"Who is to say, Ca.s.sandra, whose bullet will end your pain?"

Tessa watched Casey and saw the suffering swirling within the green depths. Then she saw Casey's gun hand twitch slightly.

She knew she was only going to get one chance, and it came to her in a blinding flash.

"Don't tell me you actually believed me all those times I told you I loved you," Tessa said with a sneer.

Casey's brow knit together, and Meridio held his breath as he watched Casey's gun hand rise until the barrel of the pistol was pointed in Tessa's direction. Her next movement was so quick it was over in the blink of an eye. In a fraction of a second, Casey raised her other hand to the pistol, spread her stance open, and pointed the gun at Peter Tsigaris.

The popping sounds from the Beretta echoed in the open warehouse. Casey fired two rounds in rapid succession, one into Peter's kneecap and the other in Stefano's hand as he made a move with his gun. Stefano's movements seemed slow in comparison to the precise actions of Casey. Peter tried to reach for his pistol, *and Casey quickly put another round into his other leg. Both men howled in pain as Casey whirled and caught her father standing in exactly the same spot, frozen in place.

"You've sealed your fate," Meridio said over the moans of the fallen men. "I'm afraid Alex will have to kill both of you now."

Alex stood with his revolver still in hand, but he seemed to be hesitating, weighing his options. Reaching into his pocket, he removed the keys to the handcuffs and released Tessa.

Tessa's legs were a little shaky when she stood, but once the blood circulated a bit, she seemed as steady as ever. Casey ran into her arms, and Tessa squeezed her tightly.

"I thought you said you couldn't shoot," Tessa said.

"I said I don't like guns...I never said I couldn't shoot," Casey said with tears in her eyes.

Casey ran over to the sink, wet a towel, and brought it back over so Tessa could wipe her face of the blood.

"It's okay," Tessa said softly to Casey's concerned look.

"I've been used as a punching bag before. Alex, do you have my gun?"

"Here." Casey reached to the small of her back where she'd tucked the Glock into the waistband of her jeans.

Tessa accepted the pistol and slowly walked over to Meridio.

Tessa raised the gun and the man never flinched, only closed his eyes as the barrel was pressed against his temple. She stood there like that until he opened his eyes and spoke to Casey.

"You're going to let her do this, Mahtia Mou? " he asked.

Tears spilled from Casey's eyes as she took in the sight. She said nothing, but even she knew that not answering was as good as saying yes.

Tessa pulled back the stiff hammer and poised her finger on the trigger. When she fired the shot, she watched as Meridio's body jerked forward. She continued to watch as he realized the round was fired over his head. He spun his head between Casey and Tessa in disbelief.

Tessa grabbed his collar, and although he was several inches taller, he surrendered to the rough treatment easily.

"Know this, Meridio, she's the only thing standing between *you and death." Tessa growled, and he knew Tessa meant Casey.

"It's over...go home." Tessa motioned for Casey to join her.

Casey ran into her arms, and they walked toward the exit.

Tessa stopped in front of Alex and held out her hand, offering a smile to him.

"I owe you, my friend," Tessa said quietly.

"I'm glad you feel that way, Nikki, 'cause I'm going to be needing a job, considering I just p.i.s.sed my life away here."

"Wherever I go, you'll always have a place. You may have to improve your English a little considering we're not too welcome here in Greece anymore."

Tessa put an arm around Casey, and they continued on their way. Meridio, not looking like a man who was just defeated, called after them.

"You'll have to run for a long time, Ca.s.sandra. My partners will not take kindly to this. It will be a long while before you can stop looking over your shoulder."

"I'll take my chances," Casey said dryly, pressing her body closer to Tessa.

Meridio looked up at the sound of tires b.u.mping along noisily on the old wooden dock. "That must be them now." He smiled, and suddenly Tessa understood why he looked so smug.

"The Turks!" She grabbed Casey's hand and they ran for the far door.

"I'll take the sedan, maybe we can split them up!" Alex shouted as they burst out into the sunlight.

Two cars were heading their way. The second vehicle stopped and Meridio left the warehouse and entered the auto. Casey tossed the keys to Tessa, and they ran for the red convertible.

"Where the h.e.l.l is Jack?" Casey shouted.

Gunshots rang out and Tessa heard the gla.s.s of a taillight exploding as the bullet shattered it. Casey felt a deep searing pain in her thigh, and she stumbled as she reached the car. She fell into the vehicle as Tessa gunned the engine. Tessa fired a few rounds and shattered the windshield of the first car. Looking over quickly at Casey, she saw the dark red stain spreading across Casey's jeans.

"Jesus Christ, Casey, you're shot!"

*"I'm okay," Casey said between clenched teeth.

