Page 79 of About Love and Revenge

Sometimes I find myself torn between fueling the hate, the thirst for revenge, and what we have.

I'm still not ready to define how I feel about her, but I know it's different from anything I've ever experienced.

At times, I get the feeling she's already got a deadline for us in her head. At the same time, she sends me mixed messages, like telling me she contacted her sisters to talk about what’s happened since she arrived from Greece. She didn't need to tell me that. I would have had no way of knowing.

When I initially hired her, I thought about bugging her cell phone, as I had with all the phones in Leandros's house. The idea was tempting because I was sure that sooner or later the rest of the family would get in touch with her, or the other way around.

But after things between us evolved, back on the plane, I decided that it would be a terrible way to start a relationship, even one like ours, based only on physical attraction.

So she ended up with a tracker on her phone, which is more for her safety—given that thus I can know where she is if I need to—than because she might run into someone from her family.

"Something else came up," says Grigori.

"What happened?"

"Ciro is dead."

"What?"

"Dead. Someone got to him."

"How the hell did they get onto the island without us noticing?"

“If you want a guess, I think they were helped by one of the villagers. Most of those people living there grew up under Leandros's rule. If they helped someone kill Ciro, I believe it was more out of fear than loyalty to the old boss."

“Investigate this. Did you take care of everything? Are the police there?"

"No. They'll never know what happened—there is no body. But we have something else to attend to."

"Spit it out."

"The experts already have an answer. The remains were indeed Orien's. They want to know what you want to do about it. Do you want the police to be notified or?—”

“No. No police, but I need to give confirmation to Aristeu."

"Are you going to bury him?"

"Yes, on the island."

As we're talking, my cousin Milena's name pops up on my cell phone screen.

"Is everything okay?"I leave out the formalities because I’ve kept in touch with her much more throughout the years than I did with Aristeu himself.

Milena has always caused me great concern because I know Leandros's reputation regarding women. She's a pretty girl, and even when she got engaged, I didn't trust her to be safe until she left the island for good.

“He's gone."

I close my eyes. I expected that. The last time I saw him, Aristeu was very close to the end. I had hope, however, that I would give him the chance to bury his son.

"Will you come to the funeral?"

"Yeah. Do you need something right now?"

"Only that you allow me to bury him near my mother."

“You are free to decide. When will that be?"

“I thought about two days from now, in order to give you time to arrive."

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