by SR Jones
He grins, and it is blinding. Brighter than the sun outside. Those teeth, his dimples, the smile lines around his eyes, it’s all so beautiful.
“I did think about calling you something horrible just for shits and giggles, but decided against it.”
“You’re such a hero,” I joke.
He gestures for me to sit, and the man who went into the back with him brings us two lemonades and places them on the table.
“Give me ten to get some flights booked,” he says. “Then, I’ll take you away from all this.” He gestures to the taverna around us as if it is Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Like I say, such a hero.”
His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t say anything else as he takes his phone out of his pocket.
I suppose he is a hero in many ways. A veteran, a man who laid down his life for his country. In other ways, he’s the proverbial bad guy. A bona fide gangster. Oh, not the sort who swaggers about on street corners selling drugs or women. No, he’s maybe worse. High up in an international cartel that smuggles God knows what. Talk about a mixed picture.
When I first knew Alesso and Damen, I had a tiny crush on Alesso, but as I grew up, Damen became the one I found hotter. Alesso was too pretty almost. He knew it too. Damen, on the other hand, was dark and mysterious, and I ate that up. Then somewhere along the way, over the frankly insane past few months, Alesso once more became the one I noticed, the one I thought was hot. Then … it became so much more.
He spent time with me, talking to me, bringing me food, making sure my wounds were healing. I saw a different side to him. A caring side. I also saw his darker side, though, too. The ruthlessness hiding under his handsome exterior.
With Damen, you know the danger is there because it is up front. It is in every line of his jaw, in his hard eyes, and his tense body. Alesso, though, if you glanced at him on the street, you might think him a top athlete, or a model even. He’s easygoing when he talks to people. He can shed panties at fifty yards with his grin, and his eyes can look kind. He hides his hardness behind a façade, and his looks are enough to distract most people from looking deeper.
If Damen is a lion, prowling around letting all know he’s the king of the jungle, then Alesso is a panther. Sleek, beautiful, but just as dangerous when it comes right down to it. As for Markos, what kind of cat would he be? Probably a tiger. A loner, someone who blends into the background of the world he slinks through, observing those around him.
What kind of cat would I be? A housecat? Probably. Some pampered breed like a Siamese maybe. They’re skinny too.
I smile to myself as my mind carries on the flight of fancy, and I sip at the deliciously sharp lemonade. What would Maya be? Or Andrius?
Andrius wouldn’t be a cat. He’d be a shark. Cutting through the water, silent. Ghostly. As for Maya, I don’t know what animal she’d be. Something beautiful, high spirited, but also full of love and life.
“You’re thinking so hard, I can hear it,” Alesso says as he continues to do stuff on his phone.
“I was thinking what sort of animal Maya would be,” I say before I can stop myself. “I’m finding it hard to categorize her.”
“She’d be some sort of beautiful, bright bird,” he says without missing a beat, still messing around on his phone, presumably booking our tickets. “She’s always wearing bright clothes, she never stops chattering, and she’s flighty. A bird.”
“Ah,” I say, with great seriousness. “But in the bird world, most females are dull. It’s the males who are the more beautiful.” Looking at Alesso, I can’t say it’s always different in the human world. I doubt many women could look as stunning as him without makeup and help. He wakes up looking this devastating naturally, and it’s damned unfair.
“Most, yes, but not all.” He looks up from his phone, inky dark lashes fanning out over deep blue eyes. “She’d be something glamorous. Maybe a female blue bird of paradise. Or … no.” He grins, taking my breath away. Maybe I ought to order him to stop smiling. “I know what she’d be.”
“What?” I’m curious.
“She’d be an Eclectus Parrot.”
“A what?”
“Look them up. The males are mostly green with some flashes of color, but the females are bright. Reds, blues, like Maya, she wears bright colors. Silks. Scarves. Those shiny shoes and bags she likes. She’s an Eclectus parrot.”
I smile at him, even knowing about Eclectus parrots, and take out my phone to look them up. My smile is for him playing the game without making me feel weird. Carrying on my strange conversation as if talking about what animals people would be is the most natural thing in the world.