Tessa pushed the sports car as fast as it would go and lost the heavier weighted sedans up through the twisting gravel roads to Agios Stefanos.

"I'm going to try to outdistance them by the cliffs, that way Jack can get to us by the road or the sea," Tessa said, wondering how in the h.e.l.l they were going to get out of this one, but hoping Casey couldn't hear the fear in her voice. "Use your belt and tie it tight around your thigh like a tourniquet."

There was only one car following them now, the other must have gone after Alex, who headed off in the opposite direction.

The dark sedan was closing in, having made up the lost time on the straightaway portion of the road. The next turn was a hairpin, and Tessa purposefully sped up, knowing the larger car wouldn't be able to make it. She cut the steering wheel hard to the right, stepping on the accelerator the whole time. The larger car spun off the road and landed in the soft sand near the edge of the cliffs. Its back wheels spun around, creating a high-pitched sound as they turned without finding purchase in the slippery sand. By the time the men were jumping out to push the car back onto the road, Tessa was gone.

They sped toward a small village, and as they hit the edge of the town, a small child ran into the road that Tessa's car was careening down.

"s.h.i.t!" She spun the wheel and locked up the brakes to avoid the boy. The momentum of the vehicle caused it to flip over once before landing upright again.

Tessa never remembered being thrown from the car, but she couldn't have been out long as the boy was still standing in the road. She shook the cobwebs from her mind and tested her arms and legs.

"Casey?" She looked around, jumped to her feet, and searched the area.

Casey had been thrown farther from the car, and she screamed in pain as she rolled over. Tessa dropped to her knees and with only a quick look, could tell Casey's leg was broken in more than one place.

*"Don't move, sweetheart." Tessa tried to think what to do.

Any minute the Turks would be coming up the road. "This is gonna hurt like h.e.l.l, but we have to get out of here."

Tessa was right, and when Tessa scooped Casey into her arms, Casey screamed in agony again. By the time Tessa moved toward the home in front of them, Casey pa.s.sed out.

Tessa didn't wait; she kicked open the door and shouted the first thing she knew would bring help. "There are Turks after us!"Two young men jumped up to help her, and an older woman motioned for her to bring Casey into a backroom. Tessa watched as a gray-haired man pulled a pistol from the top drawer of a bureau. He closed the door and peered through the shutters.

Casey regained consciousness and wished she were still knocked out. The pain wasn't nearly as bad now that she was quiet again. The bullet wound was bleeding worse than ever. When she looked up, she saw that Tessa had a large open cut across her cheek. The blood ran down the side of her neck, soaking into her shirt. Tessa's arms were a ma.s.s of sc.r.a.pes and cuts, but she smoothed back the hair on Casey's forehead and smiled at Casey like none of this was happening.

"Do you have a phone?" Tessa asked, knowing what the answer would be before the old woman shook her head.

"I do." Casey attempted to reach into the large pocket on her jacket but gave up in pain.

"Here," Tessa leaned over Casey and fished through the pockets. She brought out the phone and three packets of papers that she could only stare at. "Holy s.h.i.t, when did you get these?"

Casey gave a weak smile as Tessa stared at the invoices from her father's office. "Well, there was no one there, and I figured if some were good, then all of them must be better."

Tessa kissed her forehead and punched Jack's number into the cell phone.

"Where the h.e.l.l are you two?" Armstrong shouted.

"I could ask you the same question. We're in a small village just at the edge of the cliffs, past Agios Stefanos, first house on the corner. Look, Jack, Casey's hurt. She needs to get to a hospital 0.

*right now. She's losing a lot of blood." Tessa turned away from Casey and muttered the last sentence.

"We can have the chopper there in two minutes. We're at Meridio's estate. Your mother is safe and we just picked up a guy named Alex who says he helps you."

"Yeah, he's with me," Tessa said.

"Oh, great, another one. Where are the invoices? Does Casey still have them?"

"She's got the whole d.a.m.n bundle in her hands, which means you don't get them till you get over here and pick her up."

"She's one h.e.l.l of a girl, you know?" Jack shouted, and Tessa could hear the whine of a helicopter motor through the phone and knew they were taking off.

"Yeah, I know," Tessa said, brushing the backs of her fingers against Casey's dirty cheek. "Just get your a.s.s here and pick her up.""Where will you be?"

Tessa looked up just as the gray-haired man with the gun placed his fingers to his lips and motioned for silence. She could hear men's voices outside.

"I have something to finish up." Tessa clicked off the phone in case Jack was tempted to call back about her cryptic message.

Tessa looked out the shutter and could see the men milling about the road, looking at the red convertible. She hoped it still ran and that the keys were there. She walked back to Casey and that familiar pain clutched at her chest as she knew what she had to do and that Casey wasn't going to like it.

