by Cat Porter
“You should forget me,” I said slowly, pushing the words out of my mouth, forcing them out.
Since I’d arrived in Greece I’d been a marked man. But now, the cards had been finally laid down on the Blackjack table, the dice had been rolled, the roulette wheel had at long last stopped spinning.
She fingered the eye bracelet on my wrist, her voice a raw whisper, “I will never forget you, and I don’t mean because you’ve taken bullets for me, protected me, saved my brother, been a true friend, a lover. Our time together—here, on the island, all of it, all of it—is very special to me.”
So fucking special. Significant.
Her eyes held mine and her truth twisted and screwed tight in my chest.
“Your family needs you now, Adri,” I managed.
“Yes, they do, and I need them. But you need me too, I know you do. You don’t have to push me away.”
I clutched the long, gauzy scarf she wore around her neck and pulled her close. “I have to. Give this to me, Lovely. I need it. I need to know that you’re safe.”
“I need to know that you’ll come back to me,” she whispered.
Our lips were breaths apart, the magnetic pull between us unmistakeable, unbearable.
I let go of her scarf. “Don’t. I can’t guarantee that. I can’t.” I can’t guarantee shit.
She sat up straight, her gaze averted for a second then came back to me—cool, even, in control. She’d changed gears. “We’re taking my brother to London in a few days to see a therapist who was recommended. Marko is emotionally numb right now, and we’re all waiting for the explosion any day. Or implosion. I’m not sure which would be worse, him finally letting it out or never doing so.”
“London?”
“Yes.” She pressed her lips together.
London meant responsibility, London meant her entrenched in the professional family structure. London was what she hadn’t wanted.
“London’s good,” I said. “Conquer, Lovely. Conquer. And don’t ever let Yianni—”
“I won’t. I’ve finally realized that keeping him at a distance is not wrong.”
You’re a smarter person than I am.
“His debt has been paid and he’s in the clear. Now it’s up to him to stay clean or not.” She pressed her lips together. “I could take you to the—”
“Alessio will get me to the airport.”
A nurse entered the room and said something in Greek which made Adri stand up. “The doctor’s coming to check on you. I need to leave.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek, but it didn’t stop her lips from trembling.
“Goodbye, Adri,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Goodbye.”
48
Adriana
I never knew breathlessness, a racing pulse, could be a constant state of being.
Since I’d left his room, I’d had a good cry in the ladies and managed to last through a discussion of Marko’s list of prescription medication with my mother and the doctor.
I was heading home to bring my mother a change of clothes, caught in afternoon traffic. My hands flexed around my steering wheel, and I laughed. No, I wasn’t having a nervous breakdown. I’d never felt more clearheaded in my life.
Yes, Turo had made me say goodbye, pushed me away for all the right reasons, and I respected that. Understood it, intellectually.
I was shaking with so much wild emotion for him, for us. I was feeling these emotions, my body was feeling them, and I wasn’t breaking or shattering or melting into a sorrowful heap. Yes, I would miss him. Yes, I was afraid for him. Yes, it felt completely unnatural and wrong to be separated from him, a chasm of forbidding proportions. In the handful of days that we’d known each other, we had lived. We had lived well, brilliantly, hotly. Honestly.
And that was everything.
I had chosen to be alone for so long, to hide, keeping everything at a distance, sabotaging myself along the way, but Turo had changed all that. I no longer felt stuck in that fear, that confusion.
And even if I didn’t see him again, if he died or lived a new life with another woman or women, for that matter, I wanted him to know that he had left his mark on me. Not a scar, but a living, burning pulse. And it felt good.
I needed to give him that. He needed it, just as much as I did. If I didn’t go to him now and give him this, he would never know.
My parting gift. Not just goodbye, not just letting go. I wanted him to know, that in his coming battle, facing his demon, my heart would be beating with his. That he had made a difference. That what we’d experienced was real and true and meaningful and not just some crazy whirlwind of stolen moments.
