Page 81 of Isle of Beauty

“Men down. Lana’s not here, Pierce. You need to move on with the plan.” Andrea says in the earpiece.

I had no hope she’d be here.

I look at the man in front of me who’s eating his steak with gusto and talking my ears off with expansion plans for the Pierce name and all I see is a stranger, a man so bent on power and greed he’d destroy his own family for it. That madness ends with him.

“Let’s get to the dessert. Marta?” he calls but no one comes in.

Luc frowns but calls for his maid again. Then for his second in command. “Jim?”

My smile is vicious when he turns to me with a mixture of anger and fear in his eyes. “What did you do?”

He moves to stand but I pick my knife and stab his hand with all my strength all the way through the wood. He immediately clutches his other hand over the wrist of the injured one, as if that will help. His deafening wails are music to my ears and I need more. I take his own knife, then his uninjured hand and impale it to the table, locking him in place.

I move to stand at his back, silent. Yet another technique Lana taught me. While he cries and tries to breathe through the pain, I retrieve his gun and without ceremony, shoot both his kneecaps. More cries fill the silence of the dining room.

“STOP. What the hell are you doing?”

Luc breathes heavily, gasping to get enough air in his lungs. They must be burning with agonising pain. I wonder how I could pierce one and make the pain worse without him passing out on me. Maybe I’ll keep that for Misha Petrov, cutting Luc to pieces is just as effective and the blood is a good reminder of who controls him. Pain without a visual isn’t enough sometimes to convince people to talk.

“You know what I’m doing. Where is Lana?”

“Why the fuck do you want to know? She’s nothing. Don’t tell me you fell for her, you dumb fuck,” he rasps.

“Wrong answer”.

I clasp the meat cleaver in my hand and bring it down to his left fingers, severing them clean off. The blood makes a morbid painting on the white table cloth and even more than the pain, Luc’s face pales at the sight before he retches all over himself.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Giulia quips in my ear.

I slap his face to keep him conscious and grab him by the collar, shaking him like a ragdoll. “WHERE. IS. MY. WIFE?”

“You’ll never fucking find her.” Every word comes out breathy and laboured. “Misha’s already sold her and is ready to ship her off to Siberia.” He laughs then, delirious with pain.

I can barely hear Giulia with the rage thrumming a beat of vengeance in my ears. “Andrea, give me access to all your systems. I can find all the flights heading to Siberia, including from private airports.”

“Knowing my brother, he’s gonna hide in plain sight. Don’t lose time with smaller or private airports, focus on the bigger ones where there’s private lanes,” Igor says with urgency.

“You’ve made a mistake, uncle. You took something that belongs to me. Something precious. And you hurt my family. Do you know what I do to people who threaten the ones I love?”

The acrid smell of urine hits my nose but I don’t let that deter me.

He’s shaking his head in all directions; snot and tears cover his puffy red face. “You’ll never find her” he sobs but I don’t give a shit. “Stop this. We can be great together. Our family deserves it.”

“I got the location!” Giulia yells. “The plane leaves in thirty minutes and you’re twenty minutes away. Get on with it!”

I move to his side, pulling his head up by the hair, and he whimpers. “You’re right, my family deserves greatness. But you’re not part of it.” I slash the knife around his throat. Deep.

I wish I had more time to make him suffer but my wife is more important than any revenge.

He gurgles on his own blood, choking down on it while his hands are still pinning to the table and I watch as his life force leaves his body in a few seconds. His head lolls down to his chest, his unseeing eyes staring at nothing.

I don’t have time to worry about clean up so I take the candle to light the table cloth, then the curtains and the sofa, letting the fire consume the Pierce name to erase it from memory.

THIRTY-THREE

PIERCE

IF SHE DIES, NO ONE IS SAFE

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