The Phoenix

hen go to sleep at night with the sounds of their screams and pleading playing on an endless loop in his head.

Of course, ‘innocent’ was a subjective term. Usually the marked men were bad debtors, businessmen who’d taken loans from Spyros and then failed to make their interest payments.

‘That’s theft,’ Spyros would instruct the teenage Makis. ‘They are thieves and liars. And it’s not as if they haven’t had warnings.’

That part at least was true. Torched homes, kidnapped loved-ones, even severed fingers were all a part of Spyros’s repertoire of ‘warnings’ back in those days. As he got older, Makis was expected to participate in all of them. The stress was appalling, but swimming saved the young boy’s sanity. There was a community pool in Athens he used to go, to swim and swim and swim until his skinny arms could no longer move, and his lungs were screaming for air. And when he emerged from that water, he told himself his guilt was washed away, and he taught himself to believe it.

I’m a survivor. My only duty is to survive.

These days his stresses were different. Persephone, damn her to heaven, still refused to sleep with him, and was even talking about returning to America to ‘have things out’ with her husband, whatever that meant. If she were less well connected, and less rich, he would have forced himself on her by now, and/or had the useless coke-head husband conveniently disposed of. But wealthy American heiresses tended to have people looking out for them, not least an army of lawyers, and Makis couldn’t afford that sort of mess, not with everything else going on right now. More disturbingly, however, he had a sneaking suspicion that he might actually be developing feelings for this woman. Real, deep, affectionate feelings, of the kind he hadn’t had since … well, not for a long time. There was just something about her, some magical quality, not unlike the one that the world had associated with Athena Petridis, back in the day.

Athena. Even the word filled his chest with tension and rage. She, of course, was the other source of his stress, rising like a kraken from the depths after all this time to try to take back her empire, to curtail his hard-won power. Oh, she was all reassurances, of course, whenever they corresponded. Makis had done a wonderful job. She was too old and too tired and physically depleted to try to take back the reins full time. He, Makis, would remain in charge day to day and she would merely offer strategic advice. ‘Like a chairman to her CEO’, as Athena put it. (Not an analogy Mak favored. CEOs reported to their chairmen.) But her analogies didn’t matter because Makis didn’t believe a word of it. Actions spoke louder than words, after all, and what was the brand on the migrant boy’s heel if not a surefire sign that Athena’s years as a silent partner were over?

‘L’ didn’t stand for Lagonissi, as some fools had been suggesting. Not any more. That had been Spyros’s sign, before he ever met Athena. The simple mark of a peasant risen to power. But Spyros was long gone, and Athena was no peasant. Her ‘L’ represented something very different, and Mak knew it. It was one piece of a much larger puzzle, a far more complex mosaic. Just weeks ago, not one but both the Kouvlaki brothers, Perry and Andreas, two of Makis’s most trusted subordinates, had been brutally murdered and had their corpses branded with different letters – ‘A’ and ‘P’. Athena herself may not have been behind the killings. But whoever ordered the Kouvlakis’ murders knew her intimately and understood her secret code and what it meant. How it spoke of her past loss and present rage. Of her need to reclaim control, no matter what the cost. Her need to dominate. To win.

These signs were not to be taken lightly.

Heaving himself up out of Villa Mirage’s indoor, Olympic-sized lap-pool, he rubbed himself dry and walked over to the poolside table where Cameron McKinley was waiting for him. The Scottish lawyer-cum-fixer had risen to become a central player in Big Mak’s inner circle over the last few years, advising him on almost every aspect of his business empire. Tall and thin, almost to the point of emaciation, Cameron was albino pale, with translucent skin and pale, wispy, reddish-blond hair and ice-blue eyes, the physical opposite of his employer. Frankly, he’d always given Mak the creeps with his long, bony fingers and his mealy-mouthed way of talking, so softly spoken that he seemed to be almost whispering. Thankfully it was rare that they had to meet in person. Cameron was based in London, and the two men typically communicated only by phone. (Mak had trust issues when it came to lawyers and emails.) But on this occasion the matter in hand was so sensitive that only a face-to-face meeting would do.

‘What do you have for me?’ Mak demanded, taking a seat opposite the suited Scotsman in his damp Vilebrequin swim trunks.

‘Sister Elena’s still at the convent,’ Cameron whispered. ‘But my guess is she’ll make a move soon.’

‘Based on …?’

‘Her daily routine’s been changing. Subtly, but it has. She’s spending more time outside the walled cloister, more time by herself. And some of Athena’s old allies have been making moves too.’

‘Who?’

‘Konstantinos Papadakis, for one. He just turfed his long-standing tenants out of his fortified guesthouse on Corsica. He also brought his plane to Athens last week with a full-time pilot on standby.’

Konsta Papadakis was an old friend of Spyros Petridis’s and had been best man at his wedding to Athena.

‘You think he may be trying to move her?’ Mak asked.

Cameron nodded. ‘I do. And he’s not the only one gearing up.’ Cameron went on to list a string of Athena’s past admirers and wealthy Petridis loyalists who’d transferred funds to the same anonymous Cayman Islands bank account in the last month. ‘She’s been reaching out to old friends for sure.’

The tightening sensation in Mak’s chest intensified. He ran a hand through his wet hair.

‘I must be seen to support her.’

‘Indeed,’ said Cameron.

‘People need to know I welcome her return. That I’ve only ever seen myself as a caretaker. In accordance with Spyros’s wishes.’

‘Quite.’

Makis leaned back in his chair. ‘If anything were to happen to her it must appear to be an accident. Or some sort of natural event. Like a heart attack.’

Cameron’s watery blue eyes didn’t blink. ‘Not impossible. She’s in late middle age now, and her body’s been through considerable trauma.’

‘Or a fall?’ Mak was thinking out loud.

‘That happens.’

‘Into water, perhaps?’

Cameron nodded. ‘There are some dangerous currents throughout the islands.’