But those moments were a whirlwind. They were all connected and blended into one thing. One truth.
I checked my rear view mirror, eyes darting to the side, and turned the wheel and slowly, carefully edged my car into the far left lane, cutting off three annoyed drivers, and finally made a sharp U turn.
Airport, here I come.
49
Turo
Ciro drove me and Alessio to the hangar at the Athens airport north of the city where the Lavrentios jet waited for me. My blood slugged through my veins as Ciro handed my suitcase over and I gave my passport to the attendant at the desk. She glanced up at me, and I slid my sunglasses back down over my aching eyes. I wasn’t going to think of this as an ending, but a turning point, a new beginning.
“My hoodie looks good on you,” said Alessio, a smirk on his face, his hand thumping my shoulder.
I cleared my dry throat, my insides churning with sick. “Watch out for Adri. Please. Don’t let her—”
“I know. I will.”
I held out my hand to Alessio, but he quickly pulled me in to his chest and kissed me on both cheeks, the Italian way, the Greek way. “Mio amico. Get it done.”
“Ciao, Alessio.” I thumped his back.
He brought a ringed hand to the side of my face. “Ciao.”
“Turo.”
Alessio and I separated, our heads jerking toward the voice, her voice, and my stomach dropped, clenching. There she stood, in cutoff jean shorts, high leather, brown boots with a peep toe and a deep cut, silk red T-shirt with long beaded necklaces, a small, chocolate brown Birkin bag clutched in her grip.
My goddess.
“Ach,” murmured Alessio, slapping me on the shoulder. He raised his chin at Ciro and they took off.
“Adri, what are you doing here?”
“I had to come. I had to see you one last time.” She swallowed hard as she moved toward me. “Please don’t be mad at me for coming. I know you have to go and do what you need to do, and I want that for you. That’s who you are. I came because I need you to know that you touched my life. You’ve changed me.”
“You did that, Adri. She was right there all the time. You just had to believe in her and let her loose.”
“I love you,” she said.
The world stopped moving. Only my heart thudded in my chest, its heavy beat resounding in my ears.
“I had to come and tell you, I had to—I don’t expect anything in return, but I had to tell you, I—”
I kissed her.
Her beautiful, full, warm lips. Lips that I’d made my own. My hand dug in her beautiful hair and I pressed her into my chest. We were wound together, she and I, coiled around each other like wild vines, tangled like twisted silk ribbons pulled tight. Intricate. No beginning, no end. But it had to end, and I had to let go.
I released her. “You’re in my blood, baby. But right now, I need to take care of business, and you need to be separated from all that. I need to know that it won’t touch you, because I couldn’t handle that. That would fucking kill me.” My voice shook with the truth.
Yes, the fucking truth.
That truth quaked through my veins, had my heartbeat hurtling at a dizzying pace. A cold sweat prickled over my skin.
Her eyes widened. “I want you safe too. I want so much for you—”
My fingers touched her lips, sto
pping them from continuing, from articulating dreams and hopes and wishes that we both knew might never come true for us.
A cold, brutal, Aegean wind tore between us. Right there in the airport terminal we were on a cliff. Our Andros castle cliff. Her beautiful eyes that choppy, dark blue sea we swam in.
She entwined her fingers with mine and smiled. “We only had a week or so together, but I feel, and it’s because of you.”
I feel too, baby.
“And I’m not afraid of it anymore. I’m embracing it, the good, the bad—” She swallowed hard. “I love you.”
Her words squeezed around my heart. She’d changed the water into wine. I tightened my grip on her hand and breathed fire, “I can’t promise you anything right now, Adri. And fanciful promises should never be made to a woman like you with the sea in her eyes and the sun in her heart. You belong here, conquering. Stefanos had promised Natalia he’d be back, and it took him a lot of years to return and he lost her. I can’t—” My throat closed. A low grunt escaped my lips. I was leaving, charging into a firestorm I might not survive.
