Sons of Thunder (40 page)

“Hold on.”

She pressed one hand to the ceiling, the other to the dashboard as they crashed through the streets, toward the olive grove. The silvery green leaves shone like knives as they careened into the courtyard. Sofia held her breath—please don’t let the colonel be waiting with a cadre of guards to mow them down.

The house remained silent.

Maybe she
had
killed him.

She glanced up at his darkened window, sucking in a breath as Markos broke through the gate and bumped into the field. A couple of goats skittered out of their way as Markos muscled the car down the lane between trees. “Where to?”

“It’s at the end of the property. Near the cliffs.”

His expression bespoke some sort of memory. “Right. Of course.” In the distance, thunder rumbled.

“British Mosquito bombers. The fleet can’t be far behind.”

The caves looked different in the revelation of dawn. She remembered
a tumble of rocks that led into a hollow of earth, the musty smell clawing out to chill her. If Ava hadn’t pointed out the grotto, she would have never identified the lip of rock that hid the mouth of the cave. Now, light spilled in, revealing veins of gold and silver that twined deep into the cliff.

She got out of the car and scrambled into the mouth, slipped, nearly fell as pebbles tumbled into the darkness.

Markos caught her. “I’m right behind you.”

“Your mother had a light. Now it’s so—black.”

He held out his hand.

She took it. One last time.

Because, well, she couldn’t go anywhere with a man who despised her son, right?

Or did he despise her?

“How far does this go?” he asked, as she followed him into the maw of the cave.

“I don’t know—it opens into a huge cavern. I think the sea spills into it; there’s a sort of lake—”

“Shh—”

She stilled, even as she brailled her way deeper, testing each footstep twice. Were those voices? “Ava!”

The darkness ate her voice. If it weren’t for Markos’s grip, she might have let it swallow her, paralyze her.

A light flickered, caught her. Then it scraped against the wall and puddled at her feet. “Over here.”

The hand holding hers spasmed. She tightened her grip around it.
Yes, Markos…

The tunnel opened into the gullet of the cave, and in the wan glow she made out Ava, panning the flashlight across her eyes.

Settling on the man behind her.

“Oh.” Ava sucked in a breath, her hand clasped over her mouth.

“Matera.”
Markos’s low voice might have been for himself, but Ava let out a cry.

Sofia stepped away as Ava pulled her son to her bosom, her hands pressing at his back as if she might actually draw him into herself.

Yes, she understood that feeling. Dino scrabbled across the rock toward her and leaped into her arms. She swept him up. His legs clamped around her waist, his entire body shivering. She breathed him in. “We’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Behind him, Zoë rose to her feet, shuffled near, her eyes on Markos. She glanced at Sofia, then back to Markos, still holding his mother. “Theo.”

For a second, Markos whitened, as if the name stripped something from him.

But Zoë came back to herself and rescued him. “Markos.”

Markos stepped away from his mother, her hand still in his. “Zoë.” He reached for her, but as he did, the ground trembled.

Zoë caught his forearm as Sofia rocked on her footing. “What was that?”

“The British are bombing the port. It’s probably aftershocks. We need to get out of here.” Markos took Zoë’s hand as, from some cleft in the darkness, the Mizrahi family moved forward.

“Markos Stavros. I remember you hauling in fish.” Dr. Alexio extended his hand, the same one that had cradled him at birth.

Markos stared at him as if he might be a specter from the past. “Dr. Alexio.”

The elderly man smiled. “And my family. Your Sofia found us.”

His Sofia. She glanced at Markos and found his eyes on her, something like pride in them. She kissed Dino’s head, tried to swallow.

“I have a ship meeting me on the other side of the island. We’ll get there—you’ll all be safe. The British will give you asylum.”

Another tremor. Sofia fell to her knees, bracing herself with her hand.

“Mama!” Dino’s arms vised her neck.

“It’s okay, Dino,” Sofia said, her hand stinging. She climbed back to her feet.

Markos had stilled.
Dino
. “You named your son after his father.”

Sofia glanced past him to Ava.

Her gaze flickered over Sofia. “He’s
Dino’s
child?”

Oh, how she thanked the shadows. “He never knew. I’m—so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell…”

“What do you mean, he never knew…?’’

Sofia had no words. She looked at Markos, and he took his mother’s hands.

“Mama, Dino died in the war in Europe. But you would have been so proud—he became a doctor. He saved hundreds of lives including mine.”

“He became a doctor.” Ava closed her eyes, as if trying to picture it.

Sofia saw him then, in his lab coat, his stethoscope around his neck. Remembered his stories from the hospital. Yes, his mother would have been proud of him.

The cavern floor convulsed.

Sofia pitched forward, her arms clutching Dino.

Markos caught her, cushioning her as they smacked into the rock.

Boulders broke free, bombing the viscera of the cavern, and pebbles rained on them as she lay in Markos’s shelter.

Dust boiled out from the entrance, burning her eyes, salting her throat. Sofia coughed, her body wracking.

She wasn’t the only one.

“Are you okay?” Markos said between bouts. He had one hand cradled behind Dino’s head.

“Yes,” she finally managed. “What happened?”

“Mama—can I borrow your flashlight?” Markos untangled himself from Sofia and retrieved the light. He disappeared through the cloud of dust into the gullet of the tunnel.

Without the flashlight, darkness bled into her eyes, her mouth, her pores. She clutched Dino and fought to breathe. Markos’s footsteps slapped against the stone as he returned, a phantom out of the murky gloom.

