by Cat Porter
Adri and I stared at one another across the courtyard through the group of private security agents, Alessio, Luca and his men. The servants of the house. Her mother hugged her, Petros. They’d been outraged at the demand that Adri delivery the money. But Adri had insisted she go. That she could handle it. She wanted to do this for her brother. For the sins of her father.
In the car over she’d confessed, “If something happens to Marko today, I’ll never forgive myself. My parents cannot lose another child. I can’t lose him.”
I squeezed her hand. “We’re getting him back, Adri. Believe that. There’s no other option.”
Now, across the courtyard littered with people and vehicles, she turned and caught my hard gaze. I raised my chin at her.
With her car keys in hand she strode over to me. My Aphrodite had transformed into the militant, determined Athena. “I need more from you.”
“Anything, baby.”
She wrapped her arms around my middle and kissed me, fingertips digging into my back. I fisted my hands in her hair, not giving a shit about what everyone thought. Nobody else mattered. “Never forget,” I said against her lips, “you are Stefanos’s great-great granddaughter. You can do this.”
“I can do this,” she replied.
“You call me after it’s done, the second you get back in your car.”
“I will.”
“You will.” Fuck, this was hard, fucking crazy. Harder than I expected. Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
My stomach squeezed together and twisted into knots over and over again. I should be doing this for her. Stepping into fire and smoke where she had no place. Letting her go was wrong, all wrong. My lungs squeezed together. But I knew she needed to do it and she knew it too—to face that devil, the devil that had killed her lover, the devil that had stolen the best part of her, the devil that now had her brother prisoner. She wanted to do this to prove things to herself, to redeem herself.
With a final look, she released me and strode over to her white BMW coupe, the car she hadn’t driven in two years. She got in, fastened her seat belt, hands flexing over the wheel. She put the vehicle into gear and sped off, and a piece of me took off with her leaving me rooted to the spot. The churning burn in my gut told me what I already knew. I couldn’t package these sensations and file them away. There were no files, no labels, no system where Adri was concerned. The BMW veered out of sight, and I took in a tight breath.
I had no control in keeping Adri safe, protecting her. It had all been ripped from me.
45
Adriana
I’d dropped off the cash in the bin with the pink graffiti on it and now I was supposed to wait for their call. My pounding heartbeat my only company, adrenaline my fuel. I parked in front of an abandoned kiosk, and I waited, pen and paper ready to take directions when the call came. After they counted the bloody money.
An hour went by.
Another forty-three minutes.
Another thirty-five.
My phone beeped. An unknown number. My mouth dried and I cleared my throat. “Oríste?”
“Asprópyrgos,” said a husky voice. He gave me specific instructions to an abandoned warehouse parking lot, and I scribbled madly. Relief poured through me, beating down the anxiety. One step closer to Marko.
Click.
Asprópyrgos was an industrial area west of the city, and I knew the area. I’d been there once before, with Grigori for a rave party he had deejayed. A party that had turned into a riot after a fight broke out with a group of those right-wing anarchists who had shown up.
I called Turo and he put me on speaker so Luca, who was driving their car, could hear the directions as well.
“Are you okay?” Turo asked, his voice tight.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?” he said.
“Yes. You go. Call me the minute—”
“I will. I will.”
Turo clicked off the call, and I dropped my phone in the passenger seat next to me, letting out a heavy breath, but it did no good. My fingers curled tightly over the steering wheel as my brain replayed that hard, husky voice of the kidnapper that had drilled through me.
It drilled through me again. And again.
How had they been treating Marko? Had they beaten him up? Hurt him? Taunted him, been cruel? Was he hungry, in pain, in shock? All those questions that had tortured my mother and Petros. Those impossible questions with no answers had filled their eyes with thick, dark, heavy emotion.
My brother was a quiet, gentle boy. Life had been good to him. There were no creases, no jagged or crooked lines in his life up until now. Now, it would be a screaming wretched hell because of my father. Because I’d allowed my father in.
I’d done that.
