Page 181 of Dagger in the Sea

I texted her.

I’m drinking ouzo & it’s crap without you

We texted once in a while. It was immediate gratification, light check-ins, masking yearning, need. I was here, she was way the fuck over there. And that sucked, in plain English.

I checked my watch. It was four in the morning in London, so, no, she wouldn’t see my message and text me back right now. Unless she was out clubbing with friends. On a date with a man. Fucking somebody. My fingers tightened around my glass, knuckles whitening.

Alessio’s whisky arrived and he quickly took a swallow.“Grazie Dio.”He wiped at the edge of his mouth. “Don’t you miss it, Turo?”

“What’s that?”

“What you tasted in Greece.”

My eyes shot to his. A slight grin curved his lips. “Tell me you didn’t fall in love.”

I rubbed my cool, slick glass, my teeth scraping my lip. Yes, I fell in love. With Greece. With her.

Yes, yes, yes.

I cleared my throat. “She’s in London, getting her brother settled at school, working at her father’s office.”

“I know,” Alessio said, his mouth twisting. “She’s determined to start over, if you call that starting over. She said it was time to be sensible.”

“Sensible?”

He let out a dry laugh and swallowed more liquor.

Adri was trying to buckle down. For the family business. For her brother. I could imagine her buttoned up in a suit, those long legs in sleek boots or tights with heels underneath a desk. Hurrying through London’s damp streets in the coming fall. Bundling up against the chilly air, thick scarf around that glorious neck.

Fuck no.

Adri’s coppery brightness belonged in the sun, that broad smile brightening her face, warming me.

Me.

She was my sun.

My mouth dried. “Alessio, is she with someone? Is she—”

“No.”His face grew serious as if it were an impossibility beyond reason. He put down his glass, shaking his head. “When I first met Adri, she was a—how do you say—un fantasma.

“A ghost?”

“Si, a beautiful ghost. Nothing touched her. She would not let it. Wasn’t eating very much. I tried to make her laugh, and I did, but it only worked so far. She wanted me to cocoon her, I did.”

“Shut the fuck up now.”

“Listen to me, Turo—” his tone was sharp, firm. “She was doing okay for a while, floating. But that shooting in Athens—enter Turo DeMarco and everything changed. With you she began to live again. To feel things. She stood up for herself, finally faced that father of hers. I have seenuna trasformazione.”

Transformation.

“Come back to Europe, my friend,” said Alessio.

“And do what? Be her bodyguard?”

“Ah.” His head spun back, and he sent a stream of Italian curses flying to the ceiling.

“What now?”

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