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Father regains himself and fires at me. The bullet hits the dead guard instead as I shove the bloody corpse toward Rastus. The old Filo boss careens back from the table, his cigar flying from his mouth, and Adrienne leaps at him and punches him in the nose wildly. He grunts and topples to the ground, hitting the floor hard.
“Adrienne!” I rush Father and smash the gun into his face before he can gather himself and take another shot. He drops with a grunt, my old man, my slow old father, and I grab Adrienne’s hand, pulling her away.
We run. Gunshots go off, blasting into the walls behind us. The guards outside are barreling back in now. One’s up ahead near the door and I shoot him twice before he has the chance to do the same to me. Adrienne’s shaking, but she’s running, and we burst through the door together. The front yard is clear—they couldn’t station armed men in broad daylight—and the way to the car is open.
Adrienne’s in first and I throw the car keys at her. I turn and fire at the house to keep the guards chasing us away. Once she’s buckled and the car’s running, I jump in behind the wheel, jam the pedal down, and peel out. The car races forward, leaving the bloodbath behind.
I’m shaking with adrenaline as it burns in my veins. Adrienne says nothing, only sits and stares white-faced and horrified at having witnessed two murders. I drive at random, making sure nobody’s following, before I pull over in a crowded part of the city with lots of people around.
Adrienne looks at me and I know what she’s thinking.
“They’re going to come for us,” she says and her voice is right on the edge of panic. “Your father and Filo. They’re going to come.”
“At least I know that now. We can make plans and figure out what to do.”
“How, Peter? We barely got out of there. How did that happen?”
“My father hesitated.” I look away, out the window at the mass of people. Maybe he does love me the way a father can love a son. Maybe it was sentiment or weakness. I don’t know why he didn’t pull the trigger when he had the chance. He could’ve avoided all this, but he didn’t. “He gave me the opening I needed.”
“Just like you taught me.”
“Take the opening and don’t hesitate. That’s what it’s all about.” I take her hand in mine and squeeze it. “We’ll go back to Athens. From there, you can get on a plane—”
“Peter.” Her voice is hard and I know her well enough not to argue. It won’t get us anywhere right now.
“From there, we can figure out what to do.”
“Fuck.” She leans her head back. “I hit Rastus in the face.”
“You did.”
“It felt really good.” She closes her eyes and sucks in a breath through her nose. “Really fucking good.”
“I loved watching it.”
She turns her face to mine and grins. Her eyes are shiny with tears and she’d giddy on fear and adrenaline, like me.
I touch her face and kiss her slowly.
“My little killer,” I whisper and bite her lip gently. “You punched a crime lord in the face. Not many people get to do that, you know.”
“Are you proud of me?”
“So proud, agapi mou. But let’s get moving before they have time to regroup and start making it hard for us to get off the island.” I put the car into drive again and pull out, a plan beginning to form. An ugly plan, but a path forward.
Chapter15
Adrienne
Cold wind whips through my hair. I stand at the railing staring out at the water. The sun’s down and the moon’s tall in the sky and the darkness makes the waves look like ink. I think of that party, what feels like forever ago, the first night I met Katarin and all this started.
Back then, I wanted to swim out into the open ocean and let the water swallow me. I couldn’t bring myself back from the torture and the pain of what happened with the Russians. I thought I was too broken and ruined to be any use to anyone again and that I’d always be haunted and a pathetic shell of my former self. I couldn’t imagine getting better.
Now it’s like I’m a different person. My fingers are callused from hard work. My knuckles are bruised from hitting a Greek crime lord right in the face. I still have bruises like I did back then—but these are good bruises. Happy bruises.
And there are the other marks. The mark on my throat. The mark on my bare ass cheek. Marks from Peter’s hands and lips and teeth. I shiver and smile to myself, and the desire to plunge into the darkness is gone, completely gone.
But what am I left with now?
