Page 49 of Vows of Revenge

But Damos’s mouth had merely tightened, his features steeled. There was a sudden hollowing in her stomach. He looked like a stranger to her. His face hard, his eyes harder.

Then Cosmo Palandrou was lurching to his feet as well, his expression ugly. He twisted his head, ignoring both Damos and herself. His focus was entirely on her father, and he was glaring at him with malevolence—a fury that contorted his ill-favoured features.

‘What the hell are you playing at, Andrakis?’ The question was a hiss, like a venomous snake.

She heard Damos’s voice. Cutting across him like a knife. Answering him.

‘Cool it—Andrakis is playing at nothing.’ His voice was dismissive.

Cosmo’s eyes flashed back across the table to Damos. He opened his mouth to speak, but Damos cut in again. His expression was still steeled, and there was a glint in his eyes too, a hardness in their depths.

His mouth twisted, and his voice changed as he spoke again. There was open mockery in it now. ‘Relax. Andrakis’s deal will still be on the table, Cosmo—if you still want to pick it up now, of course.’ He paused, holding the other man’s glaring gaze. ‘Doyou?’ he asked. It was a taunt—open and derisive.

Cosmo Palandrou surged forward across the table, rage in his face, mouthing expletives.

A cry broke from Kassia. What was happening? Dear God, what was happening? Nothing made sense—nothing at all.

Then her father was speaking. More than speaking. He was all but yelling, his features livid. And now it was not directed at Damos. It was coming at her. Right at her. Ugly and vile.

‘Slut! You shameless, whoring slut!’

She gave another cry, horror and disbelief ravening across her face.

Her father’s fisted hands slammed down on the tablecloth. ‘Thee mou! Cristos!How stupid can you be? Letting yourself be used by this...this...’

He used another word that made Kassia cry out again. But her father was storming on, his face filled with fury.

‘He’s used you—and you’re too cretinously stupid to see it!’

‘Enough!’ Damos’s voice was like a blade, slashing down. ‘You will not speak to her like that!’

Her father’s fury turned on him. ‘I will speak to mywhoreof a daughter any way I want! The whoreyou’vemade of her!’

His lashing fury moved back to Kassia, his face enraged and twisting.

‘You stupid, gullible, brainless idiot! You stand there, looking like the tart he’s made of you... But do you really think that Damos Kallinikos would have looked twice at you if you hadn’t been my daughter?’ His scorn lashed at her. ‘He wouldn’t have given you the time of day, let alone warmed his bed with you! He’s used you—made a whore of you—to get at me. Just to get at me! Attack me! Do you understand that? You imbecilic, whoring slut—’

She broke away from him, stumbling. A nightmare was enveloping her. She saw glass doors, staggered towards them blindly, hearing voices, harsh and ugly and raging, behind her. Her father’s, Cosmo’s—and Damos’s too. Slicing through the air.

She had to silence them.

But they could not be silenced. How could they?

She reached the glass doors, pushed them open, plunged forward. She was out on some kind of paved terrace, set with tables. There were a few diners only, for the evening had turned chilly. The roof garden stretched beyond, framing the distant Parthenon, illuminated as it always was by night.

A path to the right opened up between high bushes and she stumbled along it, her ankles turning in her high heels. There was a voice behind her—urgent, calling her name. She reached a little clearing set with benches and lit with ornamental lanterns. Several more paths opened up. She paused, catching her broken breath, desperate still to get away...just get away...

‘Kassia!’

Damos strode up to her. In the dim light his face looked stark. Like a stranger’s.

But hewasa stranger—a complete stranger—someone she had never known...

Till now. Till this nightmare.

He tried to reach for her arm, but she jerked away.

‘Get away from me!’

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