“What would I be?” I ask him.
He looks at me, slowly, carefully. “I don’t know. You’re more … difficult to categorize. Let’s see. You’re tall, but slender. Delicate even.” He takes hold of my wrist, easily wrapping his thumb and forefinger around it. “You’ve got fine features and good breeding, but you’re skittish. And I bet, deep down, when you’re at ease enough to truly be yourself, you’re temperamental. Definitely equine. Some might compare you to say a Lipizzaner, but you don’t perform for others. So, I’d say you are an Arabian horse. Sleek, expensive, knows its own mind. Yeah, that’s you.”
“You think I’m sleek?”
“Yes, you are. Right now, though, with this hair, and your smudged lipstick, you’re like a sleek, powerful horse dressed up for a cheap circus.”
My face falls, but he continues.
“But the dressing up can’t hide the fact of what you are underneath. Your true beauty and your real nature. You could dye your hair green, or shave it off, and you’d still be strikingly beautiful.” He shrugs and takes a sip of his drink. Then he asks. “What am I?”
I smile. “Firstly, green hair is cool, and for you? I went with a panther, a black one. You’ve got the sleekness, you’re stunning, as they are, a bit of a loner, and while you distract people with your gorgeousness, you’re all deadly predator underneath.”
I realize then I’ve told him far too much, including the fact I think he’s gorgeous. Damn.
His eyes sparkle. “Do you describe everyone as an animal?”
“I was merely mentally passing the time. It started with me comparing you and Damen.”
His eyebrows arch. “What’s Damen?”
“He’s a lion. See, Damen looks dangerous. He’s moody, has those dark eyes that, let’s be honest, hardly hold a friendly expression. He’s the epitome of tall, dark, and deadly. You, though, you’re better looking, and you come across, initially at least, as friendlier, more laidback. You’re as much of a predator, but you disguise it better is all.”
“What about Markos?”
I grin. “Easy, a tiger. Blends into the background. A loner.”
“Cole?”
I shrug. “I didn’t do him. Just you three and Maya. Oh, and Andrius.”
“What’s he?”
“A shark.” My skin prickles at the thought of spending time with him, in his home. I hope to hell I get on with his wife because I feel as if I’ll need an ally. I can’t imagine the sort of woman she is.
I’d have placed Andrius with someone worldly, maybe even a female assassin or similar. When I heard his wife was kidnapped, well, those fantasies fell apart. I presume she wants to be with him because Maya has talked about how in love they are, but it seems weird.
“Can I ask you? Is it true that Andrius’ wife was kidnapped?”
Alesso glances around us, and I realize I spoke quite loudly. With a low voice, he says, “Yes, but it’s not how it sounds. Andrius didn’t take her, and nothing happened between them that she didn’t want. They were a bit like Maya and Damen, I suppose. A fake relationship that became real. You can’t talk about it, though, because a lot of people have no clue how they came about.”
“Okay,” I say, and bite my lip. “What’s his wife like? Will I like her?”
“I can’t imagine not liking Violet. She’s lovely, but you a
sk me, she’s a bit crazy too.”
“Crazy?”
“Yeah, some of the stuff she had planned.” He sighs and looks away. “I can’t go into too much detail because it’s not safe, and the less you know the better for you. She’s lovely, and sweet, and she looks like a damned angel, but I think she’s also somewhat crazy. Good thing, though, because Andrius is certifiable, so I can’t see it working between him and someone without their own brand of cray-cray going on.”
I laugh at that. “I think most of us are a little cray-cray. I doubt many people escape this life unscathed mentally or emotionally. I mean, take me. I had a great upbringing, only my grandfather was a malign influence, and yet I have awful anxiety. I should be totally well adjusted, but I’m not. I get horribly anxious over certain things.”
“Yet, you’ll travel to the Himalaya alone and trek them. You’re like all of us, a mix of bravery and anxiety. Everyone has things they fear.”
“Do you?” I ask him.
He takes a sip of his lemonade. “Yeah, I do.”
