Page 140 of Dagger in the Sea

“Who are they?” asked Turo.

“Here, it is very common to loan money to businessmen. Many want to expand—make their restaurant or store bigger, more fancy. Or open another one. It is normal.”

“Normal,” I repeated. “Going to the bank and applying for a loan is normal.”

“Élla moré tóra,” Yianni scoffed, his tone cutting, and my insides twisted at the familiar dismissiveness. “The banks don’t cooperate, they take forever. You don’t understand these things, Adri.”

“No, I couldn’t possibly understand,” I muttered.

I couldn’t understand because I was a girl. I couldn’t understand because I was a very rich girl. I was only good for providing some of that “rich” to him. That ages old disdain of his pricked at me like thorns ripping at my skin. Turo pressed the side of his thigh into mine.

“And what kind of business were you getting your loan for, Yianni?” Turo asked.

“We found a yacht to buy. My partners and I planned on making it a nightclub for private parties.”

“And what happened to the sailboats you were skippering tourists to the islands for weeks at a time?” I asked. “Are you still doing that?”

“Eh.The rentals have been okay.”

“What kind of rentals?” Turo asked.

“Many French and German families, Scandinavians rent the sailboat and hire me to be captain. I take them to different islands depending on the weather. They love it.”

“It’s still going well, isn’t it?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m tired of it.”

Of course he was. It wasn’t bright enough, spotlight enough. Sexy enough.

“Anyway, it’s only in the spring and summer,” he continued. “The club yacht would be all year round. The Olympics are coming next year, so many foreigners will be here. There will be a demand for this sort of nightclub.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Turo said.

“It is a great idea.” Yianni lifted his shoulders, straightened his back. “The party yacht is for another kind of client—the rich Greek, Greek companies having parties, foreign companies, the celebrities having parties. The time is now for this sort of thing. Soon there will be great demand with all the foreign sponsors coming here. With the people I know—the athletes, the singers, the businessmen, the politicians.Phhh. They all always want something unique, and they all want to show off Greece.”

My father and his business vision.

“You went to them for money for this idea?” Turo asked.

“Ne.”Yianni was exasperated with our questions. “My other two partners had bought the boat, and I would put in the money needed to fix it up. That was my part, that was our agreement. Adri gave me some money, and I borrowed the rest from these friends.”

“I thought you’d said that married girlfriend of yours would give you—”

“Eh kalá.” His hand whipped in the air once more, swatting at my impertinent flies. “She gave me some money, not all of it. I got the rest from him. He knows me.” He lit another cigarette and dragged deeply, his eyes boring into mine, making his point. “But this, this now is much more money. It’s…impossible.”

Impossible.

Impossible? Suddenly beyond his sphere of control? Therefore, not his problem?

I ground my teeth. He was well aware how serious all this was, how insane the sum was. They’d come after me to make sure he understood how serious. He’d been all emotional and penitent on the phone with me, but now? Now he was making his pitch, defiant, vehement to the last.

“How could you have agreed to borrowing so much money?” I asked. “Did you not wonder how you would pay back this bloody huge sum?” my voice sharpened.

My father only smoked in silence, seemingly unfazed, not frazzled. Consequences were a messy afterthought for him, like litter on the beach. You ignore it, walk by it, it’s not your responsibility, not your problem. That is, until you wanted to go swimming and the reality of wading through all that trash in the water was disgusting.

How could he not be in a panic over this fiasco he’d gotten himself into?

Because he was sure I would take care of it for him.

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