Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“What are we supposed to do?” I whisper.
Luca walks over and sits beside me. His arm drapes over my shoulder and he squeezes me against him. “Move on. Live.”
“How can I do that? How do I do that when I have all these voices in my head?”
“You learn to tune them out. You learn to find your own voice in all that mess. Are you your family, Kacia?”
“No, I’m not.”
“I’m not my family either. I’m Luca, my own man. You’re Kacia, your own woman. That’s all.”
“I don’t know if it’s enough.”
“It’ll have to be.”
I lean against him and more tears flow down my cheeks. I didn’t know I could cry this much but it feels like I’ve reached the bottom of something, and now I’m turning around and beginning my climb back up toward the light, a new person entirely.
Or maybe I’m my old self, but sharpened, all the excess baggage scraped clean.
That night, I have dinner with Adrienne. We talk about what happened, but we also talk about other things like what was going on while I was missing for a few months. “Everyone was freaking out for a while, calling the American embassy in Greece, bugging the Greek ambassadors in America, all that stuff. Nothing happened. I figured you were dead.” Adrienne grins at me. Her lips are swollen and her eyes are puffy, and looking at her drags a guttural, horrible hate deep from inside my stomach, a loathing of the Russians and anyone that would hurt a woman like that. “I’m happy you’re not.”
“Honestly, I thought I was dead too. But here I am.”
“Here we are. Survivors.”
We toast and talk and laugh until Luca comes in after we’re finished. “We need to get going. Yiannis landed an hour ago and he says a couple of crime lords want to talk.”
“Tonight?” I frown and look at Adrienne. “We just got here.”
“Work can’t wait.” Luca nods at her. “Tony and Niccolo will keep an eye on Adrienne, don’t you worry.”
“Go take care of business,” Adrienne says, nudging me away. “Go on, I’ll be fine. Tony and Niccolo are decent guys.”
I kiss her cheek and follow Luca out to a waiting taxi. I’m in simple clothes, shorts and a white top, my hair is pulled up into a loose bun. I lean against Luca as the driver takes us through the crowded streets of Chania, the biggest city on the western part of the island. He stops down near the ocean and we walk through a crowded neighborhood packed with people out for drinks, visiting clubs, sitting outside of cafes, until we head into a bar, walk straight through to the back, and out onto the sand.
Yiannis is sitting at a picnic table under a large umbrella thirty yards from the ocean with three other men I don’t recognize. They’re all in dark slacks, white shirts, and look somewhat out of place in the touristy, resort-like spot they chose, but as soon as we introduce ourselves and get seated, I understand why we’re here.
It’s crowded and loud. There are groups everywhere talking, some of them drunk, some of them laughing like there’s no tomorrow, and nobody looks at us, nobody notices us. The sound of the ocean and the slight breeze helps mute everything. It’s the perfect spot to conduct a private meeting. Nobody could record a thing we said, even if everyone were wired.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Luca says.
Yiannis nods and gestures at the men. “These are the representatives of the association, or what’s left of it. Mr. Balaska, Mr. Filo, and Mr. Galatas run their respective families.”
I sit up straighter. I recognize the names, even if I don’t recognize the faces. Balaska, Filo, and Galatas are three of the more powerful crime lord families in Greece, which means this deal is suddenly a lot more potent and interesting than I expected.
“We’re here to discuss simple deal,” Balaska says. He’s got dark eyebrows and a heavyset body. “You buy our merchandise, bring it to the States, and sell it.”
“My father can handle importing and customs with no issues, so long as you can handle things on your end. You get the product onto ships here, and we’ll do the rest.”
“Simple money,” Filo agrees. “We all work together.”
“To that end, I want to ask the girl some things.” Galatas turns to me. His family was close to my father once, and I’m not surprised that he’s here, only that he came in person and didn’t send a representative. The Galatas are notoriously paranoid. “You are married to Luca, yes?”
“Yes,” I say, nodding.
He says something in Greek, frowns to himself, and waves off Yiannis who begins to translate. Galatas gestures at me then at Luca and says, “Are you happy with this?”
I blink a few times and look at Luca. That’s the question, isn’t it?