The Highest Stakes of All

by Sara Craven

  ‘Kyrios Gordanis’ order were quite clear, thespinis. Fighting will not help you. I advise calm.’

  She said between her teeth, ‘To hell with calm.’

  As the lift stopped and the doors opened, Joanna opened her mouth in the hope of attracting attention. But before she could make a sound …

  ‘I regret this necessity.’ Stavros sounded almost gloomy. ‘But you have brought it upon yourself.’

  The next instant he’d hoisted her over his shoulder as if she was a roll of carpet and was carrying her, squirming but helpless, down the passage towards the metal door at the end.

  She was crying with rage and frustration, but suddenly, absurdly, she was thankful, too, that her indecently minimal attire was at least covered by the trench coat.

  Her kidnapper had thought of everything, she stormed inwardly. Stayed one jump ahead of her all the time, as if they’d known each other for years and he could read her mind.

  They were outside now, following some narrow path which, she guessed despairingly, must lead down to one of the side gates. So any remaining hope she might have had that their progress might be challenged was fading fast.

  Being carried along like this with her head dangling was increasing her feeling of nausea, so it was a genuine relief to be set on her feet again.

  Stavros walked to the rear passenger door of a dark saloon car and opened it. ‘Conduct yourself quietly, thespinis, and all will be well. We have no wish to shame you.’

  Was he being ironic? Joanna wondered wildly. Or did he have no idea of the real shame awaiting her on Pellas?

  For a long moment she hesitated defiantly, then, with a reluctant nod, got into the car, shrinking into the corner as Stavros joined her.

  As the vehicle moved off, she allowed herself a last, brief assessment of her chances if she were to jump out, but decided they were not worth considering. Even if the doors were unlocked, she would simply be retrieved and they would drive on.

  No, she thought. Her best chance was to get away from Pellas itself before its master returned.

  Not everyone in the world would be falling over themselves to do his bidding. Anyone as arrogant, autocratic and ruthless was bound to have enemies, even on his private island.

  All she had to do was find one of those enemies and promise a reward for her successful escape. Her father would not be able to pay, but Uncle Martin surely would, although the prospect of telling him and Aunt Sylvie about the turn her life had taken since leaving England made her shrink inside.

  But it was still better than the alternative, she reminded herself grimly.

  Anything was better than that.

  She sat, her hands folded in her lap, staring out at the darkness, as she tried again to rationalise what had happened. To work out why Vassos Gordanis had singled her out from the rest of female humanity and was hell-bent on wrecking her life in this hideous way.

  And it wasn’t enough to tell herself that he’d simply made a terrible, disastrous mistake.

  Another score to settle …

  That was what he’d said.

  Or did you think you had got away with it?

  And he’d said something else—in Greek, although she’d only picked up on the word petros which, she remembered from her RE lessons, meant ‘rock', as well as being a man’s name. A play on words, she thought. That was it.

  ‘Thou art Peter and on this rock …’

  And she stopped right there, with a sudden painful lurch of the heart. For Petros, she thought, substitute Peter.

  She closed her eyes, shivering. Because she’d only known one Peter. The boy she’d met so briefly and disastrously in Australia last year. Not all that tall, she thought, with hair verging on sandy and dark brown eyes. Quite good-looking, and much too aware of it. Full of himself in other ways as well, constantly boasting about contacts, deals, and all the money he was carrying to make them.

  Apparently convinced that he was irresistible, when staying at the same hotel and seeking her out constantly, he’d been simply—unavoidable.

  But he’d been Peter Mansell, not Petros whatever it was, she argued desperately. And not Greek, either. He was from California. He’d said so, and his accent had seemed to confirm it.

  The boy that, ever since, she’d done her best to forget.

  ‘You’ve ruined me. You’ve cheated me—all of you.’

  She remembered the overturned chair falling to the floor, and his voice, hoarse with despair. And frank terror.

  ‘You can’t do this. You have to give me a chance to win some back. Or I’m a dead man—don’t you understand?’