“Bad news.” Markos splashed the light across the cavern, as if searching for something. It panned across the dark waters, on the foamy spittle floating on top. “An aftershock—maybe a direct hit, who knows? It crumbled the mouth of the cave. We’re trapped.”

Trapped.

The word hurtled around her brain as she watched Markos stalk the length of the cave and back.

Trapped.

“Are you sure?” Sofia tried to keep the tang of fear from her voice. “Did you check—”

“I’m sure.”

She recognized this Markos. The same Markos who had stood in the train station and handed her over to Dino, ready for his own demise.

Yes, in the glow of the light, he looked every inch the rebel she’d met in the wine cellar, an angry, almost nail-bitten look on his face. He stalked out to the edge of the inky water.

Then he stripped off his shirt.

She tried, oh, she tried to keep her gaze away, but it arrested on the blooming red bruises across his chest where a boot had met his ribs.

She hoped she’d hit the colonel’s femoral artery.

Sofia tumbled Dino to Zoë’s arms, launched herself at Markos. “No. No—you are
not
going in there.”

He rounded, and his strong hands caught her arms. She expected that same unbridled passion—the kind that could shake right through her bones to sweep away her words of protest. Instead, his voice lowered, something in it she didn’t recognize.

“Listen, when I was a boy, I used to swim on the other side of these cliffs. There were caves there called Whistler’s Drink. I knew about them, and I always knew they tracked back into the mountain. But I was always afraid to go in them.” He glanced at the water, back to her. “We have no choice, Sofia. There’s a tunnel somewhere under this water—and I’m going to find it.”

“You’re going to drown—”

“No—listen, I’ll find the current. There has to be a waterway to the sea.” He flashed his light onto the water. “See—look. The water is moving, in and out of the tunnel. Which means there are waves pulling at it. I just need to find them, follow them through—”

“And what if it’s too tight? What if you get stuck?”

He glanced up, behind her, to Alexio’s family, his mother, Zoë, and Dino. Then he gave her a hard look. She knew it too well. “We don’t have a choice.”

“Use the rope, Markos.” Ava held out the rope from the barn. “We’ll hold one end.”

Yes. The rope they’d used to tie themselves together as they stumbled down into the cave.

Markos grabbed it, looped it around his waist. He handed Sofia the other end. “Don’t let go.”

She glared at him. “I hate this—this is a terrible idea. Please, Markos, there has to be another way—”

“Shh, Sofia. We’re going to be fine. God will deliver—”

“Don’t you dare say that to me, Markos Stavros!”

“God will—”

She couldn’t help herself. With everything inside her, she slapped him.

The sound ricocheted off the cave, a thousand times sharper than she’d imagined, and it knifed right into her soul. “Don’t you say that,” she whispered.

He tightened his jaw, his eyes in hers wet. Then nodded. “Of course you can’t believe. I guess it’s too much to expect.”

He gave her a long look.

She hadn’t a hope of reading it.

Then he kissed her on the forehead, walked to the edge of the pond, and dove into the cauldron.

CHAPTER 30

“Markos!” Oh, she hated herself for letting her fears bubble free, hated the way she called him back. “Markos!”

Of course.
She stared at the oily water, every word slicked out of her. What did she expect from one of the Stavros brothers?

Ava cast her light upon the pond, dark as ink, edged in foam. Sofia couldn’t make out anything, let alone the bottom. The rope bit into her hands.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
Please…

How long could he stay down there—had it been a minute? Two? She gulped in her own breath—maybe if she held hers…

But the air shuffled out of her.

She should pull him—

“Pull him back,” Zoë said.

“Wait,” Ava said. “Wait. My son knows the sea.”

Sofia’s pulse thundered against the gulp of water rumbling deep inside the cave. And in the veins below the cliff floated Markos, maybe trapped, maybe even drowning. Sofia ran her thumb over the hemp.
Please—

Ava stepped over to her, the light searching the depths. “Pull, Sofia.”

Sofia gave a tug—but the rope tightened in her grip, threatened to yank from her hands. She yanked back. “No!”

It nearly ripped out of her grip. “Markos!”

Ava’s mouth set in a dark, pinched line, her light scanning the surface.

“Markos!”

A splash, then gulping of air.

Ava stripped her light across the waves, uncovered Markos in the corner, clutching a ledge. Blood dripped from his shoulder, a raw scrape from the teeth of the rocks.

He kicked over to her, clung to the edge, his hair back, his face suddenly, strangely boyish. It seemed, in the passage through the darkness, he’d discovered more than just a tunnel. “I knew it—I always knew it.” He leaned back into the water, ducked his face, came up, shaking his head fast. “Whistler’s Drink is just on the other side. I tied the rope to some coral. We’re going to be okay.”

She didn’t even know where to start to protest.
Okay…?
“You can’t be serious. What about your mother—”

“I can swim.” Ava had already stripped off her shawl.

“And Dr. Alexio—”

“Child, I was swimming before—”

“What about Dino?” Her voice shrilled, and in her arms, Dino began to cry.

“I’ll carry him. We’ll go one by one. We can hide in the cave on the other side while I contact help.” Markos pulled himself out of the water.

“It’s the only way out of here.” He stood and put his wet hands on her. “Listen, I tied the rope—you can stay here and hold it. They’ll go through one by one. I’ll be right there with them. It’s not that far—I promise.”