He pulled her into his arms and ignored the sudden tightness in his own skin.
“Is everything all right?” she asked him, letting herself be led in the dance. “You look angry.”
He tried to smooth out his expression. Of course he wasn’t angry. He had next steps in their plan. He was…determined.
He swept her in a turn and ignored the punch of lust and feeling at the smell of her waving over him like a restful cloud.
“There has been someone keeping tabs on you,” he told her, matter-of-fact. “A member of the Petrov family. A family your father worked with years ago. He was watching you back in Corfu at the gym, and since we left, he headed to Athens to meet with another unknown. It is a lead.”
He could feel her gaze on his, but he kept his on the room around them.
“Years ago, as when he killed your father?” she asked softly.
He couldn’t wonder at how easily she put together that connection, but still he stiffened against it. “Yes.”
“And you did not eradicate them?”
Ah, she knew him well. “I undercut much of the Petrov family’s influence. The main perpetrators are behind bars, and one was killed in some in-fighting during a raid. Perhaps they were who Erjon worked for, but he made the choice to kill my father in the shakedown. So he is my main target. Everyone else of import has been taken care of.”
She was quiet for a few moments, and he dared a glance down at her. Her expression was pensive.
“If someone is keeping tabs on me,” she said thoughtfully, “that means Erjon has sent someone to do his dirty work.”
“Yes, perhaps more than one. But we are on the trail now. Erjon is eating up the crumbs we’re leaving him. It is forward movement.”
Ari nodded, then looked up at him. “Will you pull him out of hiding if he doesn’t come himself?”
“I believe he won’t be able to resist coming himself, but even if he doesn’t do it of his own volition, we will drag him into the light.”
“You would go on the attack without drawing him out?”
Zervou shrugged. Truth be told, his plans all seemed oddly nebulous now. But he knew the steps. He’d plotted them out before he’d even discovered Ari’s existence. “It is not attack, per se. I have the evidence needed to put him away forever. The money to ensure justice is served regardless of the system. If we have to go into his lair and drag him out, it will be done. We only need to find him. And we are that much closer.”
The song ended, and dessert was served in the grand dining room. They sat down, and Zervou forced himself to speak with a couple who had some questions about his holdings in Marseille. He put the businessman mask on. He did his duty.
Ari did not. She spent her time looking off in the distance. She toyed with her dessert without eating, and he didn’t think this time it had anything to do with worry over her upcoming fight.
When some of the people had filtered away, and they were alone at their end of the table, he leaned toward her. Bystanders would see a couple sharing an intimate conversation. He supposed they wouldn’t be wrong.
“What is on your mind?”
Her gaze moved from the window to her plate. She set down the fork. “It’s strange. Ever since I was a teen, I dreamed of revenge, of retribution. But now that it is seemingly within reach, I wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
Her eyes lifted to his now. Her expression serious, perhaps…lost. She looked young and in need of direction. He had never seen that from her before. But her words weren’t naive or youthful. They were more mature than anything he’d been thinking.
“What is on the other side of revenge? Of him finally seeing a jail cell? I try to picture it, feel some satisfaction, but it is just…blank. What changes if he’s put away forever? What’s different than the past decade?”
What if.Zervou did not like what-ifs. He did not like these feelings inside of him. So he made sure his mouth curved, even if it was more grimace than smile. “Second thoughts, Ari?”
“No, it isn’t like that.” She shook her head. “He deserves to rot in jail. It isn’t so much about him. I’m just…thinking aloud. Beyond.”
“Why should we think beyond our revenge?” he demanded, quietly but intensely. Revenge had been moving him forward for years. Revenge and taking care of what had been left in wreckage. What more could there be?
But now she’d introduced this strange, murkyafter. Where he would have avenged everything.
And still, his mother would not accept his help.
