Instead of taking us to Petra, Rafael brought us to a beautiful twenty-eight foot sailboat anchored in a hidden cove nearby. I didn't dare ask who it belonged to. Since Interpol had listed Petra in my file, the yacht had been used as a decoy to lure the polizia in the wrong direction. As we were sailing west towards the island, two helicopters passed us overhead, going east after the yacht. Somehow, it worked. I had forgotten how quick Artemisia was at thinking on her feet to adapt plans. She had always been the brains on our team. It was obnoxiously admirable.

Much to my dismay, Rafael left Desirae and me to fend the dry scirocco winds blowing across the Mediterranean from the Sahara on our own. Well, my own. Desirae didn't say a word to me the entire six hours it took to sail to the island, let alone help me. She didn't even crack a smile when I bashed my head into the boom fighting the sails by myself. To torture me even further, she stripped out of her soaked sundress and stretched out along the bench in the cockpit to sunbathe in her underwear.

Taking her hostage at gunpoint then pushing her off a cliff wasn't exactly what I had in mind six months ago when I had first envisioned the two of us escaping to Sicily together, but I took in these quiet moments with her regardless as the sky began to fade into pinks and reds. Just ahead, the island's only building, a self-sufficient solar lighthouse welcomed us with the flash of its light.

Three sides of the island were sheer cliffs at least fifty feet high, but as we approached the southeast, the white sandstone sloped gently to the water where an old cement dock and stairs had been laid by the Italian military in World War II. But I was surprised to not see another boat docked. Artemisia should have been here by now.

As I steered the sailboat in to dock, a flash of white along the barren bluffs caught my eye. Like a ghost, Artemisia stood at the top of the singular path in a white lace dress. In the past, anytime that she'd get mad at me and bring the mishap of the island up, I'd tease her saying I was gonna marry her there.

It didn't seem so funny anymore.

She stepped carefully down the crumbling stairs in a pair of white sandals that wrapped her ankles. She didn't offer any help, but I didn't need it either. My bare feet had barely hit the wet cement dock to tie us up before Desirae shoved past me still just in her underwear and bra.

"Where is your boat?" she asked Artemisia. "I need to get away from her."

"Hard to get away from much of anything here, paparedda." Artemisia snickered, eyeing her up. "Some very kind scuba divers offered me a ride to the island after I gave them my last hundred euros. You just missed them."

I glanced up from the knot I was tying just long enough to catch Desirae's death glare aimed at me again.

"Des—"

She put her hand out to block my face. "You lost my gun, my phone, and you've nearly ruined my hair. I'm going to rinse out my locs and when I'm done, we're leaving. So the two of you better get your shit sorted. Now."

Desirae stormed past me back towards the sailboat and stepped down inside the cockpit. Rummaging around in the coolers, she took out a bottle of water and sat on the edge of the boat with her back to us.

Cautiously, I looked Artemisia over. At this point, I figured it'd be best to just assume she had that little gun tucked away on her. I took a tepid step towards her. "Do you wanna go up to the lighthouse?"

Her arms crossed over her chest. "I am not here to reminisce with you, Kirby. Did you speak to Georgiy?"

I took a deep breath and tried to ignore her bitterness. "He didn't exactly have much to say when I saw him last."

"So you kill him without getting me my money." Artemisia's tongue clicked. "Citrola senza simenza."

A cucumber without seeds.

"More like a hand without a thumb," I said through my teeth as I dug into my pants searching for Georgiy's severed appendage.

The anger in Artemisia's brows wrinkled with confusion. "What are you doing?"

"Getting you your money—and more—so you can get off my ass. After this little excursion, I'm done with you, but you owe Desirae some answers. Stop yanking her around about her husband's body."

"Oh no," Desirae's voice called out from behind me. "Leave me and my dead husband out of whatever little deal this is. We are not getting in between you."

"Right, I'll leave that to just Artemisia," I mumbled quietly, still searching my pants for the thumb.

After giving myself a full pat-down, I finally found it trying to creep out the bottom of my pant leg. But as I looked at the now sallow gray hunk of bony flesh in my hand, I wanted to cry. The saltwater had wrinkled it practically beyond recognition. It would be a miracle if I could get a print off of it now.

