20. Manuel
TWENTY
MANUEL
I had not expected to run into Athena at the Leone brothers’ nightclub—least of all drunk as a sailor. I was there to recruit Giovanni Agosti to help with the Triads. I had no contacts in the Albanian mafia and the Cortes cartel were out of the question, but as the direct heir to the Tijuana organization, he would be able to dig back through the Tijuana cartel records. I needed to know the missing piece of this entire puzzle, and my instincts warned it started with that deal Atticus screwed up twenty-three years ago.
Once at my penthouse, which I kept for my private use, I gave Athena aspirin and a glass of water, then tucked her into my bed. The moment her head hit the pillow, she let out a soft sigh and her lashes fluttered shut.
I was just stepping away when she jerked, sitting upright and looking around frantically. “Wh-where’s the window?”
“It’s shut.” I wondered whether she was cold, if maybe I needed to bring her an extra blanket.
Terror skidded across her expression, her eyes darting around with wild panic. “I need to see the sky.” Her hand came to her chest, tapping it faster and faster. “Open the curtain. Please, please.”
I found her reaction strange, but I wasn’t going to fuel her anxiety, no matter how confusing it seemed. I rushed and pulled them open, and her shoulders instantly slumped as she fell back onto the pillows.
“What are you so afraid of, amorina ?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Bullshit,” I told her softly. She closed her eyes, but not before a tear slipped down her cheek. I closed the distance between us, sitting down on the edge of the bed, then wiped the tear away with my thumb, fierce protectiveness rising inside me. “It’s okay to be afraid, but you have to face those fears. Otherwise they fester.”
A gulp filled the silence. “Speaking from experience?”
I wound my fingers through her hair, marveling at the silkiness of it. “We’re all scared of something.”
“What are you scared of?”
“Loving someone and losing them,” I told her softly. It was a fear I’d harbored since I was a little boy—not that it had been enough to keep me away lately—but I kept that thought to myself. “I’ve seen what that kind of loss does to people. I saw what it did to my parents, my brother, and I… I hate the helplessness that comes along with it.”
Her eyes opened, those striking greens sparkling like emeralds when our gazes met.
“Me too. Love brings nothing but trouble and pain,” she mumbled, peering at me from under her lashes. “But it’s supposed to hurt, otherwise it’s not love.”
“ Che, amorina ?”
“My mother’s words. They still haunt me, you know.” Her eyes filled with tears, and something about them gave me pause. They were tears of anguish and pain. “She cried a lot back then.”
“It’s not always so,” I told her softly. “Our parents’ lives aren’t ours. Your mom’s pain shouldn’t be yours.”
“Maybe.”
“No, not maybe. No child should suffer through their parents’ breakup.”
She chuckled. “Well, I wasn’t exactly around for her breakup with my father, was I?”
“It doesn’t make your experience with the others any less unfair,” I pointed out. “It’s not on you to comfort her through her heartbreaks.”
She opened her eyes, meeting my gaze. “You mean when she broke up with you?”
I thought back to the short time that I’d dated Alexandra—if it could even be called dating. She was beautiful and had a magnetism about her, but we never truly clicked. Then the antics she pulled after I caught her little performance at the opera… I had been more than happy never to see her again.
“I’m not sure what we had would’ve qualified as a relationship, let alone a breakup, amorina . I took her out twice, maybe three times before we went our separate ways. It’s hardly a love story.”
“She liked you,” she murmured. “Probably still does. I think it was the last time I saw her cry.”
“That’s regrettable, but I never led her on. I made my intentions very clear from the start. What we had was mutually beneficial—I needed someone to accompany me to events for appearances’ sake, and she was happy to don her finest threads and be wined and dined,” I said dryly. “And anyway, in case you missed it, I’m not interested in your mother.”
I wanted nothing more than to admit to Athena that I couldn’t get enough of her, that I hadn’t so much as looked at another woman in weeks, but I didn’t think she was ready to hear it. Nonetheless, I’d make it my life’s mission to prove to her that loving someone shouldn’t—wouldn’t—hurt.
“My parents loved each other very much and they were happy,” I told her. “My father would often say my mother left no room for sorrow. That she was the brightest spot in his life. It wasn’t until she died that his life lost its spark. So you see, amorina ? It’s losing someone that hurts. But love is worth it.”
She tilted her head pensively. “Then they must be an exception to the rule.”
She had much to learn, but there’d be time for that. For now, I wanted to learn more about her.
“You’re American, right?” She nodded. “Did you like growing up there?”
She sighed. “I guess. We traveled a lot when I was younger, so Europe felt more like home. Sometimes during her tours though, whenever we weren’t in the States, Mom would leave me with a nanny, then go back to the States to take care of urgent matters.”
“She didn’t take you with her?”
Athena shrugged. “I heard she had to go help someone once. A girl.”
“A girl?”
“Unless I heard it wrong,” she muttered. “It’s hard for me to understand Greek unless it’s spoken slowly.”
I tucked that piece of information away.
“So how did you end up picking up the accent?”
“Mom has the American accent, so I guess I picked it up from her.” Wariness crept over her expression before she continued. “After the whole thing with the Triads, we went back and stayed in the States permanently, although we moved along the East Coast quite a bit. Mom lasted only a few years, then she sent me to boarding school and continued touring.”
A knot formed in my chest at the image of her all alone.
“But you had other family in the States, sì ?”
She stared at me with a strange expression on her face. “It was always just me and her. But I met Raven at boarding school, then a few years later, Isla, Phoenix, and Reina, so it was worth it.”
The unspoken words lingered. The loneliness was worth it. Cazzo , Alexandra was a selfish bitch to leave her daughter alone after keeping her isolated for so many years.
