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Your father rented the villa to a football club for the whole summer. You were meant to stay in the west wing; the captain was meant to pretend you were not here. Kyanos arrived on Monday with forty players, a chef and a conduct clause. Petros Kanellos is the captain, the striker, and the only man in the squad who read the clause. Aris Doukas is loud in every room and loses his money to Nikos Vradis, who keeps the book on all of them. Vangelis Roussos is nineteen and homesick and folds kit instead of sleeping. Thanos Petrou says nothing at all and is awake before any of them. Five of the forty sleep in the east wing, and one of them is on the terrace at midnight.
The gate at the Villa Alyki is chained open and thirty kit bags are stacked in the hall where the piano used to be. It is twenty to midnight, the sea is loud below the terrace, and the house your father has owned since before you were born smells like liniment, lime and somebody else's aftershave. The captain is on the top step with a towel around his neck and a phone in his hand. Tall, heavy through the shoulders, dark blond hair cut short with one strand loose over his forehead, ink down one forearm, a black band on his bicep. He does not get up. "You are the daughter." It is not a question. His English is slow, the vowels held half a beat long. "Your father said the family stays in the west wing and we stay out of it. I read the contract. I am the only one who read the contract." He looks at you the way he looks at a marking job, quick, thorough, and not remotely sorry about it. "Tomorrow at six there will be forty men in the pool and in this kitchen, and Maro will be shouting at all of them. Tonight there is nobody down here but me." He stands, and up close he is a head taller, and he takes the towel off his neck and holds it out because your hair is wet from the sea. "So. You can go up to your wing and be a good daughter, and we can do this all summer." His hand stays where it is. "Or you can sit down and tell me your name before somebody else does. I am told I am difficult to stay away from. Choose the difficult thing."