by SR Jones
“Sorry,” a polite voice says, as if the person accidentally bumped into me at the store.
“Mother?” I reach out, feeling for the person.
“Maya?” She reaches back and suddenly we’re in one another’s arms, holding on tight. “Oh, no. My baby girl, no.” My mother starts to sob, and I shush her as the van careens around a corner, throwing me against the wall.
Once more, after too many twists and turns, we come to a stop. It’s a good job, because I figure I’m about five minutes away from throwing up.
The doors open, rough hands grab me, and a coarse sack is pulled over my head. I scream and kick and get a punch in the stomach for my troubles. There’s no more screaming from me. I can’t even breathe; it hurts too bad.
Someone picks me up and throws me over their shoulder, and they jog up some steps with me, each one hurting as their shoulder rams into me with their heavy-footed movements.
I hear doors open, various voices, and then I’m placed onto a hard, cold floor. The sack is thankfully removed from my face, and pain hits my eyes. Oh, God, I can’t see a thing. I blink two or three times and am relieved when shapes begin to take focus.
Firstly, I note the room we are in. It’s bare and lit by the kind of strip lighting that makes everyone under it look about two weeks away from death. There are a few filing cabinets against one wall, a table and some chairs in the middle and a fridge. That’s it.
I glance to my side and see my mother also blinking and looking around her.
Then the men in front of us part, and a figure cuts through them. I stare, and my heart leaps.
Oh, thank God.
I try to stand, but my legs are like jelly. “Oh, God, Costas. Thank God.”
My cousin comes to stand in front of me and leans down, smirking, and spits in my face.
My mother cries out, and I can only stare in horror. What’s happening here? Why is he looking at me this way? Is he part of this? Reflexively I bring my hand up to my face and use my sleeve to wipe his spittle from my cheek.
“The whore and the daughter of the whore,” he announces, sweeping his arms out to encompass me and Mother.
Those words. I recognize them, from the notes.
“You?” I shake my head. “But … why?”
“Because, you fucking slut, I know who you really are, and if you think I’m going to let you insert your greedy little self into our family, you are very much mistaken.”
“What do you mean, you know who she is?” My mother tries to sound confused, but she’s a shitty actress.
“Cut the theatrics, bitch. I know she’s my father’s spawn.”
“No, she’s not. What are you talking about?” My mother shakes her head wildly.
“Marina, I know.” He squats down, and looks from one to the other of us. “I had my suspicions from a young age, then one weekend I was at your house, and I heard your stupid sister, who was over here on a visit, ask you why you hadn’t left Spiros for Stamatis. You told her to shut up, but she’d had too much wine and thought her whispers were discreet. Maybe they were, if I hadn’t been right outside the bedroom door where you two were talking, eavesdropping.” He sighs and shakes his head. “I mean, how fortuitous. The one time I agree to accompany my parents on one of their duty-visits to your shitty little home, I find out something truly important. From that moment, I knew you two would be trouble, but when the whole wedding to Yannis deadline approached, I saw my father getting increasingly cold feet about it. You don’t know,” he says to mom. “But even before you came to see him, I heard him talking to Mikhalis, saying he should put a stop to it, but he couldn’t as it wasn’t his place. He didn’t know Maya was his, but he already cared too much. I worried that maybe, on some deep, subconscious level he did know. After all, I had guessed as much, right? Why not him? I had to do something … make you both leave, and I didn’t want to hurt you, truly. I thought with how much of a coward Spiros is, the notes would have you leaving town, maybe taking a long vacay on one of the islands. I worked on Spiros at the same time I sent those notes, telling him to call off the wedding, send you both away. I told him Yannis wouldn’t bother looking for you; he’d already told me he’d be relieved not to have to marry your fat ass. But Spiros is a greedy, greedy man, Maya. He wanted that money more than he wanted the two of you alive and unharmed.”
