Page 31 of The Seller

He agrees, rising to his feet. His breathing is halting and short and I can tell he must be in agony. Goddamnit. I almost wish I had shot one of them, but that wouldn’t have changed anything. These are brutal men and they play brutal games and Stavros should have known better than to come here alone.

We leave the church and I do my best to get him back to the car. The SUVs are gone as promised, but they’re probably not that far away, all things considered. If I know the way these people operate, they’ve gone to get more men and more guns. When they come back, if they find us still here, they’ll take me by force and they’ll kill Stavros. The only reason they didn’t kill him right away is because they were trying to find out where I was. Now they know. All his money and all his men won’t help him in this remote town where nothing lawful or holy is respected.

“Why did you come for me?” Stavros grunts the question.

“I thought you might like to not be beaten to death.”

“You could have gotten away.”

“I still intend to, but I couldn’t let my dude-sel in distress die, could I?”

He manages a quirk of his lips, even though he is in obvious pain. Every step must be hell for him, but he makes it to the waiting car before he goes white as a sheet and passes out in the back seat.

“Guess I’m driving then.”

“Sirios,” he says, regaining consciousness long enough to make me jump.

“Jesus, don’t do that! And don’t call me that.”

“You’re Salvatore Medici’s daughter.”

“Don’t say his name.”

He grunts and falls silent. I expected more of an argument, but I don’t think he is in any state to argue with me. They worked him over pretty efficiently. I’d feel sorry for him, but I don’t want to feel anything for him. He and I are about to be done forever.

“You used me,” he groans from the back.

“You were going to use me,” I say. “You still are. You’ll get your money, Stavros.”

“I want the truth,” he grunts as I send the car off at high speed. We need to get as far away from here as possible as quickly as possible. To hell with speed limits.

“You want the truth? Alright. Here’s the truth. My name is Sirios Medici. I was born the seventh of seven daughters to Salvatore Medici - a man whose name is synonymous with crime throughout Italy. I was studying in New York when the man my father promised me to when I was twelve years old decided we should be married in spring.” I’m talking like I’m an encyclopedia, but there’s a reason I speak this way when I talk about these matters. If I let myself feel anything, I might start to break down.

“He decided who you were going to marry when you were twelve? Another boy, or…”

“Don Corelli.”

In the small sliver of rear view mirror, Stavros’ face is a mask of restrained horror.

“Yeah,” I say.

“I was at school in New York when my father called me and told me it was going to be a spring wedding. I’d almost forgotten about the whole thing.”

“You told him you didn’t want to get married?”

“Yeah. He didn’t listen.”

My father literally acted as though I hadn’t spoken at all when I told him on the phone that I wasn’t interested in upholding a promise he’d made on my behalf a lifetime ago. I think he might have actually not heard me. The notion of my refusing to carry out his will was probably so unthinkable it didn’t even make it through to his brain.

“So you decided to come to Athens, pretend to be going along with his plans, and instead you used whatever contacts you had to get yourself picked up and put into my supply line,” Stavros says, filling in the blanks.

“It wasn’t as simple as just running away,” I nod. “That wouldn’t have worked. I would have been found. I needed to work with someone who knew how to erase a woman from the face of the Earth - and that’s where you came in.”

I glance back at him to gauge his reaction. Does he hate me for using him? Or is he casting himself as my hero? Turns out, neither. He has passed out again, either from his wounds or from pain. I’m alone with the man I just saved, the man who I once trusted to sell me.

“I guess I’m going to have to organize that myself too,” I murmur, turning the car further inland. The contact Stavros got an email from is a real person with real money, but he’s not looking to actually buy me. He was just part of the plan, someone I funded to act as buyer. Maybe he’s compromised too, but maybe not. Maybe I can still get the hell out of Greece before I end up at the altar.

Chapter 7

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