Chapter Eight
They returned to Corfu after a few beautiful days in Mykonos. Zervou dropped Ariadne off at her little hovel of an apartment and, since she was busy during the day with her training and teaching, planned a week of dinners.
Then found himself somewhat restless when he dropped her off every night in this unsafe neighborhood. He had his security team develop a detail to ensure she was safe—in the apartment, on her way to and from the gym or the store or whatever else she busied herself with.
He did not inform her of this. It was just…good sense on his part, so required neither permission nor approval. Who knew how Erjon would reappear? He might come to make threats to his daughter first, and that would not do for Zervou’s plans.
So her safety, her poor living conditions should not take over his thoughts, but he found himself thinking about it far too often. The danger she put herself in, no matter how capable she might be of taking care of herself, defending herself. It all seemed so much more work than necessary.
Which was none of his concern. All that mattered to him was her safety so he could lure her father out and crush him. The goal was Erjon and Erjon alone, of whom there had still been no sighting. No hint of him.
So each week the relationship with Ariadne would have to escalate—in the press, in how they were seen. He would have to find new ways to reach whatever corners of Greece or Europe or wherever Erjon hid himself.
Pictures of them sailing had made their way to a few online gossip sites. Just him piloting the small boat and her lounging in the sun. A big hat had covered her face, but every site named her and mentioned she was a well-known boxer in Corfu.
Ariadne had studied the photos last night on his phone while they’d dined at a high-profile restaurant. The makeup she’d worn had not quite covered the black eye she’d been sporting, but he did not bring it up.
She received such injuries in the course of her training, and even though he found his gaze attracted to this physical mark time and time again, he could hardly find fault with it. She was in a physical profession. She would suffer bodily injury—in practice, in her bouts.
He did not understand how that knowledge seemed to stay in his gut like a hard, painful rock when it was simply a fact of her life. One that mattered to him not at all.
He tried to busy himself during the days with work on the new stadium, plans for the sporting events it would house once complete. But such things only led him to think of boxing and Ariadne. This was the center of her world—particularly now that her mother was tucked away in a facility.
For a brief moment, Zervou found himself wondering what it would be like to have a passion, a center of his world that was not simply domination and destruction of his enemies.
Then he laughed at himself. What a pointless existence.
But as the week wore on, nothing changed. He spent too much of his day thinking about her, wondering how she filled her days. Boxing, mostly, he knew from having his security team keep an eye on her.
He wanted to watch her box again. The glimpse he’d gotten of her initially had been intriguing.
And what was stopping him, he asked himself one sunny afternoon.
Absolutely nothing.
He called for Bacchus and had his car pulled around. He didn’t take any of his men this time. Maybe he didn’t want to spend time in desperate neighborhoods that reminded him of being a child, but the boxing gym was different. The desperation wasn’t so thick there.
People were too busy fighting.
When he arrived, he couldn’t have been more pleased with his timing.
Much like the first time he’d tracked her down, Ariadne was in the ring, wearing the necessary gear.
Her hair hidden under the padding, no doubt in those tight braids.
It looked to be early in the practice round as she hadn’t even worked up a sweat yet, but she moved on her feet, light and graceful.
He didn’t think she’d noticed his arrival yet, so he stayed where he was near the entrance to the room.
He had not touched her again since that kiss outside her apartment after their first official outing. The photographs of sailing and dining the other night had certainly given an air of intimacy, but they had not been overt.
It hadn’t been necessary for his purposes just yet, though that was a good next step. Some kind of picture of, at the very least, an embrace. Something to make its way to Erjon. Something to get the man planning to make his return. He would, Zervou knew he would.
But Zervou wasn’t thinking about Ariadne’s father as he watched her bounce, duck, jab. She made good contact with her sparring partner’s chin. A woman this time, who stumbled back but immediately hopped from foot to foot as she raised her gloves back to her face.
They weren’t going full force, even his untrained eye could see that. Perhaps they were practicing footwork more than punches and feints. Perhaps they were practicing it all. If he could drag his gaze away from Ariadne to study the other woman as well, maybe he’d be able to figure it out.
