The Phoenix
‘You deflected her, I trust?’ said Redmayne, a familiar note of threat returning to his voice.
‘Of course I did. What else could I do?’ retorted Nikkos, with more emotion than he’d intended, or than was probably wise. ‘Tell her the truth about how we threw Rachel Praeger to the wolves? Just like we’re doing now, to her daughter? I doubt Ella would have stayed to finish dinner if I’d said that.’
‘No one “threw” anyone anywhere,’ Mark Redmayne pronounced coldly. The edge to his voice was unmistakable now, sharp enough to cut through Nikkos’s alcohol-fueled haze. ‘Remember, I knew Rachel well. Very well.’
Oh, I remember, Nikkos thought bitterly.
‘She was a committed agent who welcomed risk and fully understood what she was doing when she came to Greece,’ Redmayne went on.
‘Well her daughter isn’t,’ Nikkos replied stubbornly. ‘Ella is young, she’s naïve. I walked right into her hotel suite today. The door was unlocked and she was lying there asleep, out cold! Makis’s men could have slit her throat in seconds.’
‘Ella is a unique resource. She’s a weapon, a powerful weapon, and the time to use her is now,’ said Redmayne, as calmly collected as Nikkos was emotional. ‘We’re talking about Athena Petridis here. Are you forgetting who Athena is? What she does? She and her gang of monsters?’
‘No,’ Nikkos sank down wearily on his couch, rubbing his eyes. ‘Of course not.’
‘No, sir,’ Redmayne shot back.
‘No, sir,’ Nikkos replied dutifully. ‘I am not forgetting.’
‘So don’t you dare tell me it isn’t right to use Ella, to use every resource we’ve got. If Athena is still alive, still out there, then it is right. It’s essential.’
‘Sir.’
‘And if word ever reaches me that you’ve undermined this mission in any way – if you warn the girl, or give her information she doesn’t need that might jeopardize our success – there will be grave consequences. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir. I do.’
‘No one agent is bigger than The Group. No life is worth more than the mission,’ Redmayne barked. ‘Rachel Praeger understood that better than anyone.’
Yeah, and look what happened to her! thought Nikkos. Aloud he confined himself to a respectful, ‘Sir’, and hung up.
On one level, the boss was right. Ella Praeger had literally been created to serve The Group. You could argue that all she was doing now was fulfilling her destiny. And it wasn’t as if Ella herself was unwilling. Yet Nikkos still felt sick to his stomach. Because the fact remained that in a few days they would be sending an inexperienced child to Mykonos to spy on Big Mak Alexiadis. To ‘get close’ to a psychopath That was like throwing a kitten into a lion enclosure, and no amount of Redmayne’s self-justifying spin could make it otherwise.
Nikkos tried to tell himself he was being too emotional. But he ended up needing a lot more to drink before he was able to fall asleep that night. And when he did, dreams of Rachel Praeger haunted him, her reproving face mingling with the sweet sound of her daughter’s voice. Ella. So determined. So trusting:
‘Am I like her?’
God, you are like her!
So very, very like her.
With all his heart, Nikkos wished it weren’t so.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Makis Alexiadis walked into Mythos, Mykonos’s elite beach club, pausing for a moment as he weaved past the bar to enjoy the sensation of having all eyes swivel in his direction, the men’s with envy and the women’s with desire. It was a familiar sensation, yet he never grew tired of it. It felt good to be a king.
Heading to his usual spot, a velvet-lined, Moroccan-themed booth occupying the premier position in the restaurant’s roped-off VIP section, just above the beach, he and his entourage settled in as the staff scurried around them, bringing silver trays of mojitos and caipirinhas, and peach bellinis for the girls. Makis had brought three with him tonight: Arabella, a willowy English It-girl and the daughter of a duke, added a touch of class to his harem. Lisette, the French movie star, brought the fame factor. And Miriam, the Persian princess, had the sort of curves that made other, lesser men crash their Bugattis into the sea. Mak had bedded all of them over the last few days, but none of them had truly inspired him sexually. Tatiana was a tough act to follow in that regard, although it was still a relief to be rid of her cloying, attention-seeking presence around the villa. Thankfully she would no longer be bothering him, or anyone with her whining demands. What was it about genuinely stunning women that made them so deeply insecure?
Makis didn’t know, and tonight he didn’t care. A free man again, he allowed his eyes to rove lustfully around the room, picking out the most beautiful specimens from a female clientele that could have been ripped straight from the pa
ges of Sports Illustrated. Every now and then an ugly ‘friend’ or diamond-encrusted matriarch wedged their fat asses into one of the seats at the bar or usurped a spot on the dance floor. But these were rare blemishes on an otherwise perfect-skinned fruit. With its spectacular sunsets and thumping Arabic music, Mythos was the place to go for the hottest, youngest, most sought-after models on the island, the favored haunt of Mykonos’s ‘beautiful people’. Nammos and Cavo might be better known amongst the nouveau riche American crowd, but the Kardashians were welcome to that tacky scene. Mythos was where the real power players hung out on a summer night. Big Mak Alexiadis never went anywhere else.
Almost immediately, a girl sitting at the end of the bar caught his eye. In black cigarette pants and a man’s smoking jacket, she already stood out from the rest of the barely dressed girls strutting their stuff, hoping to catch some billionaire’s eye. Her tousled, pixie-cut hair was streaked with white-gold flashes, and she wore no jewelry, not even a watch. But it was her face that really held Mak’s attention. He couldn’t decide if it was beautiful or ugly. Neither word seemed to fit. Compelling was the only adjective that came to mind to describe the huge eyes set wide on either side of a not-quite-straight nose, the cheekbones so high you could have launched a missile from each one, and the small, rosebud lips tapering into an almost elfin chin.
Clearly he wasn’t the only one who thought so. The girl was sipping a martini in between bites of her salmon nigiri, and making what looked to Mak like bored, polite conversation with the handsome man next to her, who seemed to be trying and failing to make an impression.
An imperious click of Mak’s fingers brought Jamie French, Mythos’s British manager, running to his side. Jamie was an encyclopedic fount of information about all his clients, and the go-to man for the latest island gossip.