Page 36 of Isle of Pain

I gasp. She never mentioned it. I don’t even think Lana knows. Otherwise she’d have flown here immediately. That’s when I realise that’s what we do in my family. All the hovering, maybe it’s how we show love. I understand why Giulia wouldn’t want to talk about it.

“Nico tried to save me,” she continues. “He was with me when I got abducted, and he got shot. It was bad, Mimi.” I let the nickname slide as she turned to face me again, her expression regretful and pained. “He almost didn’t make it.”

I have to breathe through my nose to stave off the sudden urge to kill. It’s so sudden it takes me by surprise but I embrace it. “Is he dead?” I ask through clenched teeth.

“Yes. I killed him. Made him suffer, too.”

“Good.”

Silence stretches between us but I don’t drop her gaze. As though she doesn’t want my sister to hear, Giulia whispers, “Lana doesn’t know. After what she’s been through, I didn’t want to burden her with it.”

“It wouldn’t be a burden,” I tell her.

“Then, why don’t you talk to her either?”

“I—”

“Some stories are not meant to be shared, Marie. Andrea and Nico know what happened to me. And now you do, too. I trust you with this. I’m not ashamed. I don’t want this to define me. I want this in my past, not re-hashed over and over. Maybe that’s what you came here to seek, too. Somewhere you have no past, only a future to build.”

Her words land inside me like a veil of truth.

20

NICO

FRIDAY DINNER OR HOW TO GET AN INKLING OF A BREEDING KINK

As we walk the country lane that links my house to Andrea and Giulia’s, I keep my hand on Marie’s lower back, guiding her gently along the way, the other holding freshly cut bluebells for Giulia’s table. After our hug, I’ve been craving more touch and letting myself try, small steps after small steps. My fingers are warm from her body heat but mostly, it’s my heart I feel beating a drum in my chest. I’m touching her, and she’s letting me. The anchor of that touch feels like a privilege and something more than I have a right to, especially since my fingers itch to create pain. After her arrival, nightmares still plague my nights, but less regularly than they have been since the night of my dad’s passing.

Ever since I opened the door to our enemy that fateful night ten years ago, I’ve relived my father’s death, flames licking my skin just like I remember the heat of the fire that destroyed our home and put my mother in a wheelchair. The last thing the man I thought was a friend did before he left was giving me a friendly clap on my cheek, his bare fingers on my face.

I thought I’d never be able to sleep without nightmares, or touch anyone without my brain conjuring fire in my blood until I burnt alive in my mind.

Then, Marie touched me. And now I’m touching her. It’s through clothes but I’m comfortable like this. I enjoy it, even. Her warmth is soothing and I almost wish my fingers would trace the bare skin of her back.

One day, I think as we approach my brother’s humble abode.

Where my home is all straight lines and raw wood, his is refined to look like a cottage, but one you would find in a magazine of most luxurious houses in the country. The lawn is made of grass and rose bushes that I know none of them take care of, preferring to hire an external hand rather than tend to their own garden. Giulia is as good at gardening as she is with cooking. And since she can burn pasta—and did, twice—that says a lot. The inside is all understated luxury, too. It fits them perfectly.

“I prefer your house,” Marie whispers to me as Giulia ushers us in, kissing Ember, wrapped on Marie’s front like the cutest bundle.

Giulia doesn’t kiss me, simply winking, before moving through the house. I love that I don’t have to pretend that I like contact with her. Intimately, from the very first time we met, she understood what I couldn’t vocalise and has never made me feel bad about it. That’s her strength. My sister-in-law knows everything about the people she interacts with, from the first look, which makes her incredibly good at being my brother’s spy.

“There they are. I’ve heard so much about you two,” my mother exclaims then wheels herself closer. I dip down to kiss her cheek briefly.

Marie’s eyes dip quickly to my mother’s wheelchair and I’m glad to see that her expression doesn’t change. She bends at the waist to kiss my mother’s cheeks, then turns a wide-eyed Ember.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs Capaldi,” she says softly, so far removed from the woman who commands me at will.

“Call me Catalina,carina. Mrs Capaldi was my late husband’s mother,” my mum jokes with a fake shiver. “That woman was not pleasant to be around.” She then turns back her attention to Ember. “And this must be Ember, your sister’s daughter?”

“She’smydaughter,” Marie interjects defensively, silence following the small outburst.

“Of course,carina. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Andrea clears his throat, but as always, it’s Giulia who jumps in and saves us from the awkward silence. “Let’s eat. Andrea’s stew is gonna get cold and no one wants to eat coagulated meat stock,” she says with a shiver and a shake of her head.

“Aren’t you vegan?” Marie asks her cousin with a frown.

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