"Sweetheart." Tessa knelt by the bed and Casey opened her eyes, biting her lip against the pain. Tessa spoke in English, and the old woman turned away as if understanding their need for privacy.

"Jack's on his way, but those guys are outside, and they're going to start busting down doors because they know we're here."

Tessa licked her lips and Casey knew what Tessa was going to do before she said it.

"And you're going to try to draw them away," Casey whispered.

"I need to say something to you."

*"No! G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Tessa Nikolaidis, you are not going to tell me you love me now, then go out there and let them blow you all to h.e.l.l. I don't want to hear it until you get back, and if you don't come back and tell me, I swear I'll never forgive you."

Casey sobbed.

Tears filled Tessa's eyes and she kissed Casey's forehead and smiled down at her, stroking the short locks. "It's a deal," Tessa said, then she kissed Casey as if it would be the last time and both women felt it.

"I'm so proud of you, Niko...for the choices you made today,"

Casey said softly.

"I lived for so long with revenge as the only thing worth living for. You gave me something else to live for." She rose and pressed her index finger to Casey's lips, then she turned and was gone.

Tessa still had her Glock and checked the clip out of habit.

Once the old man showed her the door that led to the alley, she pressed the roll of bank notes into his hands. He shook his head, but she only turned and slipped out the door.

It was a small village, but the two-story stone houses hid her from view of the main road. The alleyway was a dirt path, but it was lined with bushes and trees. She pressed through the line of bushes and ran the remaining distance to the convertible.

Jumping into the driver's seat, she thanked the Virgin that the keys were there. She revved the engine and hit the gas, throwing dirt and rocks and enveloping the road in a cloud of dust. She heard shouts behind her, then fired a few quick rounds from her pistol so they would know it was her. She coughed at the dirt in the air surrounding her but figured that if they couldn't see the car, they would think she and Casey were inside the vehicle. She smiled one of her feral, adrenaline-stoked smiles, knowing she'd just bought Jack the time to get his agents into the village. She refused to think about the possibility that Casey wouldn't get to a hospital in time. She knew in her heart that it wasn't Casey's time.

The helicopter landed right in the middle of the street about thirty seconds after Tessa sped off in the convertible, the sedan *following her. Two paramedics hastily worked on Casey in the room of the house where they found her. They began IVs, shot her full of something for pain, and stopped the bleeding from the bullet wound at least long enough to get her loaded onto the helicopter.

Jack ran alongside and helped carry the litter as a sudden explosion, a fireball rising in the sky, rocked them all. Black smoke billowed up into the sky as agents ran back to give Jack a report.

"Two cars...looks like the rest of our Turks. They took a dive off the cliffs...not much left of them," the young man shouted over the helicopter's blades to Jack, who was inside the vehicle sitting next to the stretcher Casey lay upon. He looked down at Casey and just stared at her.

"No..." Casey shook her head. "Please...no," she pleaded as tears spilled from her eyes.

Jack didn't like this part of the job; in fact, he hated it. He hated losing good people, but as badly as he felt, he knew it was nothing compared to what Casey was experiencing. He squeezed her hand and was glad for the roar of the engine as it drowned out the heartbreaking sobs of Casey, who lost her father and her lover in the same ill-fated moment.

Chapter 22.

Casey spent seven hours in surgery as the physicians worked to remove the bullet that was embedded in her left thigh and to repair the broken bones in her right leg. From her hip to her ankle, she'd broken the limb in six places. The surgeons explained to Jack that Casey would require a few more surgeries and that she would more than likely walk with a limp for the rest of her life. For three days, she lay unresponsive in the Athens hospital, Olympia never leaving her bedside. Jack had the American government fly Casey's mother, Eva, to Greece to be with her.

Jack watched as Olympia and Eva met again for the first time in twenty years. They cried and shared their pain. Jack shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable with women, as well as their displays of emotion.

No one knew how to come right out and tell Casey about Tessa and her father. There were no survivors found at the crash site, and the remains were charred beyond dental recognition. Casey's behavior told everyone around her that she already knew. Casey barely spoke, and when she was able to eat solid food again, she only stared at the fare in front of her until they had to restart her IVs to be sure she was getting nourishment. A very nice therapist came to see her three times a week, but Casey just stared out the window, unwilling or unable to talk about her pain.

Finally, the doctors went to the mothers for help, for it did seem like Casey had two mothers. When one rested, the other kept vigil, and every day, they tried to get Casey to say more than *three words in a row. Olympia brought all of Casey's favorite food dishes to the hospital, and occasionally, Casey would hastily take a bite or two, but just as quickly, her eyes would fill with pain, and she would turn back toward the window.

Olympia walked into the room just as she did every day. This time, she sat next to the bed in front of the window Casey spent all her time gazing out of, so Casey would have to look at her.