She could have asked Lykos to take her and he would have. He might have hated Alexandra, but he wouldn’t have faulted Athena. He was big on family.
I bent to kiss her and her lips molded to mine, her tongue eager. Kissing this woman was unlike anything else. She gave as good as she got, her hands threaded through my hair.
“Do you know you have family in Greece?” I asked when she began kissing my neck.
She arched back and blinked, slightly disoriented, before she got herself together.
“So I learned recently.” Bitterness laced through her words.
“You never knew?”
“No.” She swallowed, her slim neck moving gracefully. “Sometimes when I get upset, I like to put people in my books and kill them.” Her cheeks turned crimson at the admission.
I grabbed her face in both of my hands. “Does that make you feel better?”
“It really does. Maybe I’m bloodthirsty and evil.”
I chuckled. “Very unlikely.”
“I write romance, you know,” she mumbled. “Smutty, hot romance. Although, I do sprinkle some plot to it… and the occasional murder.”
My lips twitched, but I said nothing. It wasn’t the right time to tell her I knew about her smutty novels under the pseudonym A.K. Mystique, or that I’d procured a copy of every single title.
“So I heard.”
“My mother doesn’t know.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Why not?”
She shrugged. “She wouldn’t approve.”
“Does it make you happy?”
Her full lips curved into a soft smile. “Yeah.”
“That’s all that matters.”
Her gaze darted to the window again and she shivered. “Do you think the ninja men will kill me? Or be back? Maybe they’ll wait another eleven years before coming for me again.” Again? A light tremor laced her voice while I pondered what else she was hiding. “I don’t want to be in the news as a girl who died in a mysterious way.”
The thought of her being hurt made it so fucking hard to breathe. Sweat coated my skin at the mental image of her dead body, shaking me down to the bone.
“I won’t let them.” And I meant it. No matter how fucked up this world was, it was a better place with her in it.
“I have no idea why, but I believe you,” she whispered. “You really weren’t blowing me off for the past two weeks?” she asked, studying me.
“ Te lo prometto .” I promise. “Who in their right mind would blow you off, amorina ?”
I had been busy chasing leads and digging into the past to understand why the Triads wanted Athena. It wasn’t as if Atticus had a relationship going with her or her mother. There had to be more to it than Atticus double-crossing them.
“Good,” she mumbled. “Because I sort of like you.”
Something about her words settled into my bones. A sense of rightness I’d never experienced with anyone else.
“Ugh, why is the room spinning?”
I chuckled, then kissed her forehead. “Try to get some sleep now.”
She talked some more, most of her words unintelligible, but I didn’t stop her. It was nice, getting insight into her soul and her mind, and it wasn’t long before she drifted off to sleep. I slipped out of the room and headed toward my office to make a few phone calls.
I shrugged out of my suit jacket and rolled up my sleeves while dialing Enrico on the secure line.
He picked up on the first ring. “Manuel?”
I took a seat.
“ Sì . You seem eager to talk to me.” I heard shuffling on the other end, like he was moving to a place where he wouldn’t be overheard.
“Danil Popov is sniffing around the Omertà,” he finally said. “He’s in Paris, asking about Romero and even the Leone brothers.”
“It’s a good thing they don’t know anything, then,” I said. “Have you called Danil?”
“I have, but the stronzo isn’t taking my calls. He had that friend of his, Soren, call me and give me some bullshit story.”
“What story exactly?”
“They’re not conducting any business. Just settling a debt. Now get this,” he sneered. “The Triads are collecting on a debt.”
I laughed, but it was without humor. “If the Triads or Danil think I’ll let them get anywhere near Athena, they’ll have a war on their hands.”
“Do you think Danil is after her too?”
“He better not be or he’ll lose the Balkans to the Omertà.”
“Soren did say one thing that struck me as odd,” he added.
“What’s that?”
“He said Alexandra isn’t trustworthy.”
Nothing new there.
My cell phone rang and I flicked a glance at it. “Speak of the devil.”
Enrico’s chuckle came over the line. “Don’t fucking tell me Danil’s calling you.”
“That’s right,” I told him. “ Allora , maybe we’re finally getting somewhere.”
“Go handle the smug bastard and let me know what you need from me.”
Enrico’s line went dead and I answered my cell with, “What a surprise, Danil.”
“Manuel Marchetti.” His greetings left much to be desired.
“I hear you’ve been snooping around Omertà territory.”
For a moment, the line was silent, and I had to check to ensure I didn’t lose him. “Trust me, Marchetti, if I wanted it, I would have it before you and your idiot members could blink.”
Though he couldn’t see me, I let my lips curve into a malevolent grin. “You could try, but I guarantee you’d fail.”
“I heard you dated an opera singer once upon a time.”
I scoffed. “I sure as fuck hope you didn’t call to chitchat about my dating life.”
“Who you fuck is none of my concern,” he gritted. “You went to see Alexandra Kosta recently. I want to know what she told you.”
Danil might play hardball, but he wouldn’t get shit from me. “She talks a lot, as I’m sure you know.”
“All I know is the woman is a selfish bitch who fucks anything that moves.”
I chuckled darkly. “You seem to speak from experience.”
“I wouldn’t touch that woman with a ten-foot pole. But I don’t think I can say the same about you, can I?”
I drummed my fingers against my mahogany desk. “You need to fire whoever’s feeding you intel.”
Danil had nothing on me. I was telling Athena the truth earlier—her mother and I never had that type of relationship. Whatever his problem with Alexandra was, he could go take it up with her. My only concern was Athena and keeping her out of harm’s way.
“A word of advice.” Danil’s cold, calculated voice came over the line. “Alexandra isn’t trustworthy. She’d sacrifice an innocent lamb to protect herself. When her time comes, get in my way and I’ll end you both.”
And the line went dead.