Page 59 of Betraying Family Vows
And damn, did I like it.
"What now?" I ask. "Where do we go?"
Dimitri doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he bends down beside one of the bodies and starts digging through his pockets.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Looking for keys," he says. "Our car's out of gas, and clearly there's a tracker on it."
I watch as his hands check every pocket, every fold of clothing.
"Hold this," he says, handing me a wallet he removed from the body.
I take it automatically, trying not to think about the fact that it belonged to someone who was alive thirty minutes ago.
Dimitri moves to another body, repeating the process.
"Don't touch anything that might have blood on it," he instructs without looking up. "And keep that gun ready."
I adjust my grip on the weapon. It still feels foreign in my hand, but less so than before.
"You think there are more of them?" I ask, scanning the darkness around us.
"Not tonight," Dimitri says. "But they'll come. That's why we need to keep moving." He stands up from the second body, and we walk over to another. "I'm taking you to one of my family's homes. Not a safe house. A real home. In Piraeus."
"Piraeus?" I repeat. "That's back near Athens."
"Near enough, but not too close. My family has held that property for a long time." He moves to another body. "It's secure, and we can figure out our next move. I can contact my brothers, too."
I hear a jingle, and Dimitri stands. "Found them. Let's go."
I nod, and we start walking. Something about the way he says we makes my chest tighten.
"So, do all the girls in your life get this treatment?" I ask, trying to make a joke—more to relax me than for him. "Escape death, shot at, then whisked away to your private homes?"
Dimitri turns to me.
"No," he says with a smile. "Only the lucky ones."
"Ohh, I haven't really been lucky much in my life," I say as we come up to two black SUVs parked among a cluster of trees at the edge of the ruins.
Dimitri circles one, checking underneath with a small flashlight he fished from his bag.
"That makes two of us. Maybe Plato's house is where our luck begins."
I laugh.
"You know, years from now, I'm going to forget this was our joke, and I'm going to tell someone he lived here, and they'll think I'm crazy."
Dimitri opens the passenger door and motions for me to get in. "I'll be there to defend you if anyone dares to call you crazy, Alepoudítsa."
I hop in, then stop and look at him. "You'll be around, years from now?"
"You're mine now, Athena. Did you already forget?" he says and shuts the door before I can respond.
We drive in silence for a while, the SUV racing down the road. My mind replays the events of the night in vivid flashes. The gunfire. The man grabbing my hair. Dimitri's rage. The way he held the gun out to me afterward.
"Why did you do that?" I ask finally. "Give me the gun after? Test me like that?"
