Page 66 of Isle of Beauty

My heart rate kicks up at the words, and my lips fall to his in an all-consuming kiss. It shatters my heart into tiny pieces and rebuilds it anew, shaped with his hands. The swipe of his tongue burns a path down to my nipples and my clit and I moan in his mouth.

My chest has never been so full when I counter, “I love everything about you, Lisandru.”

“I need to be inside you.” He growls and proceeds to show me just how much my words affect him.

TWENTY-SIX

LANA

TO BURN THE PAST

“What took you two so long? Nope. Never mind, don’t answer that,” Julian says as he leans on the door of one of our slaughterhouses on the outskirts of Sant Armellu.

When Eduardo finally took his last breath after what seemed like an eternity, he had the grace to do it on Kalliste’s soil during our annual visit to my family, but that still took me by surprise and I had to improvise. A meat freezer seemed like a good idea at the time. No way in Hell was I going to allow my dead husband’s body to poison the earth of my ancestors.

Pausing at the door, a cold sweat travels down my spine and I clutch Pierce’s hand hard. My mind replays three years of hot and cold, of thinly veiled insults, of isolation and making me feel like I was unlovable and replaceable. My desire to be special for someone other than my family cost me so much.

Pierce kisses my temple. “Whatever you need to do, I’ll stand by your side.”

A car slowly approaches, the sound of tires on gravel loud in the silence of the night.

“So, are we going to get this party started or what?” Giulia asks when she gets out and slams the door shut, immediately dissolving any thickness in the air.

Igor rolls his eyes at her theatrics and Julian laughs, drawing my lips up. Each one of the people around me holds a piece of my soul and I’m grateful to be surrounded by such loyal friends. My heart is ready to burst. Who knew burning a body would be so emotional?

I take an invigorating inhale and step inside the building. It doesn’t take us long to go to the back and into the freezer. The cold seeps into my bones and my breath clouds the space around me.

There, in the deepest corner, inside a body bag I got from Sage, is the body of my late husband.

“Can you help me move him to the back of the property?” I ask Julian and Igor. I don’t want Pierce to touch him. I barely want him in the same proximity in case his ghost might linger and hurt him. It’s a silly superstition but I can’t help it right now.

We move to the back where Giulia has gathered supplies for the main event and the five of us build a pyre. The process is satisfying and I get into a sense of flow. Time ceases to exist and I can only feel the burn of my muscles from the repetitive movements.

Then we’re done. I turn to Pierce, half-expecting to see him run and leave without a trace. But he’s still here, sweat lining his brow and the back of the white tee-shirt that spreads across his muscles. He feels the weight of my gaze and turns to me.

We look into each others’ eyes while Julian and Igor hoist the body bag on the pyre.

“I’ll hold your hand when you light up the match, mo cara,” he whispers.

Maybe I was wrong to think that I was corrupting this man, maybe violence and vengeance is in our blood like a curse no matter what we do to try and make amends for it.

Giulia places a bunch of flowers on the body then winks at me.

Daffodils.

It’s fucking morbid but I don’t care. It’s a pact sealed in blood and familial love. She knows what I did, they all do, and they’ll take the secret to the grave with them.

“Are you ready, surella?” Igor asks.

“Give me a moment.”

He steps back and they all wait.

Their patience is a balm to my spirit, healing me from the inside out. My three best friends and the man I love, I can be honest and admit this to myself, wait for me to be ready to burn the body of the man who caused me and others so much pain.

Pierce found out that Eduardo had growing ambitions and started “giving” his girls to his friends for money and favours. My hands clench at my sides and blood pounds in my ears, then suddenly, a yell erupts from my throat. My vocal cords hurt from the strain but I don’t stop. My abs contract and tears fall down my cheeks, staining my face with make up, but I don’t stop. My cry tears the silence of the night and pierces my own heart until it finally breaks down to its last shard.

When I stop, silence falls over us like a blanket. I feel empty. A good empty.

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