. Uninvited security guys have shown up on the beach, and your cops are nowhere to be found.”
“That can’t be. They must be there. The last message I had from them was that they’d passed you on the road headed to your house and expected to be there in five minutes.” Telly turned on his phone.
Andreas read his message from Lila, hoping it said that SWAT had arrived. As he read the message, his face blanched and jaw tightened.
“The patches say SPECIAL FORCES.”
He fixed a stare of unambiguous meaning on Karavakis. “Your son’s gone after my family. Pray for them. Pray very hard.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Lila put down her phone. She’d tried her husband a half-dozen times, and left a voice message. Now she’d texted him, and still no answer. Toni’d had no better luck at reaching Yianni. They must be in a serious meeting. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought they, too, might be in trouble with whoever sent the men in the cove. And where were the police Andreas had said were on their way? Her hands were trembling now. Stop, she ordered herself. Think.
She had to protect her family.
“We’ve got to assume the worst,” she told Toni.
Toni kept watching the men in the cove through the binoculars. “The couple from the beach is back on their boat and lifting anchor. The one on the Zodiac looks about to come ashore.” She paused. “Oh, my God, it’s Boy-pimp!”
“Karavakis’ son?” Lila felt as if she’d thrown up. “Okay. I need you and Anna to take Tassaki and Sofia to the caretaker’s house, and use his car to get away from here. Dama and Tess can take the motorcycle.”
“And leave you alone to deal with those Neanderthals?” said Toni. “Not a chance.”
Lila shouted, “But I have to protect my babies!”
“Let’s get the caretaker to help us.”
“He won’t be a help,” said Lila. “He’s into flowers, not fighting.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll do whatever has to be done. We just have to hold them off until the police get here. Do you have any guns in the house?”
“My father has a shotgun somewhere.”
“But where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs. Lila,” came a voice from the kitchen doorway.
Lila turned. “Not now, Dama.”
“Mrs. Lila, I know where your father keeps his shotgun. It is in a cupboard in the kitchen.”
“Show me,” said Toni, running for the kitchen. She emerged seconds later with the shotgun. “All I could find were four shells.”
“It’s better than nothing,” said Lila.
“But not by much.” Toni looked around the room. “We’ve got to prepare some other surprises.”
“Like what?”
“Like I don’t know.” Toni tapped her foot. “Do you have bleach, ammonia, that sort of stuff?”
“Yes, I’d think so.”
“Well, get it. What about pitchforks, gardening tools?”
“How do you expect us to use them against these sorts of men?”
“These rent-a-cop types aren’t going to risk getting shot, stabbed, or scarred to prove a point for Boy-pimp. He doesn’t pay them enough. It’s human nature. We just have to do enough to discourage them. This isn’t a TV show, and they’re not TV bad-guys.”
“And you’re no MacGyver TV hero, capable of turning duct tape into a parachute.”
“Do me a favor, Lila. Unless you have a better idea, please just do what I’m saying.”
“I have a better idea! Take the children and let me deal with these men on my own terms!”
Toni shook her head. “No can do. I’d never forgive myself.”
“Mrs. Lila, they’re coming up from the beach.” Dama pointed out the window.
Lila motioned Dama back into the kitchen. “Quick, gather up anything you can think of to hurt them. Lye, bleach, ammonia, whatever you can find.” She turned to Toni. “Hurry, and bring the shotgun.”
Lila headed for the door opening onto the path that the men were following up from the beach.
“What are you doing?” said Toni.
“Just follow my lead.”
Lila stood at the top of the hill, Toni at her side, watching the men head toward her. “Okay!” she shouted. “That’s far enough! You’re now trespassing on private property! The police have been called and are on their way!”
The men ignored her and kept coming. Lila reached for the shotgun. “In case you didn’t understand me…stop!” She racked a shell into the chamber.
That unmistakable sound stopped the two men in the front of the pack. Boy-pimp yelled at them from the rear, “Keep marching.”
They started moving. Lila took aim and pulled the trigger. The dirt in front of the lead men kicked up. “That’s where I was aiming. The next shot is at your heads.”
The men stopped and began backing up.
“That’s a much wiser decision,” said Lila.
“Up the hill, you assholes! Up!” shouted Boy-pimp. But they didn’t move.
