by Cat Porter
“I know you’re worried, baby, but you’re not that scared little girl anymore.”
“No,” she shook her head. “No, I’m not.”
“And you’ve got me, Lovely. You’ve got me.”
And she did. Oh, she did.
She nestled her face in my neck and breathed in. I held her tight, kissing the top of her head, a hand in her hair. This girl and her bleeding heart. She only wanted to love and be loved. But had been cut off over and over again.
Luca came up on deck and sat down next to his brother, lifting his chin at me. Adri stiffened at my side, keeping her attention on the sea.
“Tell us everything,” Alessio said.
I told them what I knew about Adri’s father and the money. A dark scowl morphed Alessio’s features. He was pissed. About daddy or that he hadn’t known before?
Luca sat back, stretching out his long legs. “Che cretíno,” he muttered, brushing a hand down a thigh.
Yeah, Daddy sounded like a real fucking prizewinning idiot.
“Can you find out who exactly these assholes are?” I asked Luca. “If they’re local only, small time, or have a wider net? And then we can figure out a plan.”
Alessio gestured at me and Luca to move our conversation away from Adri. We got up and followed him to the railing. Adri only lit another cigarette.
“I’m sure the asshole promised to pay off the loan using Adri’s name as a guarantee,” said Alessio. “Made him a sure thing in their eyes, eh?” he said.
“I’m positive he did,” I replied.
“I’ll find out what I can about these fuckers,” said Luca.
“We have four hours until we get to port,” said Alessio, his gaze darting at Adri then back to me. “I haven’t seen her upset like this in a long time. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either,” I said.
Alessio’s eyes held mine, and I returned the hard look. He lifted his chin a degree and turned away. He knew she was no longer his.
Luca took his phone out of his jeans and went back inside the yacht along with Alessio.
Settling next to Adri, I pulled the strawberry dish toward us. “Have one.”
“I don’t want it. Don’t want anything, thank you.”
I bit into a berry. Sweet, luscious. Their season was upon us. “All those fucking cigarettes today. It’s good vitamin C, and you need your strength. ”
“I said I don’t want anything.” Her voice was sharp, jaw lean angles.
“Adri.”
“No.”
“No?” I chose another strawberry and sucked on it, chewing. “If we were alone, I’d take this strawberry, nestle it in your pussy and eat it from between your legs. All these little barbs on its flesh would make an excellent tool to make your clit pulse for me, don’t you think? Your ass pucker? Make your nipples harden? Then you’d suck my fingers, all red and sticky from you and the strawberry, and I’d fuck you senseless until all you’d be saying is yes, yes, yes.”
“My indecent gentleman.” She dropped her head forward, her body shaking. She was laughing.
“My question for you is, do you want to sit here like this, mourning for your life for the next few hours, like that first morning we were together on this boat, or would you rather—”
She kissed me, licking the strawberry from my mouth. “Feed me.”
“You say the most indecent things, baby.” I chose a perfect berry. Holding my gaze, she bit into the fruit, and my dick pulsed against my jeans as the juice glistened on those lips.
“Sex isn’t going to change things, Turo.”
I slid my hand around her cold neck, my thumb stroking her drumming pulse there. “We have four hours before we land back in rotten civilization. You need to be relaxed and focused when we get there, not frazzled. So, no more caffeine, no more cigarettes. Only strawberries and Turo for you—” My tongue swiped over her lips. “Strawberries and Adri for me.” I chewed the berry from her fingers, and she let out a hiss.
She stood up and grabbed the shallow white bowl of red fruit. “Andiamo.”
Fuck yes.
She led the way below deck to a cabin and locked the door behind us. “Take my clothes off me.”
I tilted back her chin, kissed her throat, and my hands moved down her body, stripping her naked, leaving kisses behind on her skin, breathing her in. Her bareness was a gift just for me. I held her shining eyes in that moment when I’d tugged her panty off her feet, and my heart swelled.
Afterward, the scent of sweat, musk, and sweet, sweet strawberry filling the cabin, she let out a long sigh which made me raise my head. I wasn’t sure if it was a sign of satisfaction or unsatisfied longing.
And we couldn’t have that.
Her head hung back over the bed, her long throat glazed with sweat. Her hand lingered over a breast marked in bruises, bite marks, and streaks of red. “You know, you’ve spoilt me completely for any other man.”
I wasn’t sure what we’d find in Athens, but we had this between us. This and more. And that piece of me that was on high alert, ready for anything, was now not some professional obligation but a roaring need that would not be quenched until the enemy had been slain. Destroyed, and my goddess would walk over the burning ashes with a triumphant smile on her face.
I pushed her hand away and my tongue flicked over a wet, sweet, very hard nipple. “Oh, I know, baby. I know.”
Athens
39
Adriana
Placing a firm hand on my back, Turo glanced at the two security guards who stood by the Porsche Cayenne and got a nod in return. He guided me to the entryway of my father’s apartment building in Vouliagmeni, an upscale beach and café neighborhood on the southeast outskirts of Athens where the hotel my father had always worked was located.
