Chapter Two
Corfu glittered like a jewel down the glowing coast as Zervou waited for his dinner companion. The air was salty and sweet, everything around him quiet. It was a relaxing counterpoint to his usual type of estate.
He had bought this one with the sole excuse to woo Ariadne into his plan, but perhaps he would keep it even after. Most of the properties he owned he had chosen for their proximity to a bustling, exciting nightlife. Zervou liked to keep himself busy.
Perhaps age was creeping upon him as everyone had always warned if he was suddenly interested in peace for the first time.
But there would be no peace until the germ of Erjon Hyseni was rotting in a jail cell for the rest of his days.
Zervou had a feeling the intriguing Ariadne was just the woman to finally make this so.
She would come. He had no doubts about that. She was a smart woman, clearly, not jumping at the bait without thinking it through.
But she would not be able to resist the money.
He’d done his homework on Ariadne Malis.
She had managed to scrape together a living by boxing and working at the boxing gym—teaching mostly these days.
But all her money went to caring for her mother.
A woman who, by all accounts, liked drink and gambling more than she liked caring for her daughter.
Which made Ariadne’s money situation even more fraught.
She would come. She would not be able to help herself. Zervou knew this with as much certainty as he had in him.
The only thing he did not know was if she was aware her father was such a despicable man. If she knew his identity at all.
He would find out tonight.
“Mr. Kritikos, your guest has arrived.”
“Thank you, Bacchus. Bring her here and let the kitchens know I’d like our dinner to be served out here as well. It is a nice evening.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bacchus disappeared and in a few minutes returned with Ariadne.
She was dressed, he believed somewhat defiantly, in low, over-size cargo pants and heavy-soled boots paired with a formfitting black tank top.
Her dark hair—wavy and interesting—was pulled back in a much more haphazard manner than it had been at the gym, so it spilled down her back, even if it was up away from her face.
If she wore any makeup, it was done with a light hand.
Freckles popped out across her nose next to a thin, gold hoop that matched the array of ones up the lobe of her ear.
She gave off a much different aura this evening. Casual. Young. Aside from the obvious musculature of her arms, and the slightly crooked bent of her nose, one might never guess she spent so much of her time trading punches.
Zervou had his choice of elegant, sophisticated, intelligent and beautiful women the world over. He’d chosen well, on more than one occasion, and enjoyed satisfying affairs with many of them.
It was a slight irritation that she was the first one to truly fascinate him in a long time.
“You don’t live in Corfu,” she said by way of greeting.
“How do you know?”
“I know who you are. And I would have heard if you lived here.”
“I purchased this estate last week,” he said, making a gesture to encompass the large balcony that stretched out over the town below. “It will not be my permanent address, but I’d like to keep a closer eye on the stadium as it is built.”
“And this required buying an entire estate?”
“Fysiká.”
She did not roll her eyes but somehow gave the impression of such.
She made a production of looking around the terrace.
A table was set up for dinner as the evening was nice, the breeze calm instead of irritating.
Bacchus poured the wine and then disappeared inside.
No doubt to signal to the rest of the waitstaff that they were ready for the first course.
“Come, Ms. Milas. Have a seat.”
She stayed exactly where she was, though she crossed her arms over her chest. It caused the gap between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her pants to widen and the little gold hoop at her belly button to sparkle in the low light of the terrace and the silvery illumination of the moon bouncing off the sea.
She was a beauty. It was impossible to deny. Interesting and sharp with it. She would stand out, no doubt. Even if he did not reveal her parentage, there would be talk of the new woman he had on his arm.
Once she agreed.
Which she would.
The waitstaff appeared, then paused when they realized no one was sitting. Zervou motioned for them to put the plates down on the table anyway. He watched as Ariadne followed the plates with her eyes.
There was greed in her gaze, but she still held herself back. Studying, assessing, no doubt looking for the dagger she seemed to think would come. But she was here.
So Zervou approached the table, pulled her chair out, but did not wait for her to sit. Instead, he took his own seat and made a bit of a show of shaking out his napkin and placing it over his knee.