  And she hadn’t been able to look him in the face, knowing that the only cheat in the room had been herself.

  Total betrayal, she thought bitterly, recoiling from the memory. Judas in hot pants.

  She’d lived with the shame of it ever since. And now, it seemed, there was worse shame to come.

  Because she could suddenly remember exactly what Vassos Gordanis had said. A name—Petros Manassou.

  For which, she supposed, Peter Mansell was a fair translation, if you were young and silly and wanted to pretend for some reason that you weren’t Greek but a rich American.

  Another score to settle …

  Or did you think you had got away with it?

  Oh, God, she thought. Oh, dear God, if I did, then I know better now. Because it’s all caught up with me at last, and I’m going to be made to pay. And this time there’s no way out for me.

  And as the car sped through the darkness Joanna drew a slow shaking breath and made herself remember how it had begun …

  ‘You’re a pretty girl.’ That had been Diamond Lenny, his eyes appraising her through a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘And he’s a flash kid with a wad of money who fancies the pants off you. So get to work on him, babe. Give him the hots until he can’t see straight, let alone think, then lead him to us.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’ Her protest had been immediate and instinctive, and she’d turned to her father, her eyes imploring. ‘Please, Denys.’ She’d stumbled over the still unaccustomed name. ‘You can’t want me to do this. Tell him so.’

  ‘No, Denys, mate, you tell her.’ Impatiently, Diamond Lenny stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Advise your little sweetie on the economic facts of life. That the hotel rooms, the fancy tucker and the sexy gear all cost money, and it’s time she did a bit more than show off her legs and bat her eyelids at the punters. Made a definite contribution, in fact.’

  He sent her a lascivious grin. ‘You’re female. You know how to get a bloke all worked up, then prim up and back off while he’s trying to get his zip down. But if things should go a bit too far.’ He shrugged. ‘Old Denys will forgive you, won’t you, mate? Just as long as you get the boyfriend and his cash to the back room at Wally’s Bar tonight.’

  ‘I know Lenny can sound a bit rough,’ Denys had said uncomfortably when they were alone. ‘But he doesn’t mean half of it.’

  ‘I think he does,’ Joanna said flatly. She swallowed. ‘You really expect me to lead Peter Mansell on over dinner? Let him think that I’ll—give in to him later, so that you and those crooks at Wally’s can take him for every cent he has?’ She shook her head. ‘I—I can’t believe you really mean it.’

  ‘He’s been asking for it—bragging about being loaded all over town,’ Denys said defensively. ‘If it isn’t us, then someone else will have him. And Lenny’s right. We need the money.’ He patted her arm. ‘You can trust me, my pet. I won’t let anything happen to you.’

  She didn’t look at him. She didn’t think she could bear to, she thought desolately, and knew that she wanted to cry.

  ‘Very well,’ she said at last, her voice toneless. ‘I’ll try and do as you want, on condition that you don’t ask me to do anything similar for as long as I live. And that afterwards we don’t see Lenny or any of his revolting friends ever again—even if it means moving to another continent.’ She added quietly, ‘Daddy, I mean it.’

 
And he’d assured her that it would be a one-off. An emergency situation calling for desperate measures.

  And over dinner, provocatively dressed, she’d endured Peter Mansell’s hand on her bare knee, and his hot eyes devouring her. Had gone out into the night-scented garden with him, and stood feeling physically repelled while his mouth greedily explored her neck, and his hand fumbled with the front of her shirt.

  While she’d made herself tell him that, yes, she wanted this, too, but she couldn’t. That they must stop because Denys would be looking for her. That there was a card game that night and she was his lucky mascot.

  Then whispering, ‘But you could always come with us. And maybe, if Denys has too much to drink, we’ll find some way to be together later—afterwards …’

  She knew now with utter certainty that it was useless trying to blame her predicament on the Persephone myth. Simply being, as Miss Gordon had said, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Catching the eye of the Dark Lord of the Underworld and being carried off with him to Hell.