He sighs as if deeply distressed. “I did try to warn you both, and now I have to take matters into my own hands. Things seemed to be going my way. Stamatis called the wedding off, that ape Damen stepped in temporarily and it seemed like in a few months, you’d be gone, but then things got weird. Spiros wanted to set up another wedding, Stamatis didn’t like it, and even thought about interfering again, a sure sign he’s going soft. Damen … well, he was the real spanner in the works. How you’ve managed to make that scary motherfucker fall for you, Maya, I do not know. But you have. So now? Now you’re even deeper woven into the fabric of this family and this business. You left me little option but to act. To move you out of the way, make the board a bit less crowded as it were. I can’t believe how easy you made it for me, Maya, by going outside on your own like that. I thought there’d be a gunfight with Damen and the boys. This way is much easier.”
For a moment, I’m glad I tried to run away, if it saved Damen’s life. If I have to die, at least he doesn’t.
“You can’t do this, Costas. Your father knows now that Maya is his, and he’ll never forgive you.”
He barks out a laugh. “Firstly, I’ll be dealing with Stamatis. He’s too soft, and this organization needs to be a lot more hardcore. Secondly, he won’t ever know. You’ll both simply disappear. Added bonus for me, is Damen will most likely lose his shit, and that place at the top table he’s occupying will be vacant, while he nurses his wounded heart. I want what is my birthright, and this sets in motion events to help me get it. My birthright. My place at the top table.”
Mom starts to laugh. “Oh, you stupid boy. Don’t you know? We were leaving anyway. Tonight. Your notes worked, there was no need for any of this. We’d have been gone, you’d have been free of us, and Damen would still have been heartbroken if what you say about his feelings is true.”
“Stupid? You call me stupid? That’s rich. You’re nothing more than a whore who married the wrong brother, and you didn’t even have the balls to see it through after you opened your legs for the right one. Thank God for me because my piece of shit, disloyal father would have left my poor mama if you’d as much as crooked your finger at him.”
“Dumb as a box of rocks.” Mother shakes her head. “Now, you’re going to have Damen after you, and your father will not be pleased.”
“Right, for your insolence, I think I’ll start the fun with you first, Marina.”
He gestures to two men who grab my mother and drag her across the floor. I scream and try to reach for her, but someone grabs me from behind, holding me firm.
I can only watch in horror as my mother is taken to a door at the back of the room and pushed through it into God knows where, and who knows what fate.
We are going to die here. We will die here, and a lot of it is my fault. If I hadn’t fallen in love with Damen, I wouldn’t have agreed to leave and wouldn’t have been outside alone. I’ve put myself in danger, Mother too, and probably Damen and Alesso because he might not love me, but Damen swore to protect me, and I believe he is a man of his word.
He’ll tear Athens apart to find me. I just hope he doesn’t get himself killed doing so.
I just hope he can find me. Or else I am sure an unpleasant death awaits me.
I curl in on myself, close my eyes, and try hard not to cry.
All I want is Damen. And then revenge on Costas, because no one does this to me and my mother and gets away with it.
I might be terrified and scared, but I won’t go down without a fight.
My whole life, men have treated me like a thing to be bargained with, given away, used and abused. No more.
I’m certa
in that I face death here in this awful room, but I’ll try to take down Costas too, if it’s the last thing I do.
Ten hours. Ten hours since my world turned upside down. Ten hours since some bold as brass fucker walked onto my property and took Maya.
Ten hours since I had to face two facts. One, I have feelings for her. Pretty damn big ones.
Two, I don’t know if those feelings are love in the way she craves it, but I do know I want her with me. She’s mine, and I might have fucked up, but she did too.
Just like my mother, Maya did something stupid, acted on her emotions, and it’s gotten her into trouble. Anger at her actions has me tensing my jaw.
I don’t know why she was wandering around out by the pool at night. I had drummed into her not to go outside. I thought she’d listen. I also naively believed that my reputation, the reputations of Alesso, Markos, and Stamatis would keep her safe. Evidently, I was horribly wrong.
The screen in front of me is driving me nuts. It’s taken me hours to get this far. I’ve hacked into Stamatis’ operation with his consent and into the online lives of his employees. He has a leak. I’m convinced of it. We were already going to look into it for him, but I became distracted. Let my feelings for Maya get in the way of what I should have been doing. Keeping her safe. So far, I haven’t turned anything up.
