Page 137 of Dagger in the Sea

“Let me help you, Adri. We’ll go back to Athens together and resolve this.” A promise from the bottom of my dark soul. A soul that had made many threats, ultimatums, vows, but never a promise like this.

“I’m not leaving you,” I said.

But that was a promise I wouldn’t be able to fulfill.

38

Turo

Alessio insistedon leaving Mykonos and picking us up in Chóra on his yacht. We got off the launch, climbed up onto the boat, and he took Adri in his arms, murmuring in her ear, wiping a hand down her hair. I ground my jaw at the tenderness in his face, the soft waves of his Italian. Intimacy level ten, the motherfucker.

Staff appeared and took our luggage, setting the table with iced teas and coffees, a platter of crimson strawberries.

“Is Gennaro here?” asked Adri.

“No, he and Miguel stayed on at Cavo Tagoo. It’s his favorite hotel. He doesn’t need to be involved. He sends you his love,cara.”

A smile brightened her mouth for a moment but her tense gaze darted at me. She wanted me and Gennaro to come to terms, for me to get what I wanted.My Lovely.She curled her legs underneath her body on the banquette next to me and slid her sunglasses over her eyes, a cigarette at her lips as we both watched Andros receding from us. Getting smaller. Farther and farther away. A speck.

Goodbye, beautiful, magical island.

I tugged on a piece of Adri’s hair. Her chin wobbled and something scraped at the edge of my heart. Our secret escape was over. Our idyllic banishment in paradise had to come to an abrupt end. From the very beginning we both had known it wouldn’t last, but there was still something shocking about it now which sent a prickly chill right through me, made my chest heavy. I didn’t want anything to change between us. But everything was changing.

“Baby,” I breathed as I entwined her cold hand in mine, our fingers meshing tightly. I brushed her cool cheek with my lips and she leaned into me, and my breath came easier.

Alessio left us and got on his cell phone at the railing.

“Remember I told you about my baby sister who’d gotten sick?” she said, her voice raw.

“Yes.”

“She died in September. The summer before, my mother had sent me to Andros to stay with my grandparents while they took Anna-Maria to London for treatment. I hadn’t wanted to go, to leave them and my sister. Of course, my grandfather and I had a wonderful time together, it was the idyllic summer holiday, but behind it all was so much grief and worry.

“Anna-Maria died and they brought her home to bury her. Everyone thought the funeral would be too traumatic for me, so my grandparents and I stayed on the island. I felt banished, left behind, not less sad. I wanted to be with my parents, to hug them. I wanted to say goodbye to Anna-Maria, to see her one last time. I wanted—” She swallowed hard. “A week later my mother sent her assistant to bring me back to Athens, and when we got on the boat, this was how I felt crossing the sea—” She clutched at her chest. “How I feel right now. Sad and homesick at leaving Andros, and full of dread as to what I’d find at home.”

“I know you’re worried, baby, but you’re not that scared little girl anymore.”

“No,” she shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

“And you’ve got me, Lovely. You’ve got me.”

And she did. Oh, she did.

She nestled her face in my neck and breathed in. I held her tight, kissing the top of her head, a hand in her hair. This girl and her bleeding heart. She only wanted to love and be loved. But had been cut off over and over again.

Luca came up on deck and sat down next to his brother, lifting his chin at me. Adri stiffened at my side, keeping her attention on the sea.

“Tell us everything,” Alessio said.

I told them what I knew about Adri’s father and the money. A dark scowl morphed Alessio’s features. He was pissed. About daddy or that he hadn’t known before?

Luca sat back, stretching out his long legs. “Che cretíno,” he muttered, brushing a hand down a thigh.

Yeah, Daddy sounded like a real fucking prizewinning idiot.

“Can you find out who exactly these assholes are?” I asked Luca. “If they’re local only, small time, or have a wider net? And then we can figure out a plan.”

Alessio gestured at me and Luca to move our conversation away from Adri. We got up and followed him to the railing. Adri only lit another cigarette.

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