Row
I make it to the car, slam the doors and absolutely crow with joy. I reach into the front seat and give each man up there a whopping kiss on the cheek.
“I’m free!” I yell. “My father’s free! Kennedy is free!”
“Drive,” Patrizzio tells Kennedy. “Let’s get to the fucking airport.”
Kennedy steps on it and grins at me in the rearview. “You did so fucking well, professor.”
“You did,” Patrizzio agrees. “He completely bought it. All of it. The pregnancy thing was a nice touch.”
The car swerves as I assume Kennedy is just remembering that piece of information.
“It wasn’t a touch,” I say. “It’s the truth. I took the test last night in the airport.”
Kennedy pulls the car over. “You’re driving,” he tells Patrizzio.
A second later, Kennedy is joining me in the backseat. His arms around me, his lips are on mine and he’s shaking-positively shaking.
“Is this happy shaking?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he says. “And relief that it went alright. And pride, because you did so well. And holy shit. Holy shit. Holy SHIT. You’re pregnant.” He looks like he’s just been smacked in the face with a frying pan.
We spend the rest of the car ride wrapped up in one another. And by the time we’ve made it through the security line at the airport, we’re both a little more back to earth. The adrenaline and intensity of the day is coming off of all three of us.
“Jesus,” Patrizzio says as he hoists a bag over his shoulder. “I’d forgotten what rooms like that feel like. It’s like touching your tongue to an electrical socket.”
“You miss being in the game?” Kennedy asks him.
Patrizzio shakes his head. “I don’t. For the first time since I left prison, I have absolutely no urge to re-enter the hustle. Glad I got one last hurrah though, kid.” He claps a hand on Kennedy’s shoulder. “But tell me something, Row. Are you really going to hand over Tigrinya to Esposito?”
I chuckle. “Hell no. If I even find her, and that’s a big if, there’s so much red tape around artifacts like that, there’s no way in hell Esposito could get his hands on her. We just wanted to dangle a carrot. Something to get us out of that room and him off our backs for a while.”
“And if he’s still bothering us after that,” Kennedy says, shrugging. “I’ll kill him. Then at least we’ll have tried out all our options first.”
I look at him, totally unsure if he’s joking or not, but also not really caring. As long as Kennedy’s not beating himself to hell and back over it, I could care less about Esposito’s longevity of life.
Patrizzio checks his watch and starts to lean in for a quick kiss goodbye. He’s flying back to Ireland tonight, he’s going home, to where his children live. Soon Dare will be heading back to Ireland as well. And Kennedy and I will have to help start new lives for his mother and sister and my father. But for now, we just fly back to our little home in Santorini. We deserve a vacation.
“You ever want to come out to Greece again, Fabrici,” I tell him and kiss him on the cheek.
“I’ll call you, my little turtledove,” he says and then reaches out for a quick hug with Kennedy. The two men have tremendous respect for one another.
We watch Patrizzio walk down the hallway and disappear into the crowd. None of the people suspecting that the well-dressed, handsome man beside them was once the baddest mob boss in the United States.
And the same is true for Kennedy, I realize as we board our own flight. None of the other passengers know that he was a hit man. I lay my head on his shoulder and fall asleep.
Kennedy sprang for a plane ride back to the island, to spare us both the ferry ride. But even so, it’s almost 24 hours before I’m bursting through the doors of the little whitewashed house.
Kennedy locks up after me and tosses our bags to the floor. He drags me to the blue sofa I’ve come to love.
“Row,” he says, holding my hand so tightly. “I want to raise our child near my mother and my sister and your father. I want our kid to have more family than he knows what to do with.”
Tears automatically fill my eyes. “I want to foster our kid’s interests no matter what they are. Science, art, poetry, cooking, I don’t care. I just want her to be passionate.”
He leans his forehead into mine. “I’m going to love you forever.”
My heart skips every beat for the rest of my life. “And back again.”
# # #
6 months later
Kennedy
“Careful. CAREFUL,” Row screeches at me from above.
“Honey, if you say that one more time, I swear I’m gonna ram this tiny ice pick through my own ear.” I look up into the eyes of my extremely pregnant wife and smile a threateningly sweet smile.
“I’m sorry!” she yells, shading her eyes. “But you’re the one who wanted to help and I told you I wasn’t completely comfortable with a civilian helping on my site and-”
“Got it!” Row’s father bellowed from across the site. “He’s coming out!”
Row is up like a shot and sprinting across the site, leaving me to scramble out of the six foot hole I’ve been standing in all day, slowly chipping away at pottery fragments.
I catch up with them the moment a heavy piece of machinery gently lifts out the tiny casket and lays it in the prearranged area. Professor Rourke takes the most delicate little brush and starts to brush the dirt off one of the sides. There’s ancient Greek letters lining the sides.
“Daddy,” Row gasps as she reads the Greek. She gropes behind her for my hand and I thread our fingers. “It’s him. It’s Iairos.”
Her father looks over at her and something is set free between them.
In that moment, I see our future. We’ll rebury Iairos alongside his sister and his heart. Perhaps when our baby can be there with us. My mother and Mara will be there too. My mom and Row’s dad had apparently gotten a little friendly when they were all holed up in Corfu. And now we were all living together in Greece. As close to Iairos as we could be.
There’s so much work to do before we can do that. All the cataloguing and order that comes with Row’s job. And then we’ll have to pack up and move again. On to wherever her next job will be. But that’s just life, I think as I slide an arm around Row’s belly. That’s the good stuff.
The baby kicks against my hand and she looks up at me, smiling, her eyes shining with tears of joy.
“I love you,” she whispers. And then smirking, “Master.”
I smirk back at her. Some of the stricter rules we’ve abandoned. But a lot of it has stuck. And it makes our sex life surprisingly simple. And deeply rewarding.
And actually, that’s the perfect way to describe every moment of my life with Row. Surprisingly simple. Deeply rewarding.
THE END