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His words burst through the roar of my pulse. Lifting my gaze, I caught the half grin on his mouth.We survived.
But argh! I should have put a bullet in him!
Looking down at the gun, I tried to understand what had happened. If I had waited a second longer, the biker would have solved my problem. The biker had a gun. If he had fired at Drakos or me, I would have then fired back, hitting Drakos by accident. I could have walked away the victor, as it would look like the butcher was caught in the crossfire. It was a prefect setup, as I needed to kill the butcher and not have it come back to me. I needed to walk away a widow, with all blood washed off my hands.
The butcher interrupted my scrambled thoughts and came to stand beside me, holding out his hand. “I’ll take that, my dear.”
I slapped the empty weapon onto his palm and muttered, “You’re welcome, Drakos.”
“We need to go. Now.” Drakos dropped the empty clip of his pistol, pocketed it, and then reloaded. “This is a local mobster, and while he’s not top dog, he has enough men that would feel obligated to make us pay.”
“What about my guard?” I rasped, the shaking that consumed my limbs now easier to fake.
“I’ll text him to head straight to the villa.”
“Do we need to leave Greece?” I asked, reaching into my crossbody purse. My fingers fumbled for the nicotine patches, and it took me twice as long to remove one and slap it on my skin. The nicotine would take forever to enter my bloodstream, but this had been the best the staff at the villa could procure for me.
Watching me carefully, the butcher answered, “No. The few that were left at the restaurant will be taken care of, so no one will know your face.”
“You’ll kill them?”
“Does that shock you?” He walked to the dead biker and squatted over the body. After feeling in the dead man’s pocket, he cursed, then moved to the boss.
“No,” I said quietly. It wasn’t a lie. “Your thoroughness surprises me.”
Drakos grunted, his face shadowed. It created a terrible profile, and yet the monster wasn’t entirely abhorrent. He rose and came back to me, offering me a pack of cigarettes.
Oh, holy mother....
But I couldn’t. Squeezing my eyes tight, I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“But you’re craving one, and you’ve just killed two men. It will steady you.” His voice was soft, velvet to my ears.
I moaned, looking up into his face. “It was too hard to give them up. I haven’t smoked in weeks, and I don’t want to restart the cycle.”
There was a long pause where we watched one another. Standing this close, I could feel the heat radiating off his body. It might be a balmy Mediterranean night, but the butcher burned hotter. That inferno had pressed against me, protected me not five minutes ago. I clamped down on the wayward thought.
“All right then, let’s go.” The butcher pocketed the cigarettes and turned around. I hurried after him. Focusing on my breathing, I picked my way carefully over the uneven pavement. The darkness cloaked us, and for a moment, we were just two killers disappearing victorious into the night. It was utterly strange to realize I had common ground with this man. He could have let me die, and I could have done the same. Instead, we’d battled for survival together.
While I worked through these thoughts, I tried to think how I could remedy the situation. Nothing immediately presented itself. In front of me, the solid outline of my husband strode purposely through the night. In fact, in the maze of streets and back alleys, the butcher led the way without hesitation, as if he knew this city by heart.
Drakos suddenly stopped at an intersection of two narrow straights and turned to me. “The car is on the next street over. Drive straight to the villa.”
I wrung my hands at the thought of going on ahead alone. That was when I noticed something tacky was on my hands. I look down at them. Blood. It coated my skin. I drew in a sharp breath, reminded that tonight had marked my first real fight to the death.
“It’ll wash off,” Drakos murmured gently.
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I know.”
His brows scrunched. “What does that mean?”
I let out a long breath.Get a grip!I couldn’t tell him that my father had made me practice this exact situation. It was part of my training. He wanted me to deal the death blow when the time came, and he believed that if I was a hardened killer, it would make my strikes truly effective when it came time to end our family’s enemy. But Drakos couldn’t know that.
“I was in an altercation once, and there was a lot of blood.” There. That was enough of the truth to make it believable.
The butcher’s cold mask slid back into place. “Are you lying to me, Talia?”
“It’s not a lie.”