Marko didn’t deserve this. No one did, but especially not my little brother.
And especially not my mother and Petros who had already suffered the loss of an innocent child.
No more tragedy. Not again.
And not because of me.
My gaze went to the paper with the directions.
Not this time.
46
Turo
In a compact Toyota, Luca and I headed west for Asprópyrgo.
We got off the Elefsina highway and cruised through this neighborhood west of Athens. More like a postindustrial wasteland. Warehouses in ruins. Abandoned factories. Crumbling houses of another age alongside eroded and worn apartment buildings. Squatters, dark-skinned Romany children wandering the streets, their faces not soft in blissful childish unawareness, but focused, hard.
The roads were busy with delivery trucks, garbage trucks. Ratty pickup trucks collecting all sorts of rusty junk, old appliances, fencing, furniture, pipes. Sewage removal trucks battled with fuel trucks at an intersection.
Luca parked the car up a steep hill where we had a full view of the abandoned lot, more like a rocky field. The crooked, twisted street sign with the red and blue X on the left edge of the field was the designated marker.
“Now we wait,” I muttered.
I leaned my head back against the headrest. The sun hit my face, its warmth heating my skin. Heat that poked at memories of light-drenched hours spent on beaches with Adri, not giving a single fuck except for grilled seafood and sun-washed wine, and where were my sunglasses, and holding her hand, and sucking down creamy iced frappés in the heat, and tasting her suntan lotion and the sweat on her skin. And kissing her, kissing her on the harsh rocks of those castle ruins, kissing her in that beach cave, our skin salty, our lips wet. And being inside her.
My fingers went to the inner pocket of my jacket and found the stone there, the smooth white stone she’d found in the beach cave at Vitáli. An ordinary thing, but so pure in its simplicity, like that moment had been, so many moments.
“Here’s something.”
Luca’s grim monotone snapped me back into the present, my gaze following his.
A small, dingy-white Fiat van plowed into the rocky field where the rusty, no through street sign stood tilted. The Fiat jerked to a halt, a thin man dressed in a black hoodie and dark jeans, a black ski mask covering his head, opened the back doors and pulled out a teenage boy. Marko. The kid stumbled, a black scarf covered his eyes, his body hanging.
Had they drugged him?
The kidnapper dropped him at the base of the sign, squatting down and adjusting the scarf over Marko’s eyes and mouth. He pushed the kid face down on the ground, and Marko’s legs flailed in the air. He darted back into the van, where the driver waited for him, and the vehicle kicked into reverse, turned, and swerved off in a cloud of dust.
“Come on, come on…” I muttered under my breath, my eyes trained on the van slowly climbing up the opposite hill, waiting for them to be out of sight before I moved. “Make the call, Luca.”
Luca didn’t reply. The van finally vanished, and I lunged out the door, peeling off down the hill to where Marko lay motionless. A shot rang out and Marko rolled into a ball.
I blinked, m
y breath hitched painfully. A biting flame lit into my side. Stinging, searing. My stomach tightened. Pain scorched through me.
I’d been shot.
Clutching at my side, I stumbled on the dirt road, turning to see who the fuck—
Luca stood in front of the car, a gun raised.
A gun aimed at me.
“You run too fast,” he said.
Warm goo filled my hands. Blood, my blood. “You’re a lousy shot,” I said. A chill spread over my flesh like watercolor paint soaking paper. “What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled. “Why?” My hand flew behind my back for my own weapon, my heart lurching in my chest.
“Your boss asked me nicely as an offer of compensation to Gennaro, but my uncle doesn’t do this sort of shit, so I’m taking care of it. The things we do for family.”
My own father put a contract on my life?
I gulped in air, rage flushing through me filling my lungs instead. Did this really surprise me? Had I become so much of an irritant, an unreliable factor in Mauro’s Outfit? He’d sent me here on a fool’s errand to kill me out of the country. Any traces of depraved paternal blood guilt on his hands would be far, far away, not in his face, not in his town. No reminders, no traces.
