Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes #3)(98)

I try to rise. He puts one finger on my breastbone. ‘Stay. You look good when you are open and ready to be taken.’

‘Take me in the ass.’

And in this way, inch by inch, slowly, carefully, painfully he goes where no other man has gone. No matter what happens after this, this is my gift to him.

Afterwards, I lie on his chest and listen to his heartbeat pulsing—slow, definite. A sheltering sound. He deserves more than I can give. Something tears at my heart. He deserves much more.

Can he feel the beat of my treacherous heart? I shouldn’t have begun this. Too late. I just never dreamed someone like him would ever want me. I feel suddenly so lonely it hurts. Aching tears swell my eyelids. I stamp them down. He explores my hair, curling it around his fingers. I open my eyelids and the tears run out and smear between our skin. His hand stills. He takes my chin between his thumb and his fingers and lifts my face up.

‘Why?’

I realize I want to make him feel good. I want to pretend a little while longer. ‘I’m just happy.’

He stares at me for a moment longer. He is about to speak again so I smile. So easy to execute. So disarming. Such a lie.

I trace the cross over his heart. ‘When did you do this?’

‘I was fifteen. I built it over time. It is made of seventy-seven scratches.’

I lift my head higher and look at him curiously. ‘What does it stand for?’

‘Matthew 18:21. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” My seventy-seven times are up, Lily. No more forgiveness for me. Only hell awaits.’

He doesn’t know but I already know his story. I think of him as a fifteen-year-old boy. Lanky with long muscles. Arrogant on the outside, but fragile and broken inside. Scarring his own skin, filling it with ink, counting his sins, and I suddenly feel so sad I want to weep.

Life is so strange. So unfair. What has a starving child in Africa done to deserve its fate? Or a gypsy child who has to take over a criminal enterprise at the age of fifteen? I think of my brother bringing me an abandoned bird’s nest with the broken shells still inside. Doing handstands on Brighton Pier. Sweet, clueless Luke. Making lumpy pancakes on a Sunday morning. A knot forms in my throat. I swallow it. My throat aches. I will not cry in front of him.


‘Why didn’t you stop at seventy-seven?’

‘Because I couldn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘The more money I made, the more entitled I felt.’

The child is gone now. The man is impenetrable. He f*cks. He comes. He doesn’t feel. He leaves. And yet he is different with me. As I am different with him. I nod. Yes, money. It makes the world go around. All of us little puppets in its thrall.

‘I found you a job,’ he says softly.

I feel tired. ‘Yeah? Where?’

‘You’ll work in my organization.’

‘As a drug mule?’

His face is serious. ‘I have legitimate business ventures.’

‘What will I be doing?’

He shrugs. ‘Alicia, my PA, will tell you all about it.’

‘You mean you created a job for me.’

‘Lily, Lily,’ he whispers.





THIRTEEN


‘Friends, we have a new member amongst us tonight. Let’s welcome Lily,’ announces William, the group leader of RSSSG (Relatives Surviving Suicide Support Group).

The introduction is for me, being that I am the only new one in the group and everyone has turned to stare at me, but I am unable to acknowledge it, since my mind and body have suddenly become blank. I stare ahead, unable to look at the faces searching me, unable even to speak.

My grief, a deep tattoo covering my heart, starts bleeding anew. Maybe this is a mistake—too early (that’s a laugh)—or maybe I’m simply not ready yet.

Just act normal.

Whatever that means in a place like this. I take a deep breath and forcing myself out of my paralysis nod a general greeting. A girl stands up and goes to get a chair from a stack in the corner of the room. The clanging noise is loud in the empty, uncarpeted space and I have to stop myself from jumping. Other participants are moving their chairs, widening the circle to accept me. The girl slides my chair into the newly created space.

‘Take a seat, Lily.’ William’s voice is firm, but in a reassuring, hypnotic kind of way. It struck me that way even on the phone. I walk to the vacant seat and gingerly perch myself on the edge of it. The woman sitting next to me turns my way and smiles warmly.

‘Relax, we’re all friends here,’ she says and presses her hand on mine.

‘Hi,’ I say, resisting the impulse to pull my hand away.

I first heard about this center when a friend suggested it four years ago. She said it kept her sane when her father took his own life. But I never wanted to come. Until a few days ago. I’m only going to observe, I told myself again and again. But now that I am here, I no longer know why I am even here at all.

‘So who wants to begin the session?’

It’s that time when someone gets up and bares their naked soul!

William looks directly at me. Oh no. I’m only here to observe. I’m not ready to reveal anything yet and certainly not to a room full of strangers. I realize then that it has taken a long time for me to stop putting flowers on the grave of my memories. I don’t want to talk about him now. Maybe not ever. I bow my head and hope he will take the blatant hint and give me a pass.