Sons of Thunder (32 page)

“You seem upset tonight.”

Sofia let the words drift out, with a tone of care, rather than defense, or more accurately, fear. Because either of those might elicit a response that included accusations, assumptions…and, on occasion, threats.

The colonel stood at the window in his black trousers, a white, sleeveless undershirt, arms folded, the muscles in his back taut.

He stared into midnight, and from far away, inside the grasp of night, thunder rumbled. Indeed, the breath of storm threatened the air,
and the olive trees shivered under it. Sofia sat up on the bed, her back against the wooden headboard, drew her legs up to her chest, and covered herself with the sheet.

“I killed a man today.”

She held her breath, secreted any response.

“I am tired of these partisans who can’t accept that they have been beaten.”

She tucked her chin into her knees, holding back a quiver.
Oh, Ari.

“And now that we’ve found two, we’ll have to find them all. We can’t leave with a rebel group in control of the island.”

Leave?

He turned, braced himself against the window. “Do you want me to leave?”

Had she spoken aloud? She looked away from him, not sure what her face might betray. “Why would I want you to leave?”

He sighed, strode over to her, sat on the bed beside her. She made no movement when he reached up and ran his hand down her face, cupped her chin in his hand. “Haven’t I kept you safe? Fed? And your fatherless son—haven’t I been good to him?”

She pulled in a breath, found the courage to nod.

He leaned close, kissed her, his lips nudging hers open. She had learned not to resist, to place herself someplace else—perhaps in the square before Zoë’s wedding, walking in the sunlight to meet Markos. Or dancing with Dino in the kitchen at Elsie’s. Yes, those moments held her even as the colonel pulled her hairpins from her hair, let it tumble down her back, pressed her into the bed linens.

Not tonight. Tonight, Markos’s dark eyes, his tone found her, pulled her away from the colonel’s attentions.
“What do you give him, Sofia?”
She blinked back tears and turned her mind to little Dino. The way he
dove into her arms tonight as they’d played hide-and-seek in the olive grove.

Markos couldn’t—wouldn’t know about her son. Who knew what he’d do? The Greeks had threatened to shave the heads of women—even to stone those who conspired with the Germans. But she’d conspired with no one but herself.

And, they couldn’t kill someone already dead.

Still, if Markos knew about Dino, he might steal him from the arms of his harlot mother.

She wrapped her arm around the colonel’s neck and wiped away the wetness below her eyes.

“What is it?” The colonel raised his head, frowned.

She found a smile—something leftover from her playtime with Dino—and shook her head. “I’m just—thinking of you leaving. It makes me sad.”

The words turned her chest sour, even as his expression softened. He kissed a tear. “That makes me quite happy to hear.”

Probably it also made him more gentle.

He held her longer than usual. “Maybe I should bring you with me.” He ran his fingers into her hair. “Would you like that?”

She closed her eyes, made herself nod.

He was silent for a moment, then, “I knew that someday I could make you mine.”

She thumbed away another tear before it fell upon his chest.

He pushed her away, sat up. “I need something to eat.” He dressed and didn’t even glance at her as he slipped from the room.

Mine.

She swallowed back bile at the word, sat up, her hands shaking. In the dim light of his bedside lamp, she caught her reflection in the
mirror above the bureau. Her long black hair frayed and messy around her gaunt face. Her lipstick smeared, her arm still bearing a bruise.

Mine.

She wasn’t even her own.

And she certainly didn’t recognize the woman before her.

Her gaze caught on his briefcase, now on the table by the window.

What do you give him, Sofia?

She slipped out of bed, padded to the briefcase. Or, perhaps she’d call it more of a satchel, with an arm strap and a flap that closed, with a locked clasp.

She pressed it.

Yes, locked, but Uncle Jimmy’s desk had been locked too.

She swept up her hairpins, returned to the satchel. Refused to look at the door, listen to her heartbeat banging, threatening, screaming in her ears as she bent out one end of the two-pronged pin and inserted it into the lock.

Don’t look, don’t—there. The lock snapped open.

Just like Uncle Jimmy’s desk.

She dropped the pin on the floor, didn’t bother to retrieve it as she pulled open the case.

Papers, communiqués, memos, a map…she studied it—shipping routes from the mainland to Zante.

Footsteps. She shoved the papers back into the satchel, closed it with a too-loud snap, dove back for the bed just as the door creaked open.

She swallowed hard, sure that he could see her pulse betray her at her neck. Or her flushed face.

Idiot, idiot…what if she’d been caught.

She shouldn’t let her regrets destroy her fragile hold on the future. Markos and his fictitious “treasure” could get her—and her son—killed.

Never again. Never…

The colonel slipped back into bed, garlic on his breath. He wove his arm around her. “You are so warm.”

She willed her heart to slow.

He ran his hand down her hair. “I have decided that you will come with me when I leave.”

She nodded. “And Dino?”

He sighed. “If he must.”

She splayed her hand over his chest. “I’ve heard the partisans will—hurt women like me.”

His chest rose and fell. “I, too, have heard the threats.” He nudged her chin up, her eyes to his, and she blinked at the concern—or perhaps possession—in them. “If something should happen, you must go to the monastery. I will tell my men to protect you. There you will be safe.”

She didn’t know what to think as he rolled over onto one elbow, above her. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Outside, lightning flashed against the window, behind it again the soft rumble of thunder. Rain wept upon the olive grove.

CHAPTER 24

Ari’s beaten body hung from the bell tower in the city square, swinging with the nudge of the wind in the soggy air.

A few women threw stones at the seagulls and crows that settled on his head, his shoulders. More knelt in the square, covered in black, their faces scarred with the rending of their own nails, their wailing echoing against the stones.

