Page 20 of Rockland

He says, “I take it you’ve learned of our dry spell in the Village?”

“Yes. Sasha paid me a little visit last night. I lost over ten grand worth of wine. Are you going to replace it?” I ask.

His gaze searches mine. “I’ll pay you double what it was worth. Purchase it for the family cellar. We all just want to see you well.”

I take a deep breath. My anger is misplaced. I’m furious with death, but I’ve been taking it out on the Village. My family. My tone softens and I say, “I know.”

His hands rest on my shoulders. His dark eyes fill with emotion. His guard is down, just for a moment, as he says, “Tess, we love you. We gave you the privacy you needed to mourn. Now it’s time. You need to come back to us. We’ve lost Brett; we can’t bear to lose you, too.”

His kind words resound within me. I’m filled with a warm gratitude. For their love. Their care. The space they’ve given me, the fact that they love me enough to demand my return. I raise my gaze to his. “I know. I’m… back. I—I promise.”

“Good.” He kisses my cheek. Pulls away. Heads to the door of my office. Just before he steps out, he turns over his shoulder and eyes me carefully. He says, “But I’ve called in reinforcements, just to be sure.”

My brow furrows. “You mean, just for the memorial this weekend, right?”

He gives me one of those deep, dark looks he’s famous for.

As I continue to prod, desperation creeps into my voice. “Bronson—tell me you mean you’ve asked Rockland here for reinforcements… just for the weekend?”

Bronson gives me a wink. Disappears.

My mind whirrs. Clicking through the moments of Sasha’s visit last night. What had she said? Something that had made me uneasy.

Then it hits me.

Bronson’s enacting the hierarchy.

For real this time.

She was trying to warn me.

Rockland will be arriving at any moment. For good.

Rockland

I know what she needs.

I’ve always known what she needs.

It just wasn’t my place to give it to her.

And that kiss…

Last year, on the day of the memorial, did I punish her? Take her over my knee and chastise her like a little girl? Make her cry out in pain? Yes. It’s what she needed. The pain was the only way she could release and focus on the task before her… surviving yet another reminder of the death of her beloved husband.

I’ve thought of her every day—hell, every hour—since I watched the crystal blue seas of the Aegean from the jet’s windows, leaving her behind.

The kiss…

Leaving her house that day was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But she needed her space. She needed to be on her own, alone with her grief.

Get to the edge of the canyon of her despair, then, just before tipping over, save herself.

Now I watch the waters from the plane’s windows, again. This time, as I return to the Village, to the north Greece borders with Albania, Bulgaria, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece has more than three thousand islands and islets, of which only one hundred thirty are inhabited.

Or so we tell people.

A hefty price has been paid for one of those precious pieces of land to be documented as uninhabited. But it is inhabited… by Bachmans. The island is the home to a Mediterranean branch of the family that only a few in the American Brotherhood know to exist. Our island is located in the Aegean, the sea that separates Greece and Europe from Asia Minor.