He pulled a pistol out of his waistband, leveled it at Lila, and pulled the trigger, barely missing her. Toni grabbed Lila to pull her back into the safety of the house. A second shot rang out, striking Toni in the head and dropping her to the ground just outside the doorway. Lila froze for an ins
tant before stooping down to her friend. Another bullet whizzed by her head, and a grip of steel grabbed her arm, yanking her inside the house.
“Mrs. Lila, stay here,” said Dama. “If I cannot stop the man with the gun, you must kill him when he comes inside or he will kill us all.”
“Dama, how can you—?”
“Just watch the man from here. Do not let him inside the house.”
Lila peeked around the doorframe. Boy-pimp was nearing the top of the hill, but he’d lost three of his crew. They’d hurried back down the hill toward the boat, apparently unwilling to play any further part in the young man’s madness.
Three men coming, three shells left in her gun. She remembered what Toni had said. He doesn’t pay them enough to take a bullet for him. It’s human nature.
She’d use all three shells on Boy-pimp if she had to, and take her chances with the other two.
She peeked around the doorframe at Toni. Oh, Lord. She’s not moving.
“Hello there, Lila,” shouted Boy-pimp as he reached the top of the hill. “Or do you prefer to be called savior of whores?”
He’s a psychopath.
“You had to meddle in my affairs.” He paused as if to catch a breath. “For what purpose? To prove some righteous point? All you’ve accomplished is to ruin me in the eyes of my father.”
He fired at the doorway and kept firing until he’d emptied his magazine.
“Don’t breathe,” he called out. “I have more magazines.”
Lila peered around the doorway, hoping to get a shot off at him while he reloaded.
That’s when she heard a water-pump motor roar to life somewhere off to her left and saw Dama dragging fifteen meters of fire hose toward the men. The hose jerked her to a stop, and Dama shouted something in Tagalog to Tess. Dama dropped down onto the hose and aimed its nozzle in the direction of the approaching men. Tess ran to join Dama, knelt behind her, and grabbed hold of the bucking hose. Together, they directed a torrent of water at the men, pounding at them with the blasting force of an enraged bear beating on their chests.
One of the two gorilla-sized men still with Boy-pimp caught the full thrust of the water square on his chin, jerking his head straight back and knocking him out cold. The second man reached for a gun in his belly pack, but the water hit him mid-chest, knocking him off his feet, and the women kept the water directed at his face until he threw up his hands screaming for them to stop.
Boy-pimp seemed lost in a video game as he watched the water mow down his men, but when the women turned the hose on him, he turned to run down the hill, tripping on the uneven wet stone steps, and dropping his gun as he tumbled head over heels to a jarring stop against a boulder. There he lay, caught on his back, hands trying to protect his face, while the women kept the full force of the water ricocheting off the boulder and onto him.
Lila ran out of the house carrying the shotgun. She yanked the waist-packs off the two bodyguards, collected Boy-pimp’s gun, and stopped beside him, aiming the shotgun at his head. She signaled for the women to turn off the water.
Boy-pimp didn’t budge—just kept his hands in front of his face, his eyes glued to the open end of the shotgun barrel.
Lila stared at him, saying nothing. She handed the shotgun to Dama and ran to Toni’s fallen body. She knelt and felt for a pulse, shut her eyes, and prayed. A moment passed.
Lila turned to Dama. “Keep him there.” She pointed at Boy-pimp. “But don’t hurt him unless you have to. Leave that to my husband, Yianni, and me.”
Andreas drove, oblivious to the dangers of the road. Deep, unguarded cliffside drops to the sea, bordering a narrow, undulating loose-dirt road, left little room for errant driving. More than once the SUV slid into a curve close enough to skim a wheel over the edge. But Andreas didn’t slow, and Yianni urged him to go even faster.
“Do you hear that?” said Andreas, struggling to avoid skidding through a sharp turn.
“Sounds like sirens.” Yianni turned to look out the rear window. “They’re pretty far behind us, but it looks like blue-and-whites and an ambulance.”
“Telly must have sent them. What the hell happened to those SWAT guys?”
“How could they have just disappeared?”
The road narrowed to a series of sharp switchbacks with steep hillside drops, leading into a blind uphill curve to the left.
“Theos filaxi,” said Yianni staring out his passenger-side window.
“What has you asking God to save us?” shouted Andreas, his eyes glued to the road ahead of him.
“The SWAT team’s truck is down there.”
Andreas skidded to a stop, and looked down into the bottom of a valley several hundred meters away. The pickup lay on its side, with no sign of anyone outside the truck. Andreas crossed himself three times. “We can’t stop,” he said. “Call Telly and tell him what happened.”
