Page 150 of Dagger in the Sea

43

Turo

First thing in the morning,I sent Adri home to her mother and Petros at their fortified fortress of a villa—round the clock security, trained guard dogs, an electric generator in case the power got cut off, new security cameras, and outdoor lighting. Petros and Liana didn’t fuck around.

Luca, Alessio, and I headed to Yianni’s apartment.

Ciro, an unsmiling six foot five don’t-even-think-about-fucking-with-me-Italian-muscle of a right-hand man with a shaved head pounded on Yianni’s door. Muttering and loud voices rose on the other side.

The door swung open, and Yanni, his full head of thick hair standing on end, a platinum blonde young woman at his back.

“What do you want? It is so early! What the hell do you think you are doing?”

Ciro grabbed him by the neck and shoved him deep into his apartment. The girlfriend screeched, her tiny black nightie fluttering over her thonged ass as she scrambled down the hallway.

“Hey! Hey!” said Yanni. “Does my daughter know you are here?” His heavily accented English was not the crisp Queen’s English of Adri, Liana, and Petros.

“Sta’zitto!”Luca shut him up as Ciro pushed him into a chair.

I planted my feet on the floor in front of Yianni. “Yes, shut up. You’ve been spewing more than enough bullshit for days now. Weeks. Years.”

Yianni slanted his head at me and Luca and Alessio. “Which one of you is fucking my daughter, eh? All of you?”

Crack.I backhanded him. “Shut the fuck up.”

Yianni’s head hung, his chest heaving for air.

“Listen to me,” I said, my voice firm. “Adri got a phone call from your friend Mr. Fokas.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? He told her where to drop off the money? I asked them, but they never returned my call.”

“Oh, did you hear that, Luca?” I said. “Yianni’s been waiting, and Fokas never returned his call.”

“Ke katz.”Luca yanked on Yianni’s hair, pulling his head back.

“They have Marko now, Adri’s brother,” I told him.

Yianni stilled, his face set in stone.

“They figured they had Adri, thanks to you,” I said. “Why not squeeze her for more? Play another hand for higher stakes.”

“How much do they want for the boy?” Yianni asked. He didn’t seem too upset by this new information. He was all business.

“Do you even know how old he is?” Alessio asked him.

“How much do they want?” Yianni only repeated.

“He’s fifteen years old,” I said. “About to be a man, still a child. Honor student, athlete. Polite, just like his father. Now he’ll be marked forever because of you, a shitbag he doesn’t even know.”

Luca studied the water polo trophies lining a shelf. “They want ten million euros.”

Yianni’s face fell, his jaw hanging like a gate blown wide open by a sudden gust of hard wind.

“We need to talk to Mr. Fokas,” I said. “And you’re going to tell us where to find him.”

“You can’t just go talk to him,” Yianni said on a sneer.

“You’re such good friends, you said, Yianni. For years, from the very beginning,” I said. “He wants this money, he’ll see us.”

---