I didn’t want to lose her to another man or to death. So fucking selfish. “I can’t hold you to a promise I can’t fulfill,” I continued, the words a jagged knife shearing through my gut. “No matter how much I want to make that promise to you right now.”
“You’re going to war, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She wiped the hair back from my face and kissed me, my mouth filling with her taste, our tongues tangling, devouring. My body would never be the same again, would never know this desire again. Adri resided inside me. Her passionate kisses, her touch, bold and sweet, trusting and daring, had awakened me to a new world.
The urge to grab onto her and pull her close, smell her hair, inhale the scent of her skin that had become my very own tore through me. Feel her arms around me, hear her throaty Greek whispers tease me, plead for my mercy, for my ruthlessness, for more.
Just once more.
I released her. “Go.”
Adri’s watery eyes glimmered at my sharp tone, her chin raised. She stood still, a thousand flaming words yet unspoken. But in our hearts they were there. I knew. She knew.
“I will never forget you. You gave me something beautiful that I will always treasure no matter what,” she said slowly, carefully. “This I wanted you to know.”
“Go,” I begged, my voice raw.
Her shoulders eased. A hand on my chest and she leaned closer, whispered in my ear, “Adío, agápi mou.”
I shut my eyes, and she let go. Like a boat setting off from a dock, heading out to sea, my beautiful, resilient girl took off. A harsh sting snaked through me, and I winced. She vanished in the glare of the sunlight filling the glass terminal.
Gone.
Gone in the blur of my unsteady vision.
My hands jammed in my pockets, and my fingers closed around the smooth stone I’d taken from her at the beach cave at Vitáli. I shut my aching eyes, and I saw us walking the cobblestoned streets of Chóra hand in hand, the uninhibited grin on her face as she danced, her laughing at me when I was annoyed, hair flying as she put the jeep in gear and we climbed those twisting mountain roads that very first time, her body clinging to mine as we swam together in the aqua sea we’d had all to ourselves. I felt that gentle kiss in the ruins of a stone castle on a rock above the sea.
Adri. Adri. Adri the wind called to me.
“Goodbye, my love,” I whispered on that wind, repeating her words. Words that seared whatever was left of my soul, my heart. My hand went to my chest where hers had just been. I couldn’t breathe through the smoke those burning words had left behind.
Adri had made me hers forever. Adri had bound me with moonlight and jasmine, sunrises and cold wine, the press of her hand in mine, the rapture of her sigh, the warmth of her skin. I had to leave her on the other side of the globe, and if I survived, I would lift the world on my shoulders and tilt its axis to bring her back to me.
“This way, sir,” the stewardess said pointing to the door that led outside to the tarmac. I followed her to the plane that waited for me.
I was going to cross the sea again, return home. I’d risen from my battlefield, my own blood dripping from my side, and that cold elixir, truth, had finally seeped into my veins, my very bones.
Unlike Hamlet, I had no ghosts warning me, telling me what to do. No arras to hide behind. I didn’t fucking need them—I knew what I must do, and I would face my quarry eye to eye.
The rest will not be silence, Hamlet, not for me. My purpose and ire are sharpened and heavy and ready for blood. Blood speaks louder than words, young prince. Blood. His, mine, hers.
I settled in my seat, fastened my belt, refused the offer of a drink. Door sealed, the pilot spoke, engines roared, and we taxied down the runway. The plane rose in the sky, curving, and we soared above mountains, shoreline, blue, blue sea.
My heart thudded in my chest, and I closed my eyes.
High on a cliff, Adri told me a myth born of blood and saltwater, written in the tears of a man and a woman, in a blue sea far away, far, far away. A sea of pirates and conquerors. A sea of ancient heroes.
I listened, and it told tales of boldness and daring.
Of swords and cannons.
Of smoke and fire.
