Page 53 of About Love and Revenge

I lean my head back in the chair and close my eyes. I don't usually shy away from my responsibilities, but at least for one day I'd like to be a normal thirty-six-year-old guy, not having to spend all my time strategizing against enemies, planning how to make them pay.

Being able to explore what is coming to life between the two of us.

It was a hell of a hard thing leaving her yesterday, but there was nothing I could do.

I cannot betray my blood.

Aristeu needs to have his closure.

GREECE

Sometimes I ask myself:when all this is done, will there be anything human left in me?

I look at the man I vaguely remember from a remote period when I lived here. Ciro now looks like a shadow of what he once was. Time comes for everyone, even arrogant assassins who think they have the right to choose between life and death.

“I swear to God I'm telling the truth! I've been on the run for eight years! Why would I do this except to hide?”

I know he is. I know too much about the human soul not to realize how terrified he is.

Everything he’s told me matches up with the information Theodoro gave me at the party, except what happened inside the boathouse.

Ciro was the only one who managed to escape. All the other men who participated in my cousin's murder were killed that very day by Leandros.

“I'm not a good man. I've killed many times for Doctor Argyros, but I'm not a pervert and I couldn't do what he ordered. He wanted me to dishonor the boy. Take away his dignity.”

I feel bile rise in my throat as I hear him repeat what Leandros told them to do to Orien before they murdered him. I'm disgusted, but that feeling is nothing in comparison to my desire to kill.

My yearning for revenge has never diminished, but sometimes it feels as if it’s been numbed. Maintaining a constant state of hate for twenty-four years is not a simple task—you have to cultivate emotions such as resentment and hurt. You have to let your family's cries and pleas for mercy come back to mind often. You have no right to allow yourself to forget.

After what I have just heard, however, this will no longer be necessary.

Forcing myself to stay focused, I mean.

Disgust and repulsion pulses through my system with the same intensity as it did after that first conversation with my rescuer.

The day I left my fears behind and started transforming into what I’ve become today.

“Killing has always been easy for me,” he continues, and I can see his desperation to convince me. “But I couldn't destroy the boy like that. I'm not a rapist. I didn't even pull the trigger!”

I don't know if he's trying to move me. Anyway, it won't help. “No, he ordered another sick person, just like you, to do it.”

One boy, practically a child, against five grown men.

“I know it doesn't improve my situation, but if it weren't for me who was leading that day, his end would have been much worse. None of the other men would defy the boss's orders, and I only did it because the boy was the same age as my nephew.”

I can no longer listen to him. I get up, ready to hasten his end. “Where is he? Is his body on the island?”

I remember my cousin. We lived together for a short time, but I only saw him transform into an adult through the photographs that Aristeu sent of him and Milena. The memory that comes to me is that of a thin and tall boy about eight years old, the age he and Theodoro were when I went to study in the United States.

Orien was a different, introspective child who seemed very mature for his age.

In a way, it's a relief to get answers, because I didn't have any illusions that everything would turn out all right.

Only, now I must visit a dying man to tell him that his son, his boy, lost his life in the most despicable way possible.

It's horrible to say this, but at least it was quick—true luck for Orien; this time the monster Argyros didn't perform his vile deeds himself, as he did to my family.

“Yes. I can make you a map of the location.”

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