Page 149 of Dagger in the Sea

She touched my arm, her fingers running over the evil eye bracelet she’d given me. “All the charms in the world won’t keep evil at bay. Nothing will. Nothing.”

“Baby—”

She pulled out of my embrace. “I have to call my parents.” She plucked at her phone, bringing it to her forehead.

“Hey.” I lifted her face to mine. “This is not your fault.”

“Isn’t it? An innocent boy is in danger for his life. My brother is trapped in my—”

“In your what? Your father’s bullshit? It’s not your fault. He’s the one who—”

“Yes, yes—he, him. My father, my blood, not Marko’s. Mine. Maybe if I’d never given him money over the years, making him think that he could use me whenever he needed me, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. A part of me always wanted to believe that we had a real relationship. If only I’d accepted the ugly truth that he can never see beyond his own needs and wants, then all this wouldn’t have touched Marko. I brought this on our house, and my mother and Petros don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve it!”

“Neither do you. All you’ve done is try to be supportive of the man who spawned you. Yeah, you could’ve turned your back on him from the very beginning, but you didn’t because you have a heart and a conscience. Because he’s your father and you love him, baby. And that’s a good thing. What could be more natural than a child wanting a parent’s love? Wanting to preserve that? Wanting more of it?”

Her glimmering eyes filled with more water, and my chest constricted. I saw myself in those eyes. I’d heard my own voice, my words.

What could be more natural?

I had lived the same yearning all my life, hadn’t I? The same striving, reaching, and the same goddamn disappointment. My strangling all that wretched want. Me striving to prove myself “worthy” of a relationship with Mauro, the Boss God. Adri hanging onto a relationship of threads at all costs. Both of us. At all costs.

So much cost. Always a ransom to pay.

“None of this is natural,” her voice rasped. “There is nothing natural about any of it.”

* * *

Adri calledher mother and she held it together the whole time. Marko had been on an overnight field trip with his school in the countryside and gotten nabbed at a restaurant. I got on the phone with Petros and explained further about Yianni’s gigantic clusterfuck. I assured him Luca with his contacts and I were on it. That they should contact the police but keep them on hold. He agreed.

I put a whisky in Adri’s hand and called Luca.

Bitter silence was his reply to my news about Marko having been kidnapped. “Fuckers took their opportunity,” he finally said.

“I want Yianni to cough up some information about his Fokas buddy. We need to have our own chat with him. Specifically, you’ll be doing the talking, Luca. You’re going to make threats that your daddy would be proud of. Show him what the Alibertis are made of. We want the ransom lowered, and the kid released without a scratch on him, and no pieces missing. You be ready in the morning by eight.”

Shutting off my phone, I finished Adri’s untouched whisky. Her gaze met mine from where she was curled up on the sofa. “Can I get you something else?” I asked her.

“Hold me.” Her voice was small but sure. I set the glass down and took her in my lap, in my arms, and my insides melted. I held her tighter, breathing in the warm scent of her skin, the fragrance of the shampoo we’d both used.

She rubbed her hands up the sides of my face, kissing me, wanting from me.

“Adri—” I grabbed her hands and held them fast.

“Make love to me, Turo. Part of me is spinning, part of me is numb. Make it stop.”

I lifted her in my arms and brought her to the bed. She clung to me, aroused, ready. I kissed her, I entered her slowly, holding her gaze in the diffused light of the small lamp we’d left on in the living room. We breathed in the same breaths, we moved inside each other, building it together. One begging, the other giving. One demanding, the other devoting. Desperate. Untamed. Beautiful.

Shattering.

Afterward, I lay there spent on the bed, Adri’s still, damp body pressed against mine, my fingers in her hair. A heavy, orange sun rose in the yellow sky over the pale blue water, and my heart, that once brittle organ that I’d fortified with fences and gates and checkpoints and clauses beat wildly in my chest.

And then it occurred to me.

Until now, I’d never realized that my heart could, all at once, feel both battered and full. Until now, I’d never realized that I had a heart that could burst.

I took in a deep breath.

A heart that could break.

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