"What is..." Artemisia crept closer. Her face scrunched in repulsion. "Bedda matri, Kirby, is that a finger?"

I rolled it over in my palm. "It was."

She said something in Sicilian under her breath that I didn't quite catch, but understood just the same. For someone who loved drawing and painting from cadavers, her disgusted reaction surprised me. But anger quickly replaced her disgust, reddening her olive cheeks. "What is wrong with you?"

"What is wrong with me?" My voice rose an octave as my fingers clamped around the severed thumb to thrust it at her. "You are what is wrong with me. You tried to have me gunned down last night and I nearly bled out on the streets. The whole while, all I could think about was getting you your fucking money so you could have your nice little dresses and your nice little shoes." I waved the thumb in her face, but she didn't flinch. "This was the best I could do after waking up next to Georgiy's headless body that I'm sure you and Chaya and Lu—"

Artemisia's eyes sharpened. "How do you know Lu?"

"Well, I'm sure not as good as you do, amuri."

Artemisia smacked the thumb out of my hand and shoved me backwards. The cement went slick under my feet and my ass hit the dock, skidding back towards the edge.

Before I could get up, she lunged on top of me to push me flat, my head dangling over the edge. A wave smacked against the dock, splashing up over my face. Saltwater burned my nose and throat as I choked and spat. "Artie, get off!"

But she held me down hard, thumb digging into my already bloodied bandage. My fingernails cut into the skin of her hands and arms, but she didn't move.

"Desirae!" I pleaded.

She glanced over her shoulder just long enough to make eye contact with me. In no hurry, she reluctantly stood up from the boat and stepped back onto the dock. My grip loosened on Artemisia. But as Desirae's wet footsteps went the other direction, I tried to push up to see her. Without another look back, she began climbing up the cement stairs along the bluff to the top of the island.

I went to plead for her again, but the sea stole the breath from my voice.

Through the burn and blur of the water and the setting sun, Artemisia's face reappeared above me. "I need to see it," she said, leaning in close. "I need to see it for me. I need to know."

"Know what?!" But my words were garbled by another wave. Fighting against the pain, I swept Artemisia's hands out from my shoulders. Her body collapsed against me and we rolled until I was on top.

My hair dripped on her chest, soaking her white dress translucent as I held her down this time. My lungs heaved for breaths over her. Artemisia's sea blue eyes looked nearly black in the creeping dark as she stared into mine.

"It is not there," she murmured.

"What isn't?" My eyes searched hers for an answer she wasn't giving me. I shook her hard. "Artemisia?!"

"That look."

"What—"

She took my hands from her shoulders and slid them up against her throat, cupping them, to make me squeeze.

"That look in your eye before you killed her."

My pounding heart suddenly seemed to stop. She swallowed hard beneath my fingertips as my thumb slid up her neck. "You're scared of me?"

Scared of what I was capable of doing.

In order to keep myself moving these last six months, I had tried to avoid processing the trauma of killing her ex. But I hadn't considered how her watching me do it had affected her and her perception of me afterwards. She had been so careless and nonchalant in the moment. But that had been her resilient survival instinct. Just like me killing Cora had been my own.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

"Artie..." I sighed her name like a confession, bowing my head to hide. "You could've pulled the trigger and shot me yourself last night, and I still would have never looked at you like that."

"I know," she admitted. "No matter how far I push you over the edge, you still look at me like that first time I caught you in class." She tipped my chin up to make me look her in the eye. "I think that is what scares me the most."

Her vulnerability made my body instantly melt into hers. And her hips opened to welcome me. In a synchronous battle, our hands clawed at each other. For each other. My nails raked against her thigh as she curled her leg around my back. She tore at the bloodied leopard blouse where it was tucked into my pants. Whatever anger we held for one another, ignited a pure carnal desire between us, no delicate warm-up needed. As her fingers slid down past my waistband, my own found their way home between her legs.

Her lips parted with a moan, drawing out one from me at the same time. I tried to avoid her blue eyes, tried to avoid this being anything more than just an angry hate-fuck, but she pulled me close.

Her eyes lowered. "You're bleeding, amuri."

I thought she meant the stains on my shirt. "It's not my blood," I whispered against her ear.