Cold, strategic Mauro. Practical, covering his bases. That was business. Good business. Had I pushed him too far with that last standoff with Valerio? That stupid encounter with Francesca under his own roof? I’d always be a problem for him, no matter what.
All I’d wanted was what was due to me, my piece, the piece I’d worked so hard for. The piece I’d turned my back on my mother for. So many pieces. Something, anything. How fucking pathetic. I didn’t want a seat at his family dinner table, but this—this—
Luca standing there facing me with his gun, the gun he’d just shot me with, my blood filling my hand, told me the undeniable truth. “Actions speak louder than words,” my grandfather’s voice hounded me. My throat cramped, the taste of copper filled my mouth.
“Mr. Guardino told my uncle to expect you,” Luca said. “And as an apology for his son’s rudeness and as a bond for their future business together, he offered your life. Very old school of him, eh? I liked that.” A sharp smirk curled his lips. “It’s perfect timing.” He raised the gun again. “I’ll blame it on the kidnappers.”
Dizziness whirled through my brain. I blinked and blinked, willing the world to stay focused. Willing Luca and his fucking gun to remain clear.
Thick wetness filled my hands, seeping through the fabric of my white linen shirt. Not pink this time, but scarlet red. Crimson. My favorite fucking shirt. My shirt…
“It’s wrinkled now.”
“This is Greece in the summer. No one cares.”
No one cares.
No one cares.
“I hope you die alone, you bastard, because that’s what you deserve,” Ciara’s voice taunted.
I gulped in air. “Don’t do this, Luca—” My eyes strained to stay on Luca in the sun, my vision blurry in its glare.
“Tell me, Arturo. Why does Guardino want you dead? What the hell did you do? Not curtsy properly? Criticize his haircut? His wife? Fuck his daughter?”
“It’s a long, long sordid story. I could tell you sometime over a glass of Anisette.”
“I like sordid. I hate Anisette.”
“I thought you liked old school?” I smacked back.
He came closer, jaw set. “Tell me now. Tell me everything. I want to know.”
“Why?”
“Your reputation is spotless. You get the job done, no matter what it is. Your work is very clean. You are an asset. So I want to know why he would send you all the way here only to have you killed? Why not in his own backyard? What did you do?”
My throat prickled with dry dirt and dust. “I’m his bastard son.”
I told him about me and my father.
Luca’s face darkened, an eyebrow flared. “So you have a—how do you say—attitude?”
“Yes, I do.” I shifted my weight, pain ripping through me like a shearing knife. “Getting your uncle to come back to their table was supposed to be my good deed in return for a favor.”
“You worked hard for Guardino, but remained the peasant, the soldier,” he said.
I blinked, sucked in air. The taste of blood seeped through my mouth. The flavor of my mortality. “Yes.”
“Listen carefully.” His tone was grim and steady. He had my attention. I raised my straining eyes to his.
“I shot you,” Luca said. “I tried to kill you. I told you he wants you dead. Your life flashed before your eyes. All true?”
“All true,” I gritted out.
“You can’t go back to Chicago.” He stalked toward me.
My lungs heaved, a wheezing sound erupting from my chest. “You own me now?”
Luca pressed the gun against my forehead. The cool hardness of the metal shimmered over my skin. “Yes.”
“Why?” I snarled at him, snarled at destiny. I pressed my forehead against the gun, pushing against Luca. “Because I’m a useful tool?” Valerio’s words bristled on my tongue, hung in the dusty hot air between us. “Why should I believe anything you say?”
Luca’s eyes gleamed in the hard glare of the sun. “Because you know deep in that black heart of yours, a heart as black as mine, that I’m telling you the truth.” He fisted my shirt with his free hand. “I made Alessio stay in Athens longer than he wanted so you could find us and I could be done with you and we could get on with our holiday. But then Adri got shot at and you saved her. You being hired as her security and coming to the island with us was good for me—I needed you for my meeting with Berezin.”
