Page 28 of The Seller

“I’m offering you the most logical resolution to this situation,” I tell him. “I’m telling you to do what you were going to do all along anyway.”

“My home was just raided. We could have both been killed…”

“You could have been killed,” I correct him.

“Not you?”

“No. I’m too valuable,” I sigh. “Listen. You wanted to go to Athens. I told you not to. Now I’m telling you to check your email as soon as you can, and take the offer you find there. You can refuse to listen to me again and take your chance with the inevitable men with guns if you like.”

“That isn’t how this works,” he growls.

“It’s not?”

“No,” he says. “You don’t determine your buyer. Hell, there was no way for you to even know you were going to be on the market…”

He trails off as the cogs in his mind start to whirr. Oh, yeah, little bits and pieces are starting to fall into place for him now.

“Or did you,” he says, his dark eyes narrowed on me. “Did you, somehow… some-fucking-way, manage to get yourself picked up and taken to me?”

“That seems unlikely,” I deadpan.

“I don’t think so. I think that’s the most logical thing I can conclude.”

I fall silent. I’ve told him what he needs to know. If he wants to waste time and fuck around and get himself killed, that’s on him. It would be a pity, I suppose, of sorts, but my life is on the line too. I’m so fucking close to getting what I’ve wanted for years. I’m not going to go and blow it all now by falling for some guy and spilling my guts and ruining everything.

Stavros seems to have made a decision too. He activates the motor again and heads the boat along the coastline. I press my lips together to stop myself from talking. Anything I say now is going to make things worse.

I’ve become attached to him over these few days in spite of our chaotic energy. There is a spark of lust between us which makes his touch welcome even when I hiss and spit at him, and I do not expect to find it with any other man. No doubt, it is his ruthless, reckless, lawless nature which makes me respond to him. He is everything I shouldn’t want. Everything I refuse to need.

He has been in charge since the beginning, but I’m the one who is getting my way. Now his place has been raided, I’m certain the offer will have come through. When I was making sure I’d be sold, there were several trigger conditions for the email to be sent. Massive fucking firefight in residential Athens definitely counts.

We reach a quiet backwater an hour or so later, where a moonlit path winds up to a small house on a hill. The quaint exterior belies a technologically advanced interior, containing, among other things, a laptop.

Stavros checks his email while I lounge in a chair outside, looking up at the stars and trying to stay calm.

“Siri!” He calls my name, summoning me to my feet. When I walk into the cottage, I see him sitting at a table which is too small for his bulk, drumming his fingers on the olive wood table top.

“Why do I have an offer for two million dollars for you?”

“Maybe I’m worth it.”

“Maybe you’re fucking with me.”

“Maybe you take the money and stop asking questions,” I say, putting a little steel into my tone. I need him to comply, and quickly. The attack on his home in Athens tells me I am being tracked. He needs to move me out of the country before the people who blasted into his home find me and this all turns out to be one big waste of time.

Chapter 6

Siri

It took almost an hour of him cursing and demanding to know what was going on and me reminding him that men with very big guns were on their way before Stavros took the deal in the email. I knew he would.

Money talks and bullshit walks, and he’s going to need a whole lot of money to deal with the bullshit that happened at his place.

I’m happy to finally be on my way, but in spite of the big pay day, he has been cold toward me since the deal was struck.

I don’t know why he’s so unhappy about it. This is his entire business model. Steal a girl, find a buyer, profit. Of course, it’s not happening on his terms, and his home has been damaged in the process, but that’s not my fault. I tried to tell him. He failed to listen.

The afternoon after the attack, two cars arrive at the little cottage. The driver gets out of the first one, gets into the second and leaves, leaving us with the transport we’ll take to the hand-off location. Stavros doesn’t even speak to me as he gets into the driver’s seat. I get in the other side. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on, but a few words wouldn’t hurt.

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