Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“We understand,” Tommaso said. “We’ll be on our way—”
“I’m not leaving without him.” I held the Skull King’s stare, his face just inches from mine, and saw a beast instead of a man.
“Constantine.”
Darius suddenly shoved me hard in the chest.
I stumbled back only slightly, prepared for him to hit me.
“I don’t fucking like you, you pompous little cunt.” He came for me again. “I don’t like your face. Maybe I should shove your body in with his so I can have the set. Because your fucking face . . . I hate looking at it.” He seethed as he stared me down, a gorilla about to beat his chest and rip my face off.
Tommaso moved to me and grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s go. Now.”
“I can’t—”
He grabbed me by the neck and shoved me back. “Are you really going to make me die for you? After everything I’ve done for you?” He tried to speak in a whisper, but the room was silent, so every word was heard. Accusation and resentment burned like the waves of heat across the desert. “We tried, Constantine. It’s done.”
I didn’t want to give up the fight, but I knew there was nothing I could do—at least at this moment. I gave a nod in agreement.
“Good.” He grabbed my arm and escorted me out—like I might change my mind.
I lied to my mother, told her he’d been killed in a car accident, arranged the funeral, and made sure it was a closed casket so she would never know what really happened. That was the least I could do for her.
My sister was a mess. Everyone was devastated.
I’d had more time than anyone else to process his death, but because I’d witnessed the way his body was broken, I seemed to be doing the worst. I couldn’t comfort my mother because I felt unworthy to even touch her. I didn’t save my brother—and I didn’t even bring his body back.
We had everyone at the house afterward. It was the first time my mom had hired a caterer instead of cooking herself.
I couldn’t stand the voices of everyone there, didn’t want the company of a single person, so I made my way outside, sat on the ground with my back against the wall, looking at the lights of the city my brother would never see again.
Isabella must have come looking for me, because when she found me on the ground, she took a seat beside me, in a black dress with sleeves, her heels left in the house somewhere.
I held an empty beer bottle in my hand, finishing it a long time ago but unable to remember to throw it away.
She glanced at the side of my face for a while. “It wasn’t a car accident, was it?”
I continued to stare at the lights, my eyes filling with tears. I took a painful breath, then shook my head.
Her hand reached for mine, and she squeezed it, releasing a sniff.
I blinked, and the tears streaked down my cheeks. I cried in front of her without restraint. I couldn’t cry in front of my mother, had to be the man of the family since I was the last one left. My father had clutched his chest and gone down in the kitchen, dead before he hit the floor. And now my brother floated in an oil drum.
I was all that was left.
“Con . . .”
“I—I tried to save him. But—but I couldn’t.”
She squeezed my hand harder. “It’s okay, it’s okay . . .”
“I watched him die.” I started to cry harder. “I watched him die . . . and I couldn’t stop it.”
A week after the funeral, I went back to work.
“You ready, Con?” Tommaso asked when he sat on the couch across from me in his study. “It’s okay to take more time.”
I shook my head. “Thank you . . . for everything you did for me. And for coming to the funeral.”
He gave a nod. “When I said I loved you like a son, I meant it.”
“I know.” He’d shown me more affection than my own father ever had. Stuck out his neck for me in a way my father never would have. We were only about fifteen years apart in age, but we were in very different seasons of life.
“I hope you find peace, Con.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll never let this go.”
He continued to watch me.
“There’s nothing I can do about this now. But someday . . . I’ll come for him.”
He rested his arms on his knees, his palms slowly sliding back and forth across each other.
“Someday I’ll be the most powerful man in Italy—and I will fucking come for him.”
Prologue VIII
Constantine
The only reason the Pantheon had survived all these centuries was because the pope had turned it into a church. Everything else had been pillaged and abandoned, the Roman Forum somewhat preserved because of the lake of mud that had submerged it all this time. That made the Pantheon special, because even the floors were original. It was almost completely intact—even the bronze doors that still worked to this day.