I will. If it is the last thing I do.
I’ll do anything to get her back. Lay down my life, sacrifice the life of the man I see as a brother. Anything. Once I have her back, I’ll never let her be in danger again. I did this. I fucked up.
No more. I get her back, and I’ll focus on keeping her and her mother safe from whoever has been sending these letters.
Stamatis, Spiros, none of them will be allowed near those women. I’ll be her protector and her jailor, and she’ll damn well have to accept it.
I can’t give her what she wants. All the hearts and flowers shit. She can’t let go of her dreams. So we’re at deadlock. Something has to give, and it will be Maya. I’m determined enough to get what I want.
I try to focus on the here and now. On getting the job done. It’s taking me ages to crack into the home system of one of Stamatis’ top guys, and I sigh in irritation and turn to another screen. I work my magic on that instead. I’m not expecting much. This is Stamatis’ home network, and while he didn’t exactly give me permission to look at this, he didn’t explicitly state not to either.
As expected, it’s mostly boring shit. His wife shopping, mainly. Stamatis doesn’t use his home network for any work stuff. He uses the office one for that, only. Costas uses the home network though, and he is more of a fuck up than Stamatis knows because his taste in porn is … worrying. Dark BDSM shit, most certainly not of the safe, sane, and consensual variety. Unless it’s Stamatis looking at this stuff, but I doubt it.
My suspicions are confirmed when I get into Costas’ personal email, easy as fuck. The idiot hasn’t covered his tracks well, and I find him sending and sharing his fetish porn with a couple of other guys.
I trawl through his emails and something catches my eye. It’s an image that isn’t right. Your average person wouldn’t notice, but between the size of the file and what I see when I take a closer look, my suspicions are raised.
Alesso comes into the room and raises an eyebrow. “You found something?”
“I think I did. Probably not related to Maya, but it’s odd, and it won’t take me long to take a look. It’s in Costas’ personal emails. He’s sent a file with what I am pretty damn well sure is an encrypted picture message.”
“Come again?”
“Steganography. You know … like invisible ink? It’s a way of hiding information,” I say.
He nods, getting it, but not the intricacies of it. “You want to waste your time looking at this when you could be trying to find Maya?”
“Well, it’s odd. It won’t take me long to hack it at all, and I’m struggling with the employee who has sparked my interests. His stuff isn’t easy to get into, which only makes me more damn suspicious. I’m running a program now, and while I wait might as well take a look at this.”
“Okay.” He gives an easy shrug and settles into the chair opposite me.
Five minutes later and I’m starting to get a distinctly uneasy feeling. Costas has been buying up building space, warehouse space, offices, but also, he’s been in contact with some very unsavory people. They are gang members. An illegal MC to be precise. I’ve found more hidden messages between him and these two guys, and it looks to me like he’s trying to undermine Stamatis’ business. Possibly move it in a direction his father won’t like. Has Stamatis given him the go ahead to do this? I doubt it, but I don’t know what’s up or down anymore.
“What?” Alesso looks concerned as he eyes me. Markos and Andrius come into the room, Andrius dressed in his old uniform of a three piece suit. He hasn’t worn shit like that since he retired, but now, for me, he’s put on his uniform, his version of knight’s armor, and come to help.
I appreciate the heck out of it, because whoever has Maya is clearly either insane or powerful. Maybe both.
“Wow, okay. Costas is definitely trying to undermine his father. He’s in talks with rival families to try to work out shipping lanes and other logistics, so he can start to run his father’s goods.”
Andrius scratches at the dark stubble he now has. It doesn’t make him look unkempt, simply more dangerous. “This is odd, why would he do this? It makes no sense. Stamatis told Allyov no way would Costas be coming into the business yet, so why does he need access to shipping lanes? Stamatis isn’t going to be giving him goods to run.”
“Fuck.” Markos speaking is enough to make all of us sit up and take notice. “You’re right. Stamatis won’t be giving Costas goods to run anytime soon, but maybe Costas isn’t planning on being given his heritage; maybe he is simply going to take it.”