“But what did happen?”
Andreas pointed ahead to the road’s curve near a break in a low stone wall on the right side of the roadway. “They must have missed the turn and taken out that part of the wall.”
“How the hell could they have missed the turn?”
“I don’t know,” said Andreas as he drove into the same turn, “but they—”
“Watch out,” screamed Yianni as they slid head-on toward a cement-mixer truck blocking their way.
Andreas brought them to a stop a meter before the front bumper of the mixer.
“That was close,” said Yianni.
“What the hell?” said Andreas, hitting his horn. The mixer had started toward them, catching the SUV’s front end head-on and pushing it backwards toward the edge of the road. Andreas threw the SUV into reverse and hit the gas, steering it away from the edge. “That’s the bastard who pushed the SWAT guys off the road.”
Yianni pulled out his gun and leaned out the window, aiming at the mixer’s windshield. The driver ducked back out of sight, but the mixer bore ahead at them.
Andreas drove backwards, his body turned sideways to see out the rear window as he steered frantically with his left hand.
“I can’t get a clear shot at him from this angle.”
“Shoot for his front tire!”
Yianni dropped his aim from the windshield to the driver-side front wheel and emptied his magazine into the tire.
By the time the driver reacted to Yianni’s gunshots, the blown-out tire had pulled the mixer far enough to catch the edge of the road. In apparent panic, the driver braked hard and jerked the steering wheel sharply away from the edge. In so doing, he successfully transferred the momentum of his behemoth load precisely opposite to where he wished to go, and sent the mixer tumbling down into the valley.
Andreas braked to a stop, pausing only long enough to draw in and let out a quick deep breath before throwing the SUV into a forward gear, stepping on the gas and continuing toward home. “Panagia mou. I hope it missed the pickup.”
Yianni stared out his side window. “The mixer’s in pieces, but none of it looks to have hit our guys.” He paused. “Assuming they’re still alive.”
“The cops behind us will see to them. We’ve got to get to the house.”
Yianni looked solemnly down into the valley. “I know.”
As they came over the last ridgeline before the house, they saw the Zodiac craft still in the cove.
“God help me! If they’ve hurt anyone…” Andreas let his words tail off. “Brace yourself. I’m going to drive straight through the parking area, across the vegetable garden, and onto the terrace. Let’s hope they’re not expecting us to come at them from that side.”
“I don’t care if they are.” Yianni jammed a new magazine into his nine-millimeter and racked a cartridge into the chamber. He drew in a deep breath, held it for several seconds and let it out. He pressed his free hand against the dashboard and focused straight ahead. �
�Bring it on.”
The SUV entered the parking area doing twenty miles an hour, took out a low stone wall at the far end, and bounced through lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and herbs, before crashing through another low wall bordering the pool area. Yianni was out of the SUV before it jerked to a stop, Andreas followed seconds later, and they raced toward the house’s pool entrance.
They came in through the door, guns out in front of them. They saw no one, and paused to listen for a sound.
“We’re out here!” shouted Lila.
They followed her voice, guns drawn and trained ahead.
Lila sat with tears streaming down her cheeks, cradling Toni’s head in her lap. “The miserable bastard shot her. He wanted to kill me and shot her as she tried to save me.”
Yianni squeezed the butt of his gun. “Which one did it?”
“The Karavakis kid.”
Yianni spotted him cowering at Dama’s feet and stepped toward him.
“Yianni, not now!” shouted Andreas. “See to Toni first.”
Yianni hesitated.
Andreas spoke in a softer tone. “Yianni, please.”
Yianni exhaled, turned, and hurried to Lila. “How is she?”
“I thought he’d killed her, but I feel a pulse and she’s breathing.”
Yianni crouched down and leaned in to take a closer look. He separated Toni’s blood-matted hair with his fingers. “There doesn’t seem to be a puncture. It looks like the bullet grazed her.” He looked up toward heaven. “Thank you.”
“But what about her forehead?” said Lila. “Look at all the blood.”
Yianni pointed to a rough stone step covered in blood next to her. “Head wounds bleed a lot. She must have hit her forehead on the step when the shot took her down.”
“That’s still serious; she might have a concussion,” said Andreas.
Yianni stood and glared at Boy-pimp. “You’d better pray she’s okay.”
A couple of minutes later the ambulance pulled up to the house. Andreas told the EMS techs to get Toni to the medical clinic ASAP.
The Mykonos Mob Page 30