Page 39 of Dagger in the Sea

“When you come home from Mykonos, why don’t you go back to London, my darling?” Petros said, his voice taking on a firmer tone. “I really think you should consider it more seriously. Then come back in August for the month and we’ll go on holiday all together and relax and see how—”

“I don’t want to go back to London.” Adriana’s tone was incisive, piercing Petros’s goodwill balloon.

“Now would be a perfect time,” Petros insisted gently. “They don’t chase you there, and you have the office, the flat, your friends—”

“Not now,”Adriana said, a hint of sadness in her voice. Whatever London offered, it wasn’t enough for her, it wasn’t right. “Not yet. Please.” She put down her empty glass.

“Télos pándon,”Petros huffed, gesturing in the air. Was that an “oh well”? He was resigned to his daughter’s negative response.

Liana folded her arms across her chest, her elegant fingers stroking a gold medallion hanging from a long, thick chain at her neck. “Are you taking everyone to the house?”

“No, no. We’re staying on the yacht,” Adriana said.

“I know you don’t want to hear it again, Adri, but I’m going to say it one more time—” Liana said.

“What is it,Mamá?”

“You must take a security man along to Mykonos with you,” Liana said. “Your own man. You know better, you—”

“I am.” Adriana touched my arm. “Turo is my new security guard.”

Her parents and brother stared at me as if I’d suddenly transformed into a frog from a prince. “You are a security guard?” Liana’s shoulders became rigid. The interview was underway. “Is this your line of work in America? You are an experienced professional?”

An experienced professional.

My chest tightened. Old photos I hid in a drawer, postcards I’d tucked in the pages of books I would never open, now they fluttered before me.

There was the time I’d smacked a gang member with the butt of my gun, breaking his jaw because he’d set fire to the trash cans at the back of the deli where Mauro was holding court.

Me killing Joey Caliccio, my first kill and unplanned. Joey had refused to pay his protection fee to the Boss, and my then Capo, Tony, had taken me along to confront him. But Joey had played it tough, refused to pay what he’d agreed to and threatened to go to the cops. He cursed at Tony, and I shot him in the back of the head at point blank range.

“What the hell you doing?” Tony had blinked at me, Joey’s lifeless, crumpled body oozing blood between us on the cement floor.

“Disrespect, it’s the tip of the iceberg,” I’d replied, sliding the safety back into place, my shaking fingers pressing around the gun as I tucked it away.

I’m proving myself, I’m just doing what I need to do, I’d told myself over and over. It hadn’t been difficult, I didn’t think, I just did it. And I liked it. Was that what was making me shaky, the realization that this was easy for me?

Tony had shot me a grin. “True. Very true.” He pointed a finger at me. “I like that.”

I’d swallowed down the bile rising in the back of my throat at the sight of all that blood forming a puddle in the mottled floor. Ignoring the throbbing of my hand, I’d taken in a breath and held the door open for Tony to pass through as if we’d just been at the barber. Later, he told Mauro all about it. Mauro only nodded and gave me that small wink.

My professional experience was a resumé full of blood smeared faces and body parts in basements, foul smelling vans, silencers quickly fitted on guns. Hiding and holding my breath, counting, checking twice, three, four times. Plunging my knife into Med—

“Yes, I’m a professional,” I replied to Liana’s question, my voice firm, pushing back the loud memories and Liana’s prickly suspicions like an arm sweeping across a set table, clearing the surface of every item. All that was visible was gleaming, polished wood. “I’m licensed to carry a weapon and I know how to use it. I run my own business in Chicago and have a background in security and defense.”

“Alessio has his men,” Adriana said, standing next to me. “Mr. Aliberti has his security man from Miami who always travels with him, and Turo will be with me.” She held my gaze, her neck long.

Turo will be with me.

Yes, with her. And her lover, his mafia brother who’s got it in for me, and the uncle who I need to impress. Perfect.

I took in a breath under Adriana’s stare. Was I jealous? Irritated? Yes, dammit, yes, I was. I hoped it wouldn’t take too long to get to Mykonos, because if I had to listen to her moaning loudly as she and Alessio fucked, I’d need a whole bottle of that Rémy Martin to myself.

Her mother’s lips tightened, eyes narrowed. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“Mother—”

“She won’t be alone,” I said.

---