I took in a breath as we walked through the small gated courtyard and climbed the steps to the heavy wooden front door.
The first time I’d been to this flat was when he’d just moved in. I was nine years old. We’d spent the day together and ended up back here with a box of our favorite profiteroles in hand and a film I’d picked out at the video rental shop. He went to have a cigarette in the kitchen and got on the phone. He spoke loudly, and maybe he thought I was too young to understand the art of innuendo or maybe he just didn’t care, but I realized he was speaking with a woman, a girlfriend. I’d understood every insinuation, every filthy suggestion that had come out of his mouth. I’d lost my appetite for the chocolate sauce soaked cream puffs, and he’d gotten annoyed with me and called me a spoilt brat.
The last time I’d seen my father was several months ago. We’d met at a café down the road from here. I’d laughed as I listened to his tales. He was a great entertainer, the ultimate storyteller—he reveled in the buildup, the cast of characters, the drama. Then there’d been a pause, and he’d launched into how things were “fine” but he had that restless look about him. That look that said, “everything would be so much better, if only…”
He’d told me about a new business idea and how excited he was about it. He’d need fifty thousand euros, however, to get it off the ground with his business partners. My father had many friends and “business partners” many of whom were figures of “the night”, as they were called—nightclub, beach café, and bar owners. A shady lot who constantly opened and closed businesses.
I’d promised to consider giving him the money. I wanted to see him thrive, and I’d given him a great deal of cash for the last idea, a sailboat charter company. The company was doing well, or so he’d said, and I hoped it was true, and that his infatuation with the business had not waned.
I’d wanted to please him, like I always did, and I ended up giving him half of what he’d asked, twenty-five thousand. He’d been disappointed, but pleased all the same. That was the last time we met. We’d spoken on the phone, but he didn’t share any news about how the new business was shaping up, and I hadn’t asked.
The shooting that night at Island had shaken me to t
he core because I knew. I knew it had to be related to my father.
Now, I wanted answers. And no story of his would soften my resolve for the truth.
I hit the button with his name on it, and a loud buzz click, unlocked the door, Turo pushing it open for us. We took the small elevator to the third floor where I rang the bell at his flat. Footsteps became louder on the other side, and I shifted my weight, strangling the leather handles of my handbag.
The door pulled open.
My father.
Tall with more strands of gray in his thick, coppery brown hair than I remembered, and the bulky muscles from decades of water sports obvious through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. His lined and darkly bronzed skin spoke of a life lived outside, under the sun. His hair was messy, and his brown caramel eyes, although glassy and fatigued, suddenly leapt into tense lines. The worn tiger.
“Adriana?” my father said.
“Babá.”
We kissed on both cheeks, hugged but my back stiffened under the pat of his hand. I pulled back from him, and his eyes narrowed at Turo and darted back to me.
“This is Turo, my security guard. Turo, this is my father, Yianni Karantis.”
My father’s face furrowed at my use of English, and he shot Turo a dark glower. A rush of Greek erupted from him, demanding to know why I was at his home with a stranger in tow at this ungodly hour of the morning.
“In English, please,” I said. “Turo’s American.”
That got me a darker, deeper scowl.
“I trust Turo with my life,” I said. “In fact, he saved my life that night I got shot at. I trust him with whatever you have to tell me about this…situation.”
Yianni crossed his long, formidable arms across his chest, his jaw jutting out. “Okay.”
The apartment was small but well furnished with the same modernistic chrome and glass and wood furniture he’d always had, a style that I’d always found cold and lifeless. A wide, sun-soaked veranda opened up before us and made the apartment seem bigger and warmer than it actually was.
We sat in the small living room. “Kafé?” Yianni asked, taking a quick sip of his frappé, lighting a hand-rolled cigarette.
I only shook my head, my gaze falling to the large glass ashtray full of butts and ash on the table between us.
“No, thank you,” Turo replied, his eyes darting over the room, landing on a framed photo of little girl me in a red bathing suit, my father’s arm slung around my shoulders, both of us smiling after windsurfing on the beach at the hotel.
“When was the last time they contacted you?” I asked.
“Two weeks ago,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Two men came to this bar where I was with a few friends and told me that their boss had lost all patience with me and expected a payment.” He made a face, that particular Greek expression of the “what could I do? What did he expect me to say?” variety.
“Who are they?” asked Turo.
“Here, it is very common to loan money to businessmen. Many want to expand—make their restaurant or store bigger, more fancy. Or open another one. It is normal.”
“Normal,” I repeated. “Going to the bank and applying for a loan is normal.”
“Élla moré tóra,” Yianni scoffed, his tone cutting, and my insides twisted at the familiar dismissiveness. “The banks don’t cooperate, they take forever. You don’t understand these things, Adri.”
“No, I couldn’t possibly understand,” I muttered.
I couldn’t understand because I was a girl. I couldn’t understand because I was a very rich girl. I was only good for providing some of that “rich” to him. That ages old disdain of his pricked at me like thorns ripping at my skin. Turo pressed the side of his thigh into mine.