Of deep love and savage longing.
Of a dagger.
I heard its wild song. Alluring, unforgiving.
For me there would be no rest, none of Hamlet’s angels singing, only the flights of demons filling the night sky with their roar as I moved from under my shadows.
I am ready.
In my heart the rhythm of that song, in my blood the exultant wine.
In my hand, that dagger.
Denver
50
Turo
I froze my ass off on the never-ending flight, no matter the blankets, the heat, the hot coffee. Without the distraction of other passengers, the small plane seemed like a narrow white cave where there was no escape. Excruciating.
I slept. I didn’t sleep. Visions of my mother’s bloodied and mangled body wrestled with my sanity. Clung to me like stinging jellyfish that wouldn’t let go. Mauro’s face, swollen, smug flashed through the circuits of my exhausted brain. Valerio jeering at me. An overly made up blonde ordering veal Marsala, the smell of that cloying sweet wine sauce. Ciara stomping out of my apartment, mirror smashing in her wake. The new prostitute assuming her submissive pose in my guest bedroom.
“What can I do for you, sir? How can I please you tonight?”
Evgeny’s cruel, cold, expectant smile as he gripped Adri’s arm.
The taut chords of violins, violins, violins in the darkness.
The clink of two icy, ouzo filled glasses in the sunlight.
I felt my nakedness to the elements, the heat, the cold, the wet, the burn. I was stripped bare.
“You have a choice to make, Turo.”
My mother’s ultimatum that had once sent me reeling now gave me a rush. Yes, Mother, I’ve made my choice.
The Rocky Mountains spread out before me, and the plane’s engines groaned as we finally descended. I sat up straight in my seat and put the hood of the designer black sweatshirt hoodie jacket Alessio had given me over my head. What did Hamlet say on the boat back to Denmark from England after he’d narrowly missed assassination?
“From this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.”
Fine words. But again, no action.
I’ll show you bloody.
“Long time no see,” his voice growled at me behind a cargo warehouse at the Denver airport.
A tall, bearded, tattooed biker with a scarred face and leather gloves hiding the fact that he was missing both middle fingers stood before me, hands on his hips. A President’s patch was stitched on his worn leather jacket over his formidable body. The mere mention of his name in underground circles made people shudder. So many wild colorful rumors flew about his cruelty, his ruthles
sness.
And they were all true.
Yes, when pushed, men like Finger pushed back. Hard, brutally hard.
We both had been pushed.
“Finger,” I said, shaking his powerful hand. “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice. I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem. Not far. Figured you flying out here, asking so fucking nice, it’s big.”
“It is.”
“Hey,” Mishap said, his chin lifting. He was a smaller version of Finger, fewer tattoos, no such obvious ugly scars on the outside, but his eerily calm demeanor and terminally haunted eyes hinted at deep, ugly scars on the inside. He was an old friend of Finger’s, a former Special Forces assassin and now a special anonymous contractor for hire.
I nodded. “Mishap.”
“What do you need?” Finger asked.
“An assassination,” I replied.
Mishap’s big eyes flicked up to mine. His specialty.
“It needs to look like the Tantuccis did it,” I continued. “It has to have their signature. I have a former soldier of mine I want clipped, and I want you to use his dead body any way you see fit. There’s a Tantucci snitch I worked over recently you could use as well.”
“The target?” Finger asked.
“Mauro Guardino.”
Mishap stilled, his body tightening, his focus.
Finger said on a low whistle, “Not a small request.”
“I know.”
“Gotta ask why? All these years you’ve risen in the Outfit.”
My chest expanded. “Just a puppet with a short shelf life. He tried to have me killed, came after my family. I have to stop him before he does it again.”
“Runs deep,” Finger murmured. “Know that one. Know it real well.” His dark, almost metallic eyes held mine. “By the way, I liked the way you sent Med to hell.”
“My pleasure. Did it myself,” I said, my voice low.