by Cat Porter
Good girl.
Startled, the guy struggling with Marko spotted Luca coming at him, and releasing Marko, stumbled forward, gun in hand.
“No!” Adri shouted, pulling and twisting in her distracted captor’s hold. Pivoting, she punched his throat. He staggered back on a howl, releasing her. The man with the gun jerked, facing Adri, arm raised, gun shaking.
I aimed. Crack.
He dropped in a heap, and Marko yelped. My weakened side shuddered with the force of the recoil and a dizzying rush flooded my veins.
Adriana rushed to her brother as the other man recovered from her punch, jacking up and lunging at her. Luca swiftly brought him down with a shot to the leg, his body rocking in a heap on the ground.
“Adri!” Luca darted toward Adriana and her brother, and I followed, holding my side.
Adriana scooped up the gun her brother’s kidnapper had dropped, and twisting around, aimed it at Luca. He jerked to a halt, raising his hands in the air. “Adri. It’s okay. It’s over.”
Her eyes were wild, glittering, feet rooted in the ground. No trace of fear, no shock. Only this ferocity. I tracked movement at her side. The guy Luca had shot in the leg moved, raised up, a gun in his hand.
“Ad—”
She pivoted, a flash of movement, and let loose a shot. The fuck flew back onto the ground howling. Her chest heaved as she lowered the gun. I darted to her, she remained stiff, her eyes on the fucker bleeding on the ground. I peeled the gun from her hand and held it out and Luca grabbed it.
“Kataraméne!” her voice seethed. Ancient curses howled in that one word. Luca kicked at the man she’d shot, and he grunted loudly in the dust.
“Listen,” I turned her around, cradling her face. “We don’t have much time,” I said, my voice firm. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” she practically hissed. Her eyes leveled with mine. “Yes.”
“Luca—is the other one dead?” I said.
“Si,” he let out a heavy breath. “Lui è morto.”
“One dead kidnapper, and another one shot and bleeding,” I said.
“You are bleeding too—” Adri breathed. “Turo—” Her fierce eyes darted at Luca. “What happened, what—”
“It’s nothing, I’m fine.” My teeth scraped my lip, steadying myself. “The police would love a small victory in their ongoing battle with the anarchist underworld, and we should give it to them.”
“I’m sure they would be very grateful,” said Adri. “And Fokas needs a bite in the arse.”
“Yeah, he does,” I said. “This one’s alive, he can talk. I say we use him. We turn him in, blame him for shooting me, and the rest just as it happened.”
“Bene,” Luca agreed, wiping at his brow with the side of his hand.
“Adri? Do you understand? You were busy with Marko, but you saw him shoot me.” I pointed to the kidnapper who moaned on the ground, his leg bleeding, the other leg twisted.
“This is what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Luca put your gun in his hand,” I said. “Take his so we can set this up for the police.”
He scowled at me. “I know what to do, Turo.”
“Then fucking do it.”
Luca shoved at the guy’s body with a quick kick. “He’s unconscious now. He won’t remember much.” He patted the kid down, torso, sides, back, around his legs. He switched the guns.
My tongue was a thick, dry pillow blocking my mouth. My skull pressed in on my wobbling brain, and my head swirled in the heat shimmying off the stones. Luca approached me, a smirk barely visible on the blur that was his face.
I held out a hand. “Stay the fuck back, Aliberti.”
He snapped open his cell phone. “You’re getting paler.”
“Am I?”
“Maybe you’re wondering if your health insurance will cover you here in Greece, is that it? You Americans. Don’t worry, they have national health here so—”
“Skáse moré!” Adri’s sharp tone lashed at him and he shut up, punching buttons on his cell phone.
“Mr. Lavrentiou?” Luca spoke to Petros on his phone. “We have Marko—Yes, yes, do not worry, Adriana is here with us—” He glanced up at her. “No, they are both safe.”
Safe, yes. That’s what counted. That’s what mattered. Adriana and Marko were safe.