Then he slipped the envelope of money out of his pocket and placed it at the center of the table. “Here is your payment.”
He did not watch her as he chose what to put on his plate. His chef had put together a variety of appetizers, and Zervou planned to enjoy himself even if Ariadne spent the whole evening skulking about the edges of the shadows on the terrace.
“And what’s to stop me from simply taking the money and running?” Ariadne asked after he’d filled his plate.
He glanced up at her. Took his time taking a bite of the melitzana before responding. “Nothing, of course.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s it? Nothing.”
He lifted a negligent shoulder. “I told you I would pay you for coming to dinner. You came. So there is your money. If you are interested in more, then you will stay and eat. I have a proposition for you.”
Something in her expression darkened. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
He chuckled in spite of himself. She thought she knew who and what he was because of the fools she’d no doubt dealt with in her life. But she did not know Zervou Kritikos, clearly. “It does not involve sex.”
She eyed him a bit warily. Distrust but perhaps not full-on disbelief. “Then what does it involve?”
He had considered this part carefully. For a while, he’d even planned to romance her. Convince her it was all real. But that had felt a bit too much like leaving a victim in his wake. Zervou believed in revenge and retribution, but he did not believe in collateral damage. Not when he had been such.
So, he went with the truth. A direct kind of truth seemed to suit her anyway. It was its own kind of blow. Would she dodge it? Return her own? He couldn’t wait to find out.
“Your father.”
He watched as her entire body stilled with tension. She tried to remain relaxed on the outside, but something about the word father certainly surprised her. If they were boxing, he’d have landed a blow.
So he added the rest, a one-two punch, so to speak. “And revenge.”
Her chin came up. Her eyes flashing. Ready to deliver the return blow. He found himself smiling.
“I do not have a father,” she said flatly.
He tilted his head and considered her, the smile still on his face. He did love a spar. “Then I suppose the name Erjon Hyseni means nothing to you.”
He could see it flash in her eyes. She knew. Which made his plan that much easier to implement.
He settled back in his chair, sipped his wine and knew he would enjoy this bout.
Ari had to bite her tongue to keep from demanding how he knew who her father was. He had to be in some kind of business with her father to know that because Erjon and her mother were the only ones who knew.
Weren’t they? That had always been her understanding, but Ari knew that no matter what facts she managed to scrabble together, it was never the whole story. Never the whole truth.
Except one simple fact.
Her father was an evil man who had assaulted her mother. Who had made her childhood a violent jungle gym of threats and fear. Until ten years ago when he had disappeared, gone into hiding, leaving her only with the threat of his return someday.
That had given her time to build herself into the kind of machine who would deal with any threat.
But she hadn’t seen this silk dagger coming—she could admit she’d expected some kind of sexual proposition. Or maybe something to do with boxing. She knew that most men saw that as the two things she had to offer.
Perhaps she should have known Zervou Kritikos would not follow most.
Any mention of her father should certainly send her running.
She should grab the envelope and walk out, but the smell of dinner was wafting in the air, and she had not eaten much today.
Mother had somehow convinced the grocer to give her alcohol in place of Ari’s standing order of food for the week.
It left her in a tight spot—not just financially but in terms of now needing to find a new grocer to make a deal with.
She hoped the sound of her stomach growling did not reach Zervou. That would be embarrassing, and whatever this was, however he knew about Erjon, to show any weakness to this man would be a death sentence. She didn’t need to know anything to know that.
But was there any use denying the truth?
Even if she didn’t think he should know it.
She wasn’t worried about keeping the secret.
Not in the way most people might. Because when she ended her father and his threats and the shadow he’d created over her and her mother’s life, she would want everyone to know why.
“You see, Hyseni murdered my father, in cold blood,” Zervou said, as if commenting on the weather. “In front of my mother. When I was just a boy.”
For a moment, good sense warred with a soft heart. It was easy to think a man with his wealth and power had never suffered, but she knew better. Life was suffering.
And though she could not imagine the powerful man before her as anything so small and inconsequential as a boy, she could picture a child in that position. And she knew just how much children suffered.