“That was a win for you either way,” I muttered. “If I won Berezin’s games, you’d get what you wanted from him. And if I lost, you’d still come out a winner. You’d be alive and I’d be dead for Guardino without you getting your hands dirty.”
“Yes,” came the velvet reply.
Luca’s focus suddenly shifted behind me. “Merda! What is she doing here?” His grip on me relaxed a few degrees, his hold on the gun slackening.
I twisted slightly in his hold, my eyes narrowing in the dusty heat. A figure was running toward Marko. A tall woman, young, with a ponytail.
Adri.
My heart plunged in my chest, squeezing there. I turned toward Adri, every instinct commanding me to get to her. I twisted in Luca’s lax grip and shot my elbow in his face. He jerked back, and I turned and kicked at the gun hanging in his hand. The gun flew. I grabbed my gun that was at my back and aimed it at Luca.
Luca lunged at me, tackling me down to the ground, my gun pitching from my hand. Wrapping an arm around my neck, he bound me in a chokehold. I bit his flesh, digging my fingers in his arm to pry it off me. A fist landed on my wound, and the breath knocked out of me, pain radiating through my body. I crumpled in Luca’s vicious hold.
He swiped at his gun on the ground and shoved it against my cheek, dragging me up with him, both of us breathing hard. Luca raised his gun, he aimed at Adri.
“No! No.” My vision filled with red, watery red. “Are you fucking insane?”
He pulled me up harder against him, his thick muscles pressing into me like a living vise—the fucker worked out hard for a reason. On a grunt, he shuffled his hold, pinning me to his side, extending his arm, the gun aimed at Adriana.
I reached out for the weapon, straining, fingers flexing but he kept me tight at his side. “Luca!” I could taste the metal, feel the sleek hardness. Inches away. Goddammit.
In the distance Adri ripped the ski mask off of Marko, wiping his hair back from his face. Hugging him, kissing him. His hands behind his back, Marko wavered, and she fiddled with the handcuffs. She tried to get him to stand, but he couldn’t. He was dazed. Luca clenched me harder, choking me.
My heart banged against my ribs; it wanted to escape the prison of my chest. A cold sweat prickled my skin. The possibility of her suffering, her being hurt, her dying, gone from this world,
from me, because of me and my not being able to stop it—
Impossible.
A small blue pickup truck coasted down the low hill into the lot. A figure in black—dressed just like the men who’d dropped off Marko—darted toward Adri and the boy. The driver got out of the van, gun in his hand pointed at brother and sister. Adri froze.
“Che diavolo?” Luca bit out.
I twisted in Luca’s hold, blinking past the sweat on my face. The driver grabbed Adri, but she turned and slapped him, kicking at his legs, aiming for his balls and missing.
Relax, baby, think. Think.
I planted my feet firmly in the dirt, steadying myself, and shoved against Luca. “Fokas’s minions want Marko for themselves—for the big bucks.”
“Now they’ve got Adri too.” Luca’s mouth came to my ear. “You want to help her,” his voice simmered.
“Yes.”
“You want to go to her.”
“Yes.”
“You want to fight for her.”
“Yes!”
“Your heart’s not so black after all, is it?” He released me and tracked over to my gun, scooping it off the ground. He gave it to me. “Cover me,” he said.
“Seriously, you fuck?”
“I’m not going to kill you, Turo. Not after you saved my brother and Adri from those bullets, and not after you came through for me on Berezin’s boat. There are only a few people I give a true fuck about and Alessio is one of them. There are only a few people I can work with, and you’ve proven to be one of them.”
“So why did you shoot me?”
“I have a reputation. I couldn’t just let you go.”
“And how do you know I won’t shoot you in the back right now?”
“You’re much smarter than that. That’s one of the reasons why I like you.” He turned and charged toward Adri, his gun tucked to his side.
I slid the safety and trained my weapon on the fucker holding Adri. She’d spotted Luca and stiffened. Her searching gaze found me with my gun aimed in her direction. She yelled out in Greek.