“Like what?”
“Public speaking. I once had to do a talk to some new recruits. It was about forty minutes long, Power Point, the works. About ten minutes in, I got a dry mouth, and then I started thinking about all these people looking at me, and I started to sweat. Then my heart rate spiked. Fucking awful it was. I got through it, but I hated every minute, and I’ll never do another again. I don’t like moths either,” he says with a smile.
“Moths?” I’m incredulous.
“Yeah, they flutter about, and they’ve got fat bodies. Weird, hairy, fat bodies. Oh, and slugs. Although I don’t know if that’s fear or revulsion. I mean, eating snails. Oh, God.”
He mimics retching.
“I’m scared of so many things,” I say, voice small.
“Like what?”
“Okay, do you want a list? Same as you, public speaking. Feeling trapped, in crowds and stuff, if it’s a small space like a packed train or a busy bus. Being judged, exams, and the like make me sweat and shake. My peer group. I feel judged whenever I’m amongst a group of well-educated, elite types. That definitely comes from my grandfather; don’t need a shrink to tell me that. Every meal and large gathering, he’d find a way to focus attention on me and humiliate me.”
Alesso huffs. “Didn’t your parents stop him?”
“My mother would be all like, Dad, stop it, but he never did. He’d humiliate me whenever he wanted. In private, he could be … cruel. Strangely so.”
“How do you mean?” Alesso asks, and his eyes sharpen.
“Things like, he once came into the room when I was changing. I was only in my underwear, and he stopped and stared at me.” I feel my cheeks heat as I talk about this. I’ve never told a soul, and God knows why I’m telling Alesso. “He made this disparaging little noise in the back of his throat and then said he didn’t know why my Mother spent good money on bras for me when all I had were two flat eggs.”
I want to cry at the memory. It was a tiny moment in my life. Not even a full minute, but it made me feel so odd. Such shame.
I glance at Alesso to see the strangest expression on his face. His eyes are cloudy, and his jaw is tight. “Did he ever make other comments about your body, Stella? Or happen to walk in on you changing again?”
Oh Lord, I know where he’s going with this, and he’s got the wrong idea. “No, that was the only time he did anything like that, but he would comment on my appearance. You know, call me Skinny Balinky, but it wasn’t affectionate; it was nasty. He talked about my boring hair, said if someone wanted to paint me, they’d only need various shades of brown in their palette. My grandfather had green eyes, and my grandmother’s were dark blue. My mum has grey-blue eyes and light hair, but I got my father’s coloring. Olive skin, dark eyes, dark hair. Grandfather hates my father too, so I think he resents that I look like him.”
“Your coloring is beautiful,” Alesso says. “Your eyes in particular. I’m not bullshitting you, Stella. Your eyes are stunning.”
My cheeks warm, and I glance at the plastic tablecloth before muttering a quiet, thank you.
“What else did your grandfather say to you?”
“Oh, that I was clumsy. I am. Ungainly, and again, I suppose I am. Silly. A stupid, silly little girl.”
“Stella,” he says, and his tone is serious.
“Yes?”
“You do know that’s abuse, right?”
Abuse? The word is so … big, so final and definite. I don’t think it’s a word that applies to me. I don’t think it’s a word I want to apply to me. I shake my head. “He never hurt me, never laid a finger on me.”
“Jesus, Stella. Just because he didn’t hit you … or worse, doesn’t mean it’s not abuse. Saying those things to you, it’s not okay. No wonder you have anxiety. He sounds like a total dick.”
I stare at him. I’ve thought of my grandfather as a lot of things, but a total dick isn’t one of them. I see him as powerful, important, scary, but in two words, Alesso has cut him down to size. Maybe, for all these years I’ve been seeing the man as something he simply isn’t.
“People who need to go around putting others down in such a way are generally pathetic, and deep down, insecure. I bet you anything he hates himself, and so he takes it out on you. You were a kid, and he is a bully if he picked on a kid. End of.”
I have a pet hate for people saying end of, but this time I let it go, because everything else Alesso has said makes me feel better.