“And what kind of business were you getting your loan for, Yianni?” Turo asked.
“We found a yacht to buy. My partners and I planned on making it a nightclub for private parties.”
“And what happened to the sailboats you were skippering tourists to the islands for weeks at a time?” I asked. “Are you still doing that?”
“Eh. The rentals have been okay.”
“What kind of rentals?” Turo asked.
“Many French and German families, Scandinavians rent the sailboat and hire me to be captain. I take them to different islands depending on the weather. They love it.”
“It’s still going well, isn’t it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m tired of it.”
Of course he was. It wasn’t bright enough, spotlight enough. Sexy enough.
“Anyway, it’s only in the spring and summer,” he continued. “The club yacht would be all year round. The Olympics are coming next year, so many foreigners will be here. There will be a demand for this sort of nightclub.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Turo said.
“It is a great idea.” Yianni lifted his shoulders, straightened his back. “The party yacht is for another kind of client—the rich Greek, Greek companies having parties, foreign companies, the celebrities having parties. The time is now for this sort of thing. Soon there will be great demand with all the foreign sponsors coming here. With the people I know—the athletes, the singers, the businessmen, the politicians. Phhh. They all always want something unique, and they all want to show off Greece.”
My father and his business vision.
“You went to them for money for this idea?” Turo asked.
“Ne.” Yianni was exasperated with our questions. “My other two partners had bought the boat, and I would put in the money needed to fix it up. That was my part, that was our agreement. Adri gave me some money, and I borrowed the rest from these friends.”
“I thought you’d said that married girlfriend of yours would give you—”
“Eh kalá.” His hand whipped in the air once more, swatting at my impertinent flies. “She gave me some money, not all of it. I got the rest from him. He knows me.” He lit another cigarette and dragged deeply, his eyes boring into mine, making his point. “But this, this now is much more money. It’s…impossible.”
Impossible.
Impossible? Suddenly beyond his sphere of control? Therefore, not his problem?
I ground my teeth. He was well aware how serious all this was, how insane the sum was. They’d come after me to make sure he understood how serious. He’d been all emotional and penitent on the phone with me, but now? Now he was making his pitch, defiant, vehement to the last.
“How could you have agreed to borrowing so much money?” I asked. “Did you not wonder how you would pay back this bloody huge sum?” my voice sharpened.
My father only smoked in silence, seemingly unfazed, not frazzled. Consequences were a messy afterthought for him, like litter on the beach. You ignore it, walk by it, it’s not your responsibility, not your problem. That is, until you wanted to go swimming and the reality of wading through all that trash in the water was disgusting.
How could he not be in a panic over this fiasco he’d gotten himself into?
Because he was sure I would take care of it for him.
When my mother and Petros had sent me back to Geneva, it hadn’t mattered to Yianni that I’d been caught up in a horrible tragedy. He’d called once, we’d spoken. Rather, he’d done all the talking, I could barely form words. I’d been floundering, on the verge of an emotional breakdown.
“I thought we’d be making money by this time, and I would be able to pay something here and there,” my father said. “But then the yacht purchase got caught up in paperwork and taxes and new taxes. My partners asked me for money to pay these fucking taxes.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. But still, no boat. This government, re gamóto, ti malakizméni—” He petered off into a string of curses and sour complaints about the current ruling political party.
Whenever possible, blame the government for your woes yet always expect a government handout to cure your ills. My father’s generation had made that an art form.
“Babá,” my voice snapped and he lifted his eyes to me. He was annoyed, annoyed with me, and for the first time, I didn’t care. He wasn’t going to derail yet another conversation his way. “Do you have any of the money left?” I asked him.
“A few thousand. I offered to give this back, they laughed at me.”
Christé mou.
“And who is this man who lent you the money?” Turo asked.
“Efstathi Fokas.”
The blood drained from my head, my mouth dried. “Fokas? You are friends with Fokas? You borrowed money from Fokas?”
“Who is this Fokas?” Turo asked calmly as if we were having an ordinary conversation on an ordinary topic.
Fokas was not ordinary. “The King of the Night, they call him. Athens’s biggest crime lord,” I said. “He’s quite famous. Not only for lending money, but also for terrorizing judges and prosecutors with bomb attacks at their homes, hand grenades thrown at their cars. He works with drug lords, too.”
My father’s eyes blazed. “I have known him since we both started out. He was a kick-boxer who’d work as muscle at the nightclubs, just like I did when I stopped playing water polo. He even got me a job a few times in the winters, when I had no work, before I started at the hotel.”
“And now Fokas has an empire,” I said, my heart galloping in my chest, my head swirling in dizziness. “It’s rumoured that Fokas is quite friendly with the remaining members of this notorious Greek terrorist group that was active in the seventies and the eighties. They’ve been experiencing a revival lately, made possible with Fokas’s money. That anarchist group that killed Grigori is an offshoot of that group,” my voice sharpened.
“I don’t care about his political views. To each his own,” Yanni said on a sneer.