Sons of Thunder (12 page)

She grabbed his jacket, buried her face into his chest. “No…no, I don’t think so.”

He touched her hair, tangled it in his hands. “You could have been killed. What are you doing here?”

Behind her, Jimmy had pushed himself up. Someone helped him to his feet, and he staggered over to Markos. Held out his hand. “You saved my life, boy. I always knew you’d come through for the family.”

Markos stared at the hand, fingers like frankfurters, slick with blood, and didn’t think—couldn’t. Every thought emptied from his mind. Before he could even make out words, he found himself on his feet, his voice roaring, everything boiling out in a rush. He slammed his hands into Jimmy’s chest once. Twice. Again. And then, as Jimmy backed up against a table, he made a fist and threw everything he had into it.

His hand exploded in pain as it connected with Jimmy’s face.

Jimmy howled, his nose destroyed, blood spurting into his eyes.

Yeah, that’s right. For the
family
.

Jimmy tumbled to his knees just as Markos felt the first blow, from behind, deep in his kidneys.

CHAPTER 8

“I’m gonna let you live, Markos, because you’re family, and I know you’re real sorry. Besides, your mama would want me to give you another chance.”

Markos said nothing, his mouth too swollen to form words. He didn’t even attempt to muster the energy—or perhaps the courage to glare at Uncle Jimmy, who’d taken it upon himself to give Markos his beating.

After, of course, Jimmy had spent a couple hours getting stitched up at the hospital.

“Uncle Jimmy! Let me in. Please!” Dino’s voice outside the door bore a ragged edge.

At least Sofia had stopped screaming. Markos didn’t know what was worse—the steel edge of Jimmy’s fists or Sofia’s endless pleading.

Markos had never been in the basement of Zante’s—a cellar off the alley that smelled of mildew and the tinny pinch of blood. He’d be okay if he never returned to the restaurant’s bowels. Actually, the pain in his arms laced above him, hanging from a pipe, turned him almost blind. He’d already retched out parts of his stomach, probably even pieces of his kidneys. He couldn’t take a breath without his ribs shearing through him.

Jimmy plunked down on a chair, working off the brass knuckles from his hand, wiping his brow. “I know you love her, kid, but she’s
got a voice for the clubs and frankly, I need her.” He stood up, grabbed Markos’s face in his mitt. “I promise, I’ll treat her right.”

“Like you did Hedy?” The words emerged slurred, and due to Jimmy’s flinch, intelligible.

“She got the best from me, didn’t she?” He threw Markos’s face away from him. “She was sweet on you the minute she laid eyes on you. And don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy every minute.” He put his lips next to Markos’s ear. “Did you love her?”

Markos closed his eyes. Hedy’s smile, sometimes too bright, always tinged with a hue of sadness, swept into his mind. Her husky voice, that fragrance that tangled his thoughts. Yes, maybe he’d loved her. He tightened his jaw, relishing now the pain.

“Cut him down,” Jimmy said.

He wanted to howl when the bonds on his arms dropped and he collapsed to the floor.

“Let them in.” Jimmy stood back, eyes on Markos as the lock slid open. He heard Sofia’s cry.

And then, she was there, her hands cradling his head. “You’re a monster!” she hissed at Jimmy, but she flinched as he took a step toward her. Markos wanted to lift his hand, maybe spit something threatening out of his mouth, but he couldn’t move, his body turning to slurry on the cold dirt floor.

“I didn’t kill him,” Jimmy said, leaning close to her, his voice low. “You owe me for that.” He slid a hand under her chin, gave her a kiss on the cheek. She jerked away.

Jimmy laughed and stepped around them out of the room.

“Let’s get him up to our room.” Dino, his voice stretched taut. Markos tried to bite back a groan as Dino slung his useless arm around his skinny shoulders. He wore a grim expression as he hauled Markos up.

Sofia braced him on the other side.

He had legs. He knew it. But they didn’t seem to want to work. “I’m sorry—” he rasped, even as they dragged him from the basement, wrestled him up the stairs. He just wanted to cave in to the pain, let it drag him under.

Make him forget.

Forget that he’d killed Kostas Pappos.

Forget that he’d left his widowed mother and run away from his crime.

Forget that he’d turned his back on Dr. Scarpelli’s kindness.

Forget that he’d practically run into the arms of Hedy Brooks and her speakeasy life.

Forget that he didn’t have a hope of protecting Sofia and Dino from Uncle Jimmy and whatever plans he had for them.

Forget that he hadn’t the strength to keep his promises.

Sofia tripped on the top step and pitched into the grimy snow; Markos landed beside her in an explosion of agony. Dino caught himself on his hands.

“Just leave me here.”

“Shut your yap,” Dino said, climbing to his feet, wiping his filthy hands on his pants. “Just—shut it, Markos.” He slammed the palm of his hand against his cheek, as if wiping a tear.

“I got us into this—”

“Theo got us into this! He’s the one who started it, by stealing Kostas’s girl. Why couldn’t he just stay away from her? He betrayed us all!” His eyes bore a craziness, his voice shaking. “And now—now we’re here, and I—I’m scared, Markos.” He ground his jaw shut, looked away. Shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get inside.” He grabbed Markos’s arm and again wrapped it around his shoulders. He seemed
stronger when he clutched Markos’s waist. “Help me. I can’t do this on my own.”

Markos stared at his little brother, straining to lift him from the dirt, his face flushed, his cheeks wet, almost—yes, angry as he hauled Markos to his feet. The anger gave him power. Focus. A place to put his fear.

Markos knew it too well.

Anger had fueled every step he’d taken from the island, a darkness seeded the night Theo and Papa had died. It twined through his heart, his body, his thoughts, strengthening him, blinding him.