“Come on,” he says, glancing at his phone. “Time for us to get our things and head to the airport.”
Time to go to Andrius’ house. Oh, Lord!
It is twilight by the time we approach Andrius’ home, and I’m nervous as hell.
I didn’t have much to do with him when I stayed at Maya’s because most of the time I stayed in my room, recuperating.
Now, I have to spend time with him, here, in his and Violet’s home. I hope she’s nice because he is scary and, frankly, cold as the winter’s frost.
Their home is beautiful. I stare at it a moment as I climb out of the cab we took from the airport and take a breath of scented island air. They are located on the edge of the small village we just drove through. In front of me there is a wrought iron gate, leading to a long drive, which winds through a hill covered in trees and bushes, to end by a stone house.
The house is mostly two-story, but it is built into the hill. To one side is what might be an extension, although it fits the rest of the building, and this new part is one-story, and leads to a patio area and a lit pool. To the right of the two-story section is an outside seating area, built over the hill where the land steeply falls away.
We are near the ocean, as I can hear it, but I’m not sure where it is. I expect there’s a view of it, though, from their house. Alesso pays the driver, and he too pauses for a moment, looking up at the house as the cab drives away.
“Wow,” I say, turning to Alesso. “This is lovely.”
“Isn’t it?” He smiles.
“Is Violet nice?” I ask.
He turns to me, a look of surprise on his face. “You really are nervous, aren’t you? She’s probably one of the sweetest people you could ever hope to meet.”
“Really?” I pause, and then push on and ask my question, despite being nervous of doing so. “Is Andrius nicer than he seems then?”
Alesso laughs at that. “Oh, no. He’s a walking, talking violation of the Geneva convention, that one. He’s not, and never will be, nice. He is, however, loyal, honorable, and he has a code.”
“What sort of code?”
He shrugs and looks almost uncomfortable. “No women or children—ever. Except in life or death combat situations.”
“No women or children what?” I feel a wave of faintness as the meaning washes over me. “Oh.”
“Yeah, that. He’d never take out hits on women or children, no matter the price. Or any sort of job that involved harm to them. Only time he hurt a wo
man was during combat when one had a gun on him.”
“Do you have a similar code?” I ask.
He frowns at me. “You even need to ask? I’ve never harmed a woman, ever, except for in war when, as I say, she was about to shoot a child.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” One eyebrow raises perfectly, making him look superior and pissed off at the same time. “I can’t believe you asked. Do I strike you as the sort of man who would go around shooting unarmed women?”
I don’t know what sort of man I think he is anymore, and since I’ve already pissed him off, I decide to let my mouth run away with itself once more.
“Well, you mix in strange company. Like Andrius. I still can’t get over that Yannis Pappas told me his wife was kidnapped and given to him as a gift.”
“Best present I ever got.”
I scream at the low voice behind us and whirl around to see Andrius staring at me with his cool gaze. I almost wouldn’t recognize him. He’s wearing running shorts and a loose muscle top. His hair is mussed, and his face is warm with a flush of pink on his cheeks. He looks way more human than when he wears those suits and smart clothes, with his perfectly styled hair.
His eyes narrow as he regards me.
“I… I… I’m sorry,” I finish lamely.
“You ought not to listen to a poisonous little shit like Yannis Pappas,” he says. “But in this case what he says is correct, sort of. Violet was taken, by my boss at the time, and given to me, but she is with me now because she wants to be, and that’s all you need to know. Don’t go bringing up the past around her. She’s pregnant, and I don’t want her upset in any way.”
I nod and swallow hard. “I really am sorry,” I say.
He approaches the gate and enters a code, then waits as a camera swivels our way. He stares up into it and then wipes his thumb on his shorts, before pressing it to a pad on the alarm. Finally, with a beep, the gate swings open.
“Don’t you think the thumbprint recognition and code would have been enough on their own? You also put facial recognition cameras in. Overkill much.” Alesso lifts our bags with a shake of his head, Andrius taking the carry-on I had with me and hoisting it effortlessly over his shoulder.
