“Skye isn’t the bad guy here,” Victoria said. “You should be ashamed of yourself. For God’s sake, go to therapy, sort your shit out. Women aren’t punching bags—you don’t get to push us around, not any of us.”
“Hear, hear!” Cassandra chimed.
Skye bit back the tears. They were all here for her. She had asked for help, and they had come without question. These people.Herpeople.
“I’ll sort out the paperwork,” her mother went on briskly. “All you have to do, Martyn, is sign. If it was up to me, of course, the police would already have been informed, but fortunately for you, my daughter inherited her father’s heart, not mine.”
“That might be true,” Joy said, “but I think we can all see where she got her strength from.”
Skye reached down and took her friend’s hand, squeezing it. Martyn rolled his eyes.
“Is that it?” he said tersely. “Can I go now, or are you going to torture me further? Tar and feathers? One hundred lashes in the village square?”
“Facetious idiot,” Adam snapped.
Martyn used his crutches to hoist himself up, letting the chair fall to the ground with a clatter. He shuffled out from behind the table and moved into the street, turning to scowl at them all one final time.
Skye stared at him. Her fear was gone. He was pathetic. A sad, lonely, spiteful man.
“This is your last chance to say it,” she called out.
Martyn turned.
“Say what?”
“Sorry.”
His shoulders rose as he drew in a long breath. Then he spoke, low and venomous.
“I am sorry,” he said. “Sorry that I ever met you.”
Fifty-four
December 1941
The Italian soldier stood facing her. He was scrawny from hunger, black-eyed with loathing.
Katerina did not dare move. Her arms went protectively over the swell of her stomach. They were not far from the ridge where she had first set eyes on Stefanos. Those days felt otherworldly to her now, trails of a dissolving dream.
“Buonaséra,” he said.
She would not speak to him, not after what he had done to her, to her sister. Katerina turned away, but Lio reached out a hand and clamped it on her wrist, pulling her around to face him. He was still strong—far stronger than she. She could smell alcohol on his breath and wondered where he had found such contraband, whom he’d hurt in order to get hold of it.
“Leave me alone,” she said with as much authority as she could muster.
Lio sneered at the Greek words and spat on the ground. She watched as he slowly slid his pipe into the pocket of his army-issue coat and drew out another object. A blade. Katerina’s breathcaught in her throat as she looked at it, gleaming in the thin light of the half-moon.
Lio gestured behind her, his meaning clear.Lie down, submit, allow me to do what I want.
Katerina did not move. She pictured her sister, frail and sick, waiting for her to return; she saw Stefanos, somewhere on the mainland, fighting for freedom; she imagined their baby, who would surely die with her if she did not succumb to her enemy’s demands. Yet she could not bring herself to cower; her limbs would not obey her.
Lio raised the saber, drawing it slowly through the air, showing her how she would meet her end. She could give in to him, lie back and let him crawl across her as an insect would, although Katerina suspected that he would murder her whether she did so or not. Better to die undefiled than give him the satisfaction of having bettered her.
“No,” she said, the word loud, unequivocal.
A breeze tore across the hillside, whispering its awe.
“No?” Lio’s brow tugged upward, a slug caught on a hook. The sigh he relinquished was one of disappointment. He had a particular game in mind, and she was in no mood to play.
