“She is perfect,” Zervou said to both men. “I will be at the car. Bring her to me when she is ready.” Then, without another look back, Zervou left the gym.
Certain this was the beginning of everything he’d been waiting for.
Ari focused on the routine she used after every practice bout: rehash with her sparring partner and their coach, stretch, shower and change into her street clothes. She did not rush through it, even knowing those men were waiting for her.
She had learned early and well that if she let men set the pace of her life, she would end up at the bottom of their shoe. She would be scraped off no one’s boot in this lifetime. Never again.
At first when the three men had arrived, she’d wondered if her father’s threats had finally come to call. She’d nearly taken a jab to the chin for the distraction. She’d quickly dismissed it, getting back into her fight. She might havehopedit was her father’s henchmen, but the tallest man was too recognizable.
Zervou Kritikos was well-known in Corfu these days—probably well-known across Europe, though Ari’s life was small and existed in the city limits of her hometown. Her entire life was this boxing gym, the modest apartment she shared with her mother and not much else.
Kritikos’s company was some kind of stadium business. Ari had never paid much mind to what exactly they did. She just knew that what had begun with building music venues had recently expanded into sport. Something she knew the owner of the boxing gym hoped would include hosting boxing matches once it was completed.
Ari had not come to boxing for money or fame. She had come to save herself. And fallen in love with a brutal sport that would eventually be too brutal to continue. There was something about the ephemeral nature of it all—a young person’s game that you either gave up or it ate you up—that appealed to Ari’s fatalistic view of life.
Because her life was a series of hourglasses slowly running out. Her father would not be in hiding forever.
Some day, I will return. And everything you are will be owned by me.
She had not responded to her father’s threat at the time—she’d still had hope that her obedience might save her mother back then. But inwardly she had promised herself one thing.
Never.
But whoever these men today were, it was not Erjon come to collect. So, she supposed she needed to face it head-on.
Now dressed, she hefted her duffel on her shoulder and was unsurprised to find two large men in clearly expensive suits and dark glasses waiting for her right outside the locker room door.
One was concealing a gun. The other was not. Ari always made sure to clock a man’s weapons against her.
She looked up at the men blocking her way. Not with belligerence. Belligerence often spoke of weakness, and Ari was confident in her own strength. She knew her place in the world. So she looked at these men with boredom. “Is there a reason you two are standing in my way like hulking statues?” she asked pleasantly enough.
The two men exchanged glances. “You will come with us.”
“And why would I do that?”
“I am sure you saw who watched your fight.”
“Many people like to watch me fight.” She flashed them a grin. “I’m quite exciting.”
Neither of them betrayed so much as a flicker of annoyance.
“Mr. Kritikos has a business proposition to present you, if you will come with us.”
Ari considered being difficult. She enjoyed being difficult when the moment called for it. She could pretend she didn’t know who Mr. Kritikos was. Pretend she wasn’t interested.
But a woman in her position couldn’t always afford to pretend. Knowing that Mr. Kritikos was expanding into sport meant this was likely about boxing, which meant she would listen to hisbusiness proposition. Didn’t mean she had to take it. She made a gesture toward the front of the gym. “After you, gentlemen.”
That almost got the flicker of a frown out of the taller one. She’d consider that a success.
They led her out of the gym and into a sparkling, sunny afternoon. The briny air was much warmer than when she’d walked in to train before the sun had come up.
The two suited men had to be sweltering, but they led her to where Zervou Kritikos stood next to a shiny car she was no doubt meant to be impressed by. But Ari knew nothing about cars or whatever designer labels he was likely wearing.
She knew about boxing and survival.
And men. Though she mostly boxed other women in actual bouts, often her training partners were men. She spent an unreasonable amount of time in male-dominated spaces, even if there were other female boxers about.
Still, Zervou Kritikos standing here on the grimy street in front of a boxing gym seemed all wrong. He was…like a myth, this titan of industry with more money than her entire ancestral line had probably ever seen put together. He seemed like someone who would turn to dust just by walking down a street in an area such as this. People spit on the streets here, stumbled drunk down alleys, committed unspeakable crimes.