My eyelids were suddenly heavy, threatening to close. So heavy. I tilted my head but it didn’t help. My chest squeezed, and I couldn’t breathe through the dust. The rocky earth tilted underneath me. Long hair flying.
“Turo!”
That voice.
My pulse sprang and bounced in my neck like an errant rubber ball. My hand fell from my bleeding side, and I sucked in a tiny breath, that throbbing pain barreling through my body. She grabbed my red-stained hand.
“Turo,” her voice floated.
The sky twisted over me.
“Luca, get my car. We have to get to a doctor now! We can’t wait.”
Blue gray eyes swallowed me whole and I let them. I let them. A pair of cruel dark brown eyes took their place and my breath shorted.
Mauro.
All these years I’d assumed that I’d claimed a unique particle of Mauro’s being, just the one, and I’d liked that. No matter how tiny that one, dark particle was, I knew it existed and I was there. I’d counted on that—I had to be there, I was his son. I’d liked the secrecy between us. It was a special darkness where only he and I met.
What did my beautiful girl once tell me about Dionysus?
“Benefactor and Destroyer. The ancient Greeks understood that duality very well. In all their gods.”
Mauro had been my god for so long. Mythological power, authority, influence. The high lord of Chicago.
My father.
My would-be destroyer.
Fuck no.
47
Turo
Luca lifted me up, and with Adri on the other side of me, they got me in a car. Adri’s car. Marko was in the back seat next to me, head against the window, folded in on himself. She drove fast and hard on a highway, through the winding, twisting streets of Athens with Luca on his phone, speaking in spitfire Italian.
The private clinic they’d brought me and Marko to had all the little luxuries and a very attentive staff. The bullet had passed through my side, and I’d been patched up, given blood, vitals monitored through the night, and given beautiful meds which chased away the pain demons. I’d answered the police’s questions, told my story, and under the sunny warmth of Petros’ influence combined with the police’s relief over the outcome and joy at having captured a terrorist crew member possibly connected with the recent assault on a journalist, we were done.
Alessio was in my room when I woke up the next morning. Those warm brown eyes of his staring at me, his legs stretched out before him. He’d been here a while.
“I know he shot you first.”
“Good morning to you too,” I replied.
“Turo—”
“Don’t get involved, Alessio. It’s all good between me and Luca.”
“Are you sure?”
“Nothing’s ever for sure. But for now, it’s good enough.”
He only scowled, his formidable brow creasing.
“Any sign of the doctor?” I asked. “I’m itching to get out of here already.”
Get out and go where, do what, I wasn’t sure. I just wanted out of here though, and I wanted to see Adri.
“No, I haven’t seen him,” replied Alessio.
My phone buzzed and I reached for it. Marissa Derringer, my mother’s lawyer. My scalp prickled. My mother had many lawyers, but Marissa had been her most trusted councillor for almost two decades.
“Marissa?”
“Turo. How are you?” Her voice tight, terse.
“Okay. Out of the country at the moment.”
“Are you? I’ve been trying to reach you for several hours now. Must be it.” Her breath hitched. She was collecting
herself. A sharp chill jagged up my spine.
“Marissa? What is it?”
“There was a fire,” came the answer.
Fire.
Fire.
Fire.
“And?” My stomach hardened.
“It’s your mother. She and James were in the new restaurant, there was an electrical fire in the bar area. James is dead and Erin—Erin is—”
I jacked up from the bed, a stinging ache blazing through my middle, a cold tidal wave sweeping through my veins. “Erin is what?”
“She’s in a coma, she’s hanging on, but I can’t get any more details. I need you here at the hospital. You need to see her.”
“Which hospital?”
“Rush.”
I tugged a hand through my hair. Rush University Medical Center. Top of the line.
“How did it happen?” I asked, the obvious already doing its smug tap-dance around me.
“An arson investigation is being conducted. There’s been trouble, shall we say, in the neighborhood for months now.”