Instead he watched the ripple of muscle along Ariadne’s arms. The strength in her legs as she dodged a blow and then the simple, brutal grace of returning her own. It glanced off the other woman’s chin—clearly pulled as the woman barely reacted.
A buzzer sounded, and when they both stepped away from each other and began to remove their gloves and headgear, he realized it had been some kind of timer.
The women dropped their equipment, then stood in the middle of the ring talking. The other woman’s expression was animated, her gestures wide as she spoke to Ariadne. Zervou found himself fascinated by the expression on Ariadne’s face.
Nothing guarded. None of that wariness he was so used to seeing. Everything in her expression was bright and engaged. She nodded along, offered replies Zervou couldn’t hear. Then the woman said something, and Ariadne…laughed.
It was as if all other sound ceased to exist as the echo of her uninhibited, husky laugh made its way to him. Nothing bitter in it. Nothing scathing. Just a pure, happy laugh.
It was the strangest moment, because the sound seemed to land with all the force of a blow, penetrating his chest almost painfully. The only thing he could think to liken it to was the force of the bullet he’d watched slam into his father’s chest.
But it was not a searing pain, or overwhelming fear that ripped through him in this moment. No. It was a dark, clawing need to possess. It was as potent as the need to avenge his father—a goal all these years in the making.
And with both, she was the key.
When she happened to glance over, eyes meeting his, for a moment, it felt like she was the key to everything.
But the ease went out of her expression, and a hint of tension crept into her shoulders.
Frustration filtered into the strange weightless place he’d been. Why should she tense at his arrival? Why should she still look at him with distrust? It was insulting. Infuriating.
And still the pounding need of want echoed inside of him like a drum. An eternal beat that had always existed, would always exist. Had existed before her, just waiting to be brought to life.
She turned her attention back to her sparring partner. They spoke for a few more minutes, then collected their gear and got out of the ring. While the other woman headed for the locker room—after tossing a curious glance at him over her shoulder—Ariadne came his way.
“What’s up?” she asked on approach, studying him as though she did not trust any reason he would be here. Her braids were tight, but a few hairs escaped to corkscrew around her face. She was sweaty, a little out of breath, and the claws of need only dug deeper.
“We are going dancing tonight.” Because he wanted his hands on her, and if it was in the name of being seen, he’d decided that was excuse enough.
“Are we?” she returned, eyeing him with that patent wariness that threatened to set his teeth on edge.
“Yes. When you are finished, I will drive you to my estate. I have everything you need to get ready.”
He braced himself for the argument, the refusal. More of that damn pride to get in his way. He prepared to refuse any and all of her potential rejections. This was what must be done, and she had agreed to his plan, so she did not get to say no.
But she offered no rejections or refusals. After a long study of him, she simply shrugged. “All right. I’ll be out in a few.”
Ari stood in one of the bathrooms in Zervou’s house—if one could call this room the size of her apartment something as simple as a bathroom, or this entire place something as simple as a house—studying herself in the mirror.
She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about what she saw. On the one hand, she had been taught since she’d been a child not to dress to entice the wrong kind of attention—something she’d begun to realize in her teens was just a false sense of security. Men would be awful no matter what a woman wore.
But it was still a hard mental habit to break. She tended to dress to exaggerate her muscles and downplay the more feminine aspects to her body. She was used to that, comfortable with that, so the brevity of her dress was…awkward almost.
On the other hand, she liked the way she looked in her reflection.
She loved boxing and the way it made her feel—strong, powerful, capable of taking any blow.
But sometimes, on the rare moments she could think of something beyond survival, the side effects of boxing left her feeling…
ugly. Undesirable. Her crooked nose, the bruises, the swelling.
It was why she’d gotten the nose ring and then the belly ring. The pieces of jewelry made her feel…something. She didn’t have all the words for it. Just more herself—a dichotomy of things. Not just muscle and bone, waiting to be crashed into.
There was more to her than survival. Than fight.