Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
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.
Chapter 15
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?
“You shouldn’t stay out here all night, you know.” Peter joins me at the railing. He stands close and blocks some of the wind, and I lean my head against his shoulder.
“We’ve still got a few hours before we make it back to Athens. Think your dad and Rastus will be waiting?”
“I doubt it. The ferry isn’t very popular. I can’t imagine he’d guess we’d go back by boat.”
“What are we going to do once we dock?”
He’s quiet for a moment and doesn’t reply.
It’s like I’ve finally managed to piece my internal self back together, only for everything around me to go spinning into chaos. I’m not the same person I was before I came to Greece with Peter and met my sister, but I feel like I’m a better version. But we’re so much worse off now than we were before.
Peter’s father wants to kill us. Rastus Filo wants to kill us. Who knows who else wants to help them. Balaska is still on our side—Peter called and told him what happened, and he still wants to move forward with our plans—and I think Reina will be too, though it’s hard to say if she’s on any sides exactly. Even still, what felt like something we could do together is rapidly becoming so complicated I’m not sure we’ll make it out the other side alive, much less intact.
“It seems like we don’t have much choice, doesn’t it?” I stand on my toes and kiss his neck. It’s warm and the stubble tickles my lips. “We have to keep going.”
“You’re right. I have to keep going.”