“Erin told me. I saw her about a week ago.”
“You saw her?”
“She called me, asked me to come by the office. She told me about my father giving her trouble.”
“Trouble is right.”
My heart pounded against my ribs, sending my head into a dizzying tailspin. Why hadn’t I considered he’d go the extra mile with my mother? Why hadn’t I assumed the possibility? All my professional life I’d been thorough, covered all possible angles, no matter how ridiculous they may have seemed. But I’d been arrogant where he was concerned, hadn’t I?
Benefactor. Destroyer.
The fucking son of a bitch had gone for it. He thought he’d taken care of me, and then my mother was next on his list. Both of us in one day. Motherfuckingfucker.
“Turo, your mother is unconscious and as such, you are her designated successor.”
“Say again?”
“You are now acting CEO.”
My hand throttled my cell phone. “Are you telling me she never changed her will after she fired me?”
“No, she didn’t. She’d never wrote you off. She always believed that you’d be back. That you’d be a part of her life again and that you’d work together once more. She had faith in you. You’re her son and she loves you.”
“You’re telling me the explanation for this is that she loves me?” My voice was raw.
“Yes.”
A whirlpool of adrenaline and madness pissed through me. “Marissa, the last ten years she and I didn’t have much of a relationship, if any. She was cold, I was mean, etcetera, etcetera. You know how it was, how it’s been all these years.” I lowered my voice. “You know who I am and what I do. Who I work for. Everything she despised. I disappointed her, betrayed her.”
“Don’t think I didn’t try to dissuade her,” Marissa said. “But there was a piece of her that never stopped believing in you. She felt awful about how things had degenerated between you, how she could have handled things differently. She really did. She felt powerless.”
“Erin Cavanaugh Bradley felt powerless?”
“As your mother, yes. She always put on a brave face, but she didn’t want you in between her and him, ever. His constant threats over the years—”
“What threats?”
“Lately it’s been all business. But when you were younger, he continually threatened to take you away from her.”
“I had no idea,” I said. Is that why she tried keeping me behind closed doors, at a distance? “Why would he have taken me when he’s been adamant to this day about keeping me a secret from everyone?”
“Well, if you don’t know that, who does?”
That stung. She was right. I knew he loved using his power to get what he wanted, to have the last word. Letting go of me and Erin had been easy for him, but she and I had become problems and that was definitely not him having the last word, and that he couldn’t let go of ever.
“Turo, Erin worked hard to keep you safe, to give you the best of everything, shielding you and making her business a success so that she wouldn’t have to rely on anyone or need anyone, not even her own father. She felt a great sense of failure when she forced you out, but she still believed in you. Never stopped wanting the best for you. That’s what a mother’s love is—an always proposition. Unyielding. Defies logic, practicality, legal advice.”
My skin heated, my head pounded.
Marissa cleared her throat. “As Erin is currently incapacitated, the power of attorney goes to me and you to make decisions for the company. We’ve worked together before, but that was then, and I for one, don’t trust you much.”
“Understood.”
“How soon can you be here? She needs you.”
She needs you. “I’m in Greece right now.”
“Greece?”
“I’ll be on the first plane home. Let me give you another cell phone number to contact me. I’m shutting this number down.”
“Go ahead,” she said, and I gave her my alternate cell number that only two other people had. Two special contacts who I’d need the second I landed in the USA.
Marissa and I said our goodbyes, and I ripped the battery from my phone.
“What’s wrong?” Alessio asked. “You look like hell all over again.”
My eyes shuffled around the room. Metal bed, shitty sheets. Hospital room. My mother was in a hospital room all alone, thousands of miles away from me. Husband dead and vulnerable. Vulnerable to him. Him. Him.
“Turo?” Alessio grabbed my arm.
I flinched. “My mother. She’s been in an accident. I need to be there. I need—”
“Turo, you can’t go back to Chicago,” Alessio said.