Her body shuddered and tightened around my fingers. She lifted her leg higher up my back to urge me deeper. And I obeyed. As her head tipped back, my lips found her neck where I could feel every pulse, every raspy breath that ended with my name.

Her body arched against me with another shudder. "Did you really kill him for me?"

"What? No," I gasped, stopping everything I was doing. "I didn't kill him, Artie."

She lifted her head back up to meet my eyes, but I couldn't read the strange look on her face. Was she disappointed? Confused for sure at least.

"I didn't ki—he was dead when I woke up. And not just dead, full on beheaded, Artie. Head missing. Blood splattered all over the walls. And there was a missing Caravaggio above the bed. It was some rendition of John the Baptist, but I had never seen it documented before." I still couldn't read her face. Slowly, I started to slide out of her, but she gripped my wrist. "Artie..."

"And who bandaged you?"

As I began to tell her about Chaya, I expected the jealous bratty side of Artemisia to take over, but she oddly stayed quiet. Listening. I gave her the whole story, up to where I made Desirae get out on Georgiy's balcony by threatening to slice the Minniti painting.

She shrugged at that. "Maybe would have added value to the piece."

"There was a note on the door that said to find Lu." Carefully, I studied her eyes looking for clues, but she kept her poker face. Still quiet. "I didn't kill him, Artie."

Her head nodded as she let go of my wrist. "Okay."

"Okay?" I repeated. "You don't believe me."

"If you say you didn't, you didn't. I believe you."

"Just like that?"

She eased herself out of me, but not without stealing one more gasp from me. "You need a coffee, amuri," she replied. "And a new bandage."

"Let's go," Desirae's voice called out from behind, making me spring up and off of Artemisia. "I don't know how you two survived a week on this island. It's literally just a rock in the sea."

"Ricci di mare," Artemisia answered as she stood up next to me. Her white dress now soaked and transparent glowed in the dark, clinging to her body in all the right places.

"Sea urchins?" Desirae asked. Her eyes wandered over Artemisia as they both stepped into the sailboat.

"Lots of sea urchins," I mumbled.

I was about to hop aboard when I remembered the thumb. Quickly, I scanned the dock and found it, bringing it with me just in case. As I untied the sailboat, Artemisia took over the helm.

Desirae watched me closely as I stepped down into the cockpit with them. She didn't say anything, but at least she was making eye contact with me again.

"So what is the plan?" Artemisia asked, steering us out of the dock.

Desirae reached into her bra and pulled out the now faded, but still legible note I had found on Georgiy's front door. "You left this on the seat of the Ferrari."

As I reached for the note, Artemisia took it from her instead. Her brows furrowed, studying it.

"By the way, those goons shot out the back of your car," Desirae added.

Artemisia glanced up at me with an odd look again.

"I told her to drive faster," I said, trying to shift the blame, but Artemisia was quiet, eyes back on the paper. Whatever peace we had established seemed to be dissolving. "I'm sure we can have that dyke shop in Milan fix her."

"What?"

"The car, the Ferrari. It's trashed, Artie. I'm sorr—"

"Oh." She handed the note back to Desirae and cranked the motor. "Don't be sorry, Kirby. It was stolen anyway."

"Stolen?" Desirae stuffed the note back in her bra. "You said the Ferrari was yours."

"It was mine. Then I sold it. And then you and I stole it back last night," Artemisia explained. "Allora, I am sure Atia will track it down and—"

"Atia Russo?" Her name cracked in my throat. "Great. As if being put on red notice wasn't enough, I'll also have the Russo family after me now."

Artemisia quickly thought that over. She shifted the rudder to point us westward. "Okay, so we go to Soussa. I want to show you—"

"Tunisia? It will take us at least two days to get there and I highly doubt your mother's family will welcome me with open arms. Especially when they find out I'm wanted for murder. Sabina will probably fly out just to kill me herself."

Artie jerked the rudder swinging us to the east. "Fine. If not Tunisia, then Malta."

"Malta...?" The wind was actually in our favor. We could likely be there before morning.

She shrugged. "Caravaggio fled to Malta when he was wanted for murder."

Desirae snickered as I scowled. "And that worked out real well for him, didn't it?"

"Amuri, if you need to find Lucia like your note says, we go to Malta."