Gestapo set up a perimeter below him, their presence probably designed to thwart attempts to cut him down.

Even Sofia could feel the tremor of hatred, more than fear, pulsing through the crowd. She cupped her hand over Dino’s eyes and pushed his head into her shoulder as she hustled him past the square, toward the olive grove. Behind her, the late afternoon sun dipped into the sea, crimson fingers reaching across the waves.

“You’re hurting me, Mama.”

“
Shh
, Dino, it’ll be okay.”
God will deliver us.

She pushed the words from her head. Ava, again, trying to beguile her into faith.

His little legs clamped around her, his arms sweaty on her neck even as the sun scraped up Ari’s odor and lashed it into the crowd. Her eyes watered and she set off at a run.

Dino struggled in her arms, and her hand ached where she’d drawn a blade across it today. She’d wrapped it in a towel, but it still burned.

“I want to see Auntie Zoë.”

“She’ll have some goat’s milk and currants waiting for you when we get home.” Please, don’t let Zoë have seen Ari’s body today. Sometimes she seemed so fragile, and Ari’s death—

“Sofia!”

Lucien’s voice emerged, and she startled at the sight of him, his hair tucked under a fisherman’s cap, his knit sweater warmer than necessary for such a hot day. He shoved his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders, fell into step beside her. “What did you find out?”

“Go away, Lucien.” She strode out ahead of him, her breath coming hard. Of course, the colonel had to show up for lunch today, catch her hand, remind her of their conversation.

And her foolishness.

Every eye had simmered on her as the colonel pulled her onto his lap, threaded his hand into her hair.

Mine.

“Did you do it?”

“Please, Lucien. Leave me alone.”

He clamped her arm, yanked her to a stop. “It’s important, Sofia.”

“So is my son!” She gulped back her words, thankful they’d left the town. Her voice lowered to a hiss. “Did you not see Ari…?” her eyes burned.

He had the decency to duck his head.

“I need to get Dino home for his nap.”

She met his eyes, too much hope in them.

“I will come by tonight—late.”

“You’ll get us all killed.”

“Tomorrow night then—come to the feast. Certainly the colonel will allow you to honor the Feast of the Cross. Please—”

She shook off his hand and continued up the hill. Lucien disappeared somewhere along the way. She drew in a breath.

She hadn’t asked about Markos. Hadn’t wondered where he was. Hadn’t uttered his name.

See, he could die to her again. She would live through it.

She ground her jaw against the burn in her throat. At least he was taking her at her word to leave her alone.

Little Dino’s body slumped against her, sleep nearly upon him as she reached the house. The stone walls had stored the cool breezes from the sea, and Zoë had baked fish, cut up cucumbers and feta cheese to add to the currants. Sofia sat on the bench at the table as Zoë took Dino from her arms, roused him awake enough to drink the milk.

“I’ll settle him into bed.” She hummed into his ear as she carried him down the hall.

Sofia unwrapped the cloth from her hand. The cut had opened, and now blood trickled down her palm. A foolish wound from cleaning fish.

And not paying attention.

And seeing Ari’s body swinging in the breeze.

And listening to the colonel in her head.
Mine.

She hung her head, sickened. Not his. She belonged to no one…

But Lucien’s words had blinded her, turned her into something she wasn’t. She couldn’t believe she’d risked herself for nothing. Where exactly had her brain been in that moment? Worse, she stared at herself in the mirror this morning, pinning up her hair, and realized she’d left a hairpin in the colonel’s room.

On the floor under the table. Bent in a betraying position.

And it had been those corrosive thoughts that had caused her to slip, plunge the filet knife into her skin.

She rewrapped the wound, took the knife, and cut the cucumber left on the table. Taking a slice, she put it to her forehead, letting the cool juice seep into her pores.

His voice plowed through her.
I will tell my men to protect you. You must go to the monastery. There you will be safe.

The monastery.

Maybe at a church or a monastery,
Markos had said. Sure—if the colonel had some sort of valuable cache, he’d hide it at his own personal fortress.

Maybe she
did
have information for Lucien.

She’d find him tomorrow. But what if that was too late? What if Markos’s treasure
was
at the monastery, and the Germans planned on taking it out tonight?

Besides, the sooner Markos got what he came for and left, the sooner they could all breathe. The faster the fresh wounds might heal.

But what if—what if he were caught?

She opened the cloth, dabbed again at her cut. She’d rather die herself than live through his death again.

She could go to the monastery herself. Certainly, with the hunt for the partisans, it couldn’t be safe for any of them. But Sofia—she could go on the pretense of the colonel’s protection…

There she went again, thinking she might be some kind of heroine. Save her country or something. She could barely save herself.

She examined the wound. When she’d first opened the skin it burned, flashed tears into her eyes. Now it throbbed, a dull pain she might be able to ignore.

If not for the blood stain on her shirt. She should probably change.

“You still do that? The cucumber trick? I remember my mother wearing cucumbers when she worked in the kitchen.”

The voice pressed her eyes closed. Just for one second she simply gulped down his low tones, like cool water against her parched throat.

And then her head snapped up and she found her feet. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Markos skulked into the house, looking every inch like a rebel. He’d shaved and probably bathed, because his hair hung in waves below his wool cap. Anyone else looking at him might see a fisherman, although he seemed under-baked by the sun, his hands strong but not weathered. His eyes flashed, so blue she’d forgotten how they always reminded her of the sea. Yes, he’d grown taller, his shoulders broader. His grim look, however, seemed darker. “You’re hurt.”

His face didn’t move, as veiled as the shadows.

Still, just his presence moved her into the past. She saw her own frailties in his eyes, the girl who had believed in him, loved him with more of herself than she should, who had clung to his promises.