I stare at him. “Go to war with his own father?”
“Worse,” Andrius says, his accent making it sound like worst. “Maybe he doesn’t plan on a war, but an assassination.”
Holy fuck, it makes sense. The pieces fit together if you look at it that way. I scrub a hand over my face, weary beyond belief.
Then I see something else, another message with some files. I click on them and go through the process of making what look like pornographic images into the messages they really are, and my blood freezes in my veins.
In front of me, are instructions to one of the men Costas is communicating with, to deliver a note. Not just any note, a particular note, to a particular family. The note is a threat to Maya and her mother, and the instructions are to pin it to their door.
“He’s got Maya.” I don’t know how I get the words out; they sound foreign to my own ears, as if ground to dust by the clench of my jaw.
“What? Are you sure? It makes no sense. Why? She’s his cousin?”
“To pin it on Stamatis, do you think?” Andrius is pacing as he talks. “Or to start a war between the Spiros and Stamatis sides of the family then use that as a way to take out Stamatis without any suspicion falling on him?”
I’m standing before I even realize it’s what I am going to do. “Doesn’t matter why. All that matters is that he’s taken her, and I think I know where. We go, kill the sick bastard, and get her back.”
“Whoa.” Alesso holds up his hands. “Ease up there, friend. We can’t kill him, first of all, because if we do, we will have Stamatis come for us and kill us all.”
“He can’t. Half the men would refuse, the ones who wouldn’t we could handle. I’m not fucking scared of him.”
I go to push past Alesso, and he tries to stop me. I’m sick of him getting in the way between me and Maya. I haul back and punch him in the face. He staggers back and when he rights himself, gripping his jaw, there is murder in his eyes.
Markos reacts first, pulling Alesso away from me and holding him off.
I make for the door, but the next moment big arms are pinning me aga
inst the wall. Cold eyes look into mine, no emotion, nothing but empty calm.
Andrius.
I have a couple of pounds on him, but he’s got skills one me. Out of all the men I know, this is the one I would never want to go up against. He could most likely kill me with his bare hands, despite my unarmed combat skills.
“Listen, brother.” His voice is low and dangerous. “You can’t go running off half crazed after her. There has to be a process here. You got me involved, which means I am in danger if this goes wrong. Worse, Violet is in danger. I won’t let that happen.”
He’s referring to his very beautiful and very pregnant fiancée.
“Stamatis will help us get Maya back, of this I am sure. Not because he will necessarily put her life above that of his son. This I do not know, but because his son has gone against him. It is clear that Costas wants to take his father out of the equation. We have to go present Stamatis with the facts.”
I push against Andrius, shaking my head. “No way, if Stamatis loses it and decides to forgive Costas despite everything the fucker has done, we’re all stuck at his house, surrounded by his men, and we don’t have a way of getting Maya back.”
“You do,” he says, all calm. “You have me. You three go see Stamatis. Do whatever you have to in order to convince Stamatis that Costas needs dealing with. In the meantime, I will go to the place where Maya is.”
“You and whose army?” I scoff.
“The army on its way from England. Two men, Special Forces, deadly. Liam and Reece. They are on their way here. They landed twenty minutes ago. They texted me. Soon they will arrive, and then, the three of us we will go to where you believe Maya is and check it out. You go talk to Stamatis. If we don’t hear from you by an agreed upon time, I will get Maya back for you. I swear it.”
I don’t like it. I want to be the one to ride in there and rescue her, but I know Andrius is right. If I do, then I’ll bring down hell on our heads from Stamatis. He won’t listen to anything I say if I’ve harmed his son, and he may go after Maya too, which puts her right back in the crosshairs. But if I go to him now and show him all the evidence, he’ll have to do something about Costas. If the worst happens and Stamatis decides to put his son’s life above all else, at least I’ll know Maya has a good chance of being saved, because if anyone can get her out, Andrius can. And if I have to, I’ll kill Stamatis myself if it’s what it takes to keep her safe.