  Because chance had never been involved.

  And the Hell waiting for her was no myth, but all too terribly real.

  CHAPTER SIX

  JOANNA would never forget her first glimpse of Pellas, looking down from the window of the Lear Jet—Vassos Gordanis would, of course, have to have a Lear Jet, she’d told herself bitterly—on what seemed little more than a splash of dark emerald in a restless azure sea.

  It looked so tranquil, she thought. As if nothing bad could ever happen there. Proving once again how deceptive appearances could be.

  Nor was it her idea of a Greek island, she thought with vague bewilderment. She’d imagined bleached rock, studded with the occasional ruined temple. Not all that—verdancy.

  Stavros was now her sole escort, his companion having presumably gone back to the hotel to arrange another kidnapping, or whatever piece of criminality his boss had planned next. He’d informed her shortly after take-off that they would be landing on the neighbouring island of Thaliki, then completing their journey by boat.

  He had then gone to sleep, but she could not. She was too tense, her mind plodding in weary, hopeless circles.

  We must have been so easy to track down, Dad and I, she thought sombrely, for someone who was rich enough—and angry enough.

  And it was the anger that was preying on her mind. The anger and the contempt that Vassos Gordanis had displayed towards Denys and herself. The cold-blooded resolution which had driven him on.

  And, worst of all, the desire for revenge which would use sex as a punishment, destroying her self-respect along with her innocence.

  They must all have been in on it, she thought with a pang. All his friends helping him—believing the worst of me. Making quite sure the trap would close on his intended victim.

  But was it loyalty Vassos Gordanis inspired or merely fear?

  Because she kept thinking of that other victim—the boy, his white face damp with sweat. His mouth twitching, his eyes flicking from side to side as he said, ‘I’m a dead man.’

  Surely, she thought shivering, surely he couldn’t have meant that. It had to be a figure of speech. Didn’t it?

  Or was it possible that being so rich and so powerful could set a man like that above the norms of human behaviour? Make him believe he could take ruthlessness to its ultimate point? And make others believe it, too?

  And she wondered exactly what had happened to his wife.

  But stopped short, knowing that she was being absurd, because Vassos Gordanis was not a mass murderer.

  For a moment she was assailed once more by the unwilling and disturbing memory of the first time she’d seen him, watching her with lazy appreciation from his deck. Someone without an apparent care in the world, let alone dark thoughts of vengeance.

  But that, of course, was before he’d discovered who she was. Since then he’d been ahead of her every step of the way.

  Except now, when she was going to his island alone—to wait for him.

  It occurred to her that she didn’t even know where Pellas was. Greece had so many islands, so she had no idea which group it might belong to, or whether it would be in the Aegean or the Ionian Sea.

  Not that it mattered that much, she reminded herself flatly. It was rather like pondering whether you’d rather be hanged or beheaded. Because wherever this place might be, the nightmare she was due to face remained exactly the same.

  And, like a sentence of death, there was no way out.

  The boat from Thaliki was another surprise. She’d expected something sleek and streamlined to complement Persephone, not an elderly fishing boat with peeling blue paint, chugging doggedly to its destination.

  It would almost be a relief to get there, she thought, easing her shoulders wearily inside the trench coat. She was dazed with her lack of sleep, and although it was still early every stitch she had on was sticking to her. Walking across the Tarmac to the single-storey shack which served Thaliki as a terminal, she’d felt as if she’d collided with a wall of heat.

  And these vile boots seemed to have become a size smaller, too. They’d probably have to be cut off her, and good luck to them. She never wanted to see them, or anything she was wearing, ever again.

  ‘See, thespinis.’ Stavros came to stand beside her in the bow, pointing. ‘The Villa Kore.’

  She looked in the direction indicated and saw a thickly wooded hill. Rising above the greenery at its crown was a large house, painted white with a terracotta tiled roof.

  She swallowed. ‘Kore?’ she queried. ‘Is that the name of some god?’

