Page 111 of Hush, Little Baby

Constantine looks unhinged, the whites of his eyes too bright. “They weren’t supposed to go this far. Just some bruises to lure you in.”

“Why?”

“Niko, I—”

“Tell me. What led to this? Ímastan adérfia. Adérfia, Konstandíne. Óchi. Me pródoses, aftó to katalavaíno. Allá ti sto diáolo pérase apó to mialó sou kai parédoses éna athóo, glykó, ídi pligoméno agóri s’ aftá ta gouroúnia pou viázoun? Mípos den se gnórisa poté pragmatiká? O ántras pou íxera os adelfó mou den tha xepernoúse poté aftó to ório. Den tha épefte poté tóso chamilá. Esý eísai kápoios állos. Loipón, pes mou. Yiatí?” We were brothers. Brothers, Constantine. No. