Page 143 of Dagger in the Sea

“Don’t you ever talk to her like that,” Turo cut him off.

“This is none of your business, eh?” Yianni shot back.

“Oh, it is,” Turo replied, and a chill stole over me at the cold simplicity of his hiss. Surgical steel. “You’re the one who has no say in any of this any longer. The moment Adriana’s life was put in danger by you, she became my business. Mine to keep safe.”

The air went out of the room, and my heart stumbled in my chest. Turo’s fierce tone shred my father’s acrimony and shoved it back in his face, making him smell his own foul stench. His biting words were fangs that sank in and delivered their poison with clear cut precision.

The snake had trounced the tiger.

Perhaps it should have frightened me, his cold threatening stance, his obvious satisfaction in his victim’s withdrawal. But it didn’t. Every cell in my being tensed and pulled and cried out for him.

He’s mine.And he was standing up for my worth, for my voice. For me.

I pulled myself up to that place that was new, steadied myself, there, where I needed to be. “My mother paid your price once,” I said. “Now I will pay, and there will be no more. No more.”

Yianni only ran a hand through his unruly hair, his lips twisting. No words, no more of his words.

“How does Fokas contact you, Yianni?” Turo continued.

“On my mobile. There can be no police. He’s very connected to the police. He can find out very easily if we are working with them. No police.”

“There is no ‘we’, Yianni.” Taking my hand in his, Turo rose from the sofa. “You let us know the moment they contact you. Time, location. All of it. You leave anything out, I’ll know. I’m not forgiving like your daughter. I don’t give a fuck about forgiveness.”

* * *

I whisperedin Turo’s ear, “I don’t feel forgiving right now.”

He laid a hand on my leg in the backseat of the Porsche. “I’m sure you don’t. You have every right not to, and that’s okay, no obligation.”

“He’s scraped out what’s left of it in me. I used to think him misunderstood. A larger than life man who just could never get the right break. So handsome, charismatic, strong. But that doesn’t count for much when the going gets tough. It’s underneath that veneer that counts. He’s had lots of opportunities, lots of shining moments, but no follow through. No sense of personal responsibility. It’s as if he cannot compute those things. They simply do not occur to him naturally.”

“It doesn’t for some people. You can’t expect it to.”

“It’s difficult when it’s your father.”

“Fathers aren’t Supermen.” A heavy breath heaved from Turo’s lips, his jaw set. “They’re just another guy.”

I squeezed his hand on my leg. “Before Petros adopted me, I would stay with my father on the occasional weekend. One night he was going to take me out for pizza at one of the new American chain restaurants that had just opened in Glyfada. I was so excited. But Yianni didn’t take me to the pizzeria. We went to a café bar on the beach where a woman was waiting at a table for him. He put me at a table next to theirs, ordered me a toasted cheese sandwich, and the two of them had lots to drink and lots to laugh about. I was so disappointed, but I swallowed it. It wasn’t anything new, this crushed anticipation. We were there a while, it was late, and I fell asleep.

“When he woke me up, the lady had left, and we got back on his motorcycle to go home. I was so tired, he was drunk and driving fast, weaving around in the traffic. I still remember that feeling of hanging on to him so tightly, my legs squeezing so hard around the bike that they hurt. I couldn’t breathe the entire fifteen minutes. When we finally got home, he asked me if I’d enjoyed the ride, because I was his little “mánga”—slang for ‘tough guy.’ I didn’t want to show any fear or disappointment. He never liked that. He was all about spontaneous adrenaline rush living. So I said, “It was the best. You’re the best.”

“Why is it I remember these moments so clearly? More than when he taught me to water ski, took me jet skiing. The street fairs where he bought me all sorts of candy. The first time he took me sailing. Not those times.” My breath hitched and I averted my gaze out the window, to the palm trees whipping past us on the shore road.

Turo took my hand in his and kissed it. “Because the times he broke your heart cut deep.” His voice low, husky, his touch tender. He knew what I was talking about, and I ached that Turo knew this sort of painful cut that wouldn’t heal. I leaned my head on his shoulder.

“I get it, sweetheart.” Turo’s voice was low, soft. “I do.”

I squeezed his hand and stroked his arm.

He kissed the top of my head. “You’ve got to accept them, those bad times, and just push them to the back of the memory line. Let the good ones move up front. Stop clinging to the crap. It won’t change it, and you won’t understand them any better.”

“There’s an idea.” I’d never had this before, this genuine understanding and respect, and I wanted to offer him the same. Help him the same way he was helping me.

“Why did your mother decide on the adoption?” he asked.

I stroked the cuff of his jacket. “She had an undercover security guard following me that weekend I spent with my father. The next day she offered him money to get him to sign the papers for Petros to adopt me. She didn’t have to twist his arm. He signed and took the money.”

“I like your mother more and more.”

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