I had to go back.
I had to see Erin for myself. I needed to let her know she wasn’t alone, because now she was all alone. All alone. And vulnerable to another hit from that fucker. It was up to me to protect her, and I had to let her know that I was there for her. He would try again, wouldn’t he? Of course he would. He didn’t like failing, and now this would be fail number two this week. He wanted to erase us, his mistakes, the two thorns in his side. And Mauro Guardino liked being the victor in any game.
Not this time.
Alessio put a light hand on my chest. “Hey, take a breath, man, come on.”
I gulped in air, focused on the feel of his hand on me, and the thick, dizzying red diffused from my vision. I pushed his hand away. “Get rid of this phone for me.” I gave him the pieces.
“Sure.” Alessio pocketed them. “You need another or—”
“I’ve got one.” I swallowed, but my mouth was dry. “I need to talk to Luca.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I shot him a hard look.
“Bene.” Alessio got on his phone, yapped in Italian and clicked off. “He’s on his way from the hotel.”
Adri stood in the doorway, and a strange sense of relief washed with excitement flooded through me. I hadn’t seen her since yesterday, since she and Luca had gotten me and Marko in her car and taken us to the hospital.
Alessio lifted his chin. “I’ll go wait for my brother outside.” He clapped me on the shoulder and left the room, giving Adri’s arm a squeeze as he passed through the door.
I held out my hand to her. My anchor. I needed to touch her, feel her. Suddenly, time was ticking away, clock tower bells tolling, and not in our favor.
“Turo,” she murmured taking my hand, brushing my cold lips with her warm ones.
I wiped the hair back from her face. “Adri, I have to go back to Chicago right away. My mother’s been in an accident. She’s in a coma, and her husband’s been killed.”
“No. I’m so sorry.” Her eyes narrowed, eyes that searched mine for details, details I wouldn’t give. “Was it really an accident?”
“I need to go find out.”
“You already know,” she murmured holding my gaze. She knew too. She knew that to have someone
close to you hurt on account of you was a punishment, the worst sort of torture, a failure.
A smile flickered over her lips.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Dionysus went down to the underworld and saved his mother. He defied death and brought her out of Hades to Olympus to live with the gods.”
Chicago, Hades, sounded about right. I would deliver her out from under him if it was the last thing I did.
“I’ll talk to my father about sending you home on the company plane,” she said. “It shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll take care of it for you.”
I cupped her face. “You’re good at that, you know.”
“I know,” she said, her lips brushing my fingers. “I love it when you let me do things for you.”
“Let you?”
“You’re overly self sufficient, but sometimes, sometimes, you let go and enjoy what I give you.”
I kissed her fingertips, squeezing her hand between mine, and her breath caught. “Lovely—Athens to Denver.”
An eyebrow lifted. “Denver?”
“Yes.” I released her hand. “I need to meet someone there first, then I’ll get to Chicago another way. A quiet way.”
“Okay.” She straightened her shoulders and got on her phone.
My head fell back on the pillow as I watched her talk to her father. How the hell were we going to say goodbye? How? I couldn’t imagine not being at her side throughout the day, her hand always within reach, her lips mine to claim, her body mine to lose myself in, to worship. Her laugh tickling my ear, tickling my soul, enticing it to play.
But I was off on a fucking crusade, and her safety was definitely something I couldn’t guarantee in Chicago right now, let alone for myself. She belonged here, with her family. That was safe. That was the best for her.
She clicked off her phone, turning it over in her hands. “You’re all set for tonight. Can I come with you? Let me help you, be there for you. I could—”
“No, no, baby, you can’t.”
“Turo—” Her gorgeous eyes pleaded with me.
Jesus, this was a no win. Right now I couldn’t harbor hopes or tender thoughts. Everything in me had to be focused on one thing only.
“Forget me, Adri, ” I breathed.
Her face paled, an eye ticked. She wasn’t sure she’d heard me correctly. Neither was I.