Anger gave him courage. Strength. Power.

It buried his fear.

God will deliver you.

Not a chance, Mama.
He’d stood over Kostas’s body, had his blood embedded in the creases of his hands. He knew the truth.

No, God wasn’t on his side. Couldn’t be.

Markos balanced himself on the edge of the doorframe as Sofia found her feet, and for a moment lifted his face to the cool air, drying the blood, scouring the dank basement smell from his lungs. He drank it in, not caring that it bit his skin, burned his throat.

“I’m going to get us out of here,” Markos said to Dino. Although, honestly, he hadn’t a clue how they might break free, escape the life he’d trenched them in.

“I know,” Dino said softly as he carried him into Zante’s.

Markos couldn’t remember shuffling up the stairs, or even Dino removing his shirt, his pants. He wished he could dredge up the memory of Sofia washing his wounds, mopping his brow as he spiked a fever. Wished he knew whether Uncle Jimmy had dragged her away to sing for him at Tony’s.

But he fell into a bruised, painful place, nursed by the tenor of his own whimpers, a heat that turned him inside out, a cold that rattled him through to his teeth. Every movement raked up pain.

He may have cried out, but as he finally sank into darkness, he heard a voice—his, only broken in a way he’d never before heard.

Please.

Markos would know the song anywhere, but especially the way it lifted above the rush of the waves, more like a feeling than a tune, seasoned with the tang of the sea, the jangle of goats’ bells in the far-off hills. The setting sun poured over him, hot, soothing. On shore’s edge, the wind glued her long linen dress to her body and teased her long hair as her voice beckoned him down the hills of Zante.

“Sofia!”

He raised his arm, but she didn’t turn. Her song wound out on the breeze.
“Sofia!”

She turned. Her eyes drifted past him, and she smiled. Then she crouched, holding out her arms. Markos stopped, the rust sand mortaring him in place, as a little boy, dark-haired, his feet bare, ran across the beach and leaped into Sofia’s arms. She twirled him, his feet flinging out, his head back.

Markos paused, caught in the embrace of their joy, especially when she began dancing with the child.

Then, abruptly she stopped and looked back at Markos.

He lifted his hand.

She grabbed the boy’s hand and, with one final glance at Markos, turned and began to run up the beach.

“Sofia!”

“Shh, Markos, I’m here. I’m right here.” A cool, soft touch on his forehead, and he rose out of the clutches of the dream with a shout.

“Sofia!”

She stood over him—not the Sofia of his dreams, but the one caught in his nightmare. Her short hair, curls pasted into place, her amazing blue eyes bigger than he’d remembered, ever. Her perfect lips rouged. Into his mind flashed the memory of her on stage, hips swaying, that voice twanging out a song that intoxicated every man in the joint.

Including himself. “Sofia.”

She gently pushed him back into the pillow. He couldn’t help it—he reached up and fingered her bobbed hair.

She caught his hand, her thumb moving over his wrist. A soft sadness filled her eyes. “I’m sorry I cut it.”

He shook his head. “It’s beautiful. Makes your eyes so much more blue. Reminds me of the sea.”

She thumbed away a tear and managed a smile. “I think your fever broke.” She brushed his sweaty hair away from his face. “You’re looking better.”

He winced when she caressed his left eye, still swollen shut, not needing a mirror to assess the damage. He must look like he’d been dragged under a train to elicit Sofia’s expression.

“Where’s Dino?”

“He wanted to be here, but Jimmy has him doing errands.”

Errands?
“I know what kind of errands Jimmy sends people on.”

“He delivered a package yesterday. A—pineapple, you know?”

Markos wanted to sink back into the darkness. Jimmy’s idea of a “delivery” was a case of so-called gin bottles with a bomb inside. “Was he hurt?”

“No. He got out before it went off. But the front of the gin-joint was a candy store—”

“Please tell me no kids died.”

“Just the owner. But Jimmy’s been breaking the glass on the fuse, setting the bomb ticking before Dino leaves, so he knows Dino will do the job. One of these days—”

“Dino might not be so lucky.”

“This is all my fault.” She kneaded her hands together. “Jimmy said I could make him some money, and Hedy told me that if I sang for him, he’d give me more gigs. She was the one who cut my hair, dressed me up.”

“Hedy did this?”

I have a surprise for you; consider it a Valentine’s Day gift.
Hedy stepped into his thoughts, that dangerous red smile, those eyes that had the power to turn him inside out.
I think I’ll call you the Gent.

“She taught me how to sing too.”

He came back to Sofia, to the shame in her eyes as she looked down at him.
Oh, Sof.
“You already knew how to sing. Just—not like that.”

“You didn’t like it.”

He blanketed her hands with his. “I—love hearing you sing. Just—I don’t want you caught up in Hedy’s world.”

“You liked it when Hedy sang.”

Her voice emerged so soft he might not have heard it if she hadn’t widened her eyes, as if also surprised the words had escaped.

Yes, he had liked it when Hedy sang. And for that, yes, he probably deserved Uncle Jimmy’s fists. “I’m sorry, Sofia. I…” He didn’t know where to start. Sorry for loving Hedy Brooks? Perhaps. Sorry for letting her inside his head, his heart? Sometimes. Sorry for letting her pull him into a current that hurt Sofia? Definitely. “I miss your songs from Zante.”

“I have no songs left in me.”

“I should have let you and Dino go with Dr. Scarpelli. I just—I just wanted to keep us together.”

“You were keeping your promise. But—it nearly killed you.” Her face crumpled just a bit then.
I’m poison
. He saw her words, felt them. For the first time he understood—
poison
.