Page 71 of Dagger in the Sea

“I don’t forget,” replied Luca.

Berezin’s gaze took in the three of us. He was turned on by our portrait of a ménage.

“Gospodny Berezin—”Adri said, and a chill stole up my spine. Luca and Evgeny’s eyes narrowed at her while she spoke to Berezin in Russian. Evenly, confidently.

Go, baby.

“We’ve met before,” she continued in English, her voice clear.

Evgeny’s eyes grew larger. “Oh?” He was almost amused that she’d spoken to him. After all, pussy wasn’t supposed to talk. Only giggle, moan, and open wide.

“My father introduced us. Petros Lavrentios. It was last year in Paris,” she said.

Berezin’s hard eyes darted at Luca for a beat then back to Adri. “Ah, yes.” His arms stretched out in the air then came together on aclap. “I remember. That small restaurant by the Ritz. Terrible food.” He made a clownish face.

Adri laughed softly. “Yes, it wasn’t very good. Marina and I were at the same table. We talked about her plans for her birthday party in Greece. So full of ideas. It was wonderful to see her again tonight at the party. Is she coming back here tonight?”

Not a tremble in her clear, smooth voice. Only a feminine strength in a gentle inquiry, an inquiry that held weight, had substance. Evgeny crossed his arms. Luca remained still. With one swoop, Adriana had defused the situation, put us all on a different game board.

Had Luca intended to offer her to Berezin as a sexual favor or to use her name and his association with her? Whatever it was, I hated him for it. Fucking hated him.

“No, she’s staying at a resort on the island with her friends,” Berezin said, sniffing in air. “Come. Dance with me,” Evgeny said, standing up, adjusting his suit jacket.

“Adri—” I didn’t get much further.

“It’s all right,” she murmured, letting go of me, rising from the sofa.

The loss of her heat beside me, the sight of her striding toward Evgeny made my chest crush together. She didn’t take his outstretched hand but walked beside him to the dance floor by the pool talking, surely in Russian, as they went.

I moved next to Luca. “I’m going to cut your balls off the second we get off this boat, do I make myself clear?”

Luca met my hard gaze with one of his own.

“You need me and Adriana to grease his ass for you, is that it?” I asked.

Luca let out a breath, pressing back into the sofa. “My father has been buying petrol from Evgeny for years. Last New Year’s he caught me with his daughter and he’s never forgiven me. He wants her fucking aristocrats, not working class southern European men like me. I’ve got too much dirt under my fingernails for him. He forgets where he came from.”

“Ah, Luca.”

“Oh, she’s no innocent. The point is, I need to smooth things over with him.”

We both focused on Adri and Evgeny talking as they danced. “How do you plan on doing that?” I asked, my voice tense watching Evgeny’s arm around Adri’s bare back.

“Offering him a cut of my new business venture. Counterfeit designer goods—handbags, sunglasses, wallets, belts, shoes. Used to be that shit was sold only on the streets in certain neighborhoods of big cities by African immigrants. But now with the internet exploding, that is all changing.”

“Online shopping.”

“Yes. People want bargains and they want the top brands from the privacy of their own home. Demand increases, and if you make it available, they will buy.

“And you can’t tell the difference between a fake and a real piece on the computer screen.”

“That’s the best part. You have to be able to inspect the stitching, feel the material, smell it. Can’t do that on a computer. Even so, fakes aren’t as obviously shitty as they used to be. Now, it’s hard to tell the difference between a real one and aimitazione.”

“The products are coming from China?”

“Yes.” He let out a dry chuckle as he lit a cigarette. “Sometimes from the same factories where the real goods are being made.”

My gaze fell to the coke splayed out on the table. Gone was the pure narcotics trafficking of old. Luca and Alessio’s father and grandfather had risen to power and notoriety on their cocaine and heroin distribution successes in southern Italy and Europe. Now Luca was taking the business into multinational corporate mode. That was vision for the future.

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