  ‘The name of a goddess, thespinis,’ he corrected. ‘In your language Villa Kore means the House of the Maiden—she who was the daughter of the Great Mother.’

  Who, Joanna recalled, Miss Gordon had also mentioned in those mythology lessons. The once supreme Earth Goddess in all her many manifestations—from Gaia, who’d preceded the Titans and the other male gods, to Astarte, Isis, Cybele and, in Greece, Demeter.

  ‘The mysteries of Eleusis.’ She spoke the thought aloud. ‘So the maiden must be Persephone.’

  ‘You know of these things?’ He sounded genuinely surprised.

  ‘I went to school,’ she said. ‘Like everyone else.’ Because I wasn’t born behaving like a tart at poker games, whatever your boss may think.

  She looked back at the island. They were approaching a long curving strip of pale sand sloping gently into the sea. At one side, where a wooden landing stage thrust out into the water, a small group of men stood waiting, a couple of them with rifles slung over their shoulders.

  ‘The firing squad?’ she asked lightly, wondering if it was appropriate to joke about it.

  ‘Security,’ he said. ‘A few years ago a photographer got ashore on Skorpios and took pictures of Madame Onassis sunbathing without clothing. Since then Kyrios Vassos has made sure no intruders land here.’

  Joanna had a dim recollection of the fuss in the papers when the nude pictures of the former Jacqueline Kennedy had been published in Italy.

  She shrugged. ‘Well, he needn’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘If I choose to sunbathe, I shall not be emulating the beautiful Madame Onassis.’

  ‘I think you have forgotten you belong to Kyrios Vassos, and will therefore do whatever he requires, thespinis.’ His tone was flat. ‘But modesty is not his chief concern in the matter. The man on Skorpios could have had a gun, not a camera.’

  ‘So presumably I’ll be watched, and my movements will be restricted.’ She stared rigidly in front of her.

  ‘By no means. You are a guest on Pellas, thespinis.’ He spoke with faint reproof. ‘You are free to go wherever you wish.’

  ‘Presumably because there’s nowhere to hide and no way off, either,’ she said with bitter accuracy. She paused, reluctant to ask the question that was burning in her brain, but recognising it must be done. ‘When—when will Mr Gordanis be arriving?’

  ‘When his business is completed—and when he chooses,�
� was the flat retort. ‘Two days—three days. A week—two weeks. Who knows? What does it matter? After all, thespinis, as you have realised, you are going nowhere.’

  And the faint triumph in his smile reminded her unerringly exactly who still held the winning hand.

  She had braced herself for the inevitable curiosity when she stepped out on to the landing stage, but it did not transpire.

  She could remember the previous autumn catching an episode of a new TV series starring David McCallum called The Invisible Man. Well, now, she thought ruefully, she knew what it was like to be the invisible woman.

  Because no one even glanced in her direction as Stavros escorted her along the planking to the flight of steps at the end. And, though they seemed more concerned with unpacking various sacks and boxes from the boat, something told her that they were quite deliberately averting their gaze.

  But it was probably nothing personal. Perhaps they were under orders not to ogle any of the women that Vassos Gordanis brought here for his amusement, she told herself. Anyway, she had far more to worry about than that.

  ‘Is it far to the house?’ she asked, breaking a silence that threatened to become oppressive as she stepped carefully on to the beach, cursing her boots under her breath.

  ‘Not when you are accustomed.’ He paused. ‘But the path is uneven, and your heels are not suitable. You must take care not to fall.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, poisonously sweet. ‘Are you supposed to hand me over to the great man undamaged?’

  ‘To Kyrios Vassos you are already damaged goods, thespinis. But you would find a broken ankle painful.’

  Damaged goods … The words stung, and she longed to fling them back in his face—and the face of the man who now owned her. Tell him that he was so wrong about her. Except she would not be believed.

  Biting her lip, she sat down on the step behind her and began to unlace her boots.

  She sat for a moment, flexing her bare toes, then rose leaving the boots lying in the sand.

  ‘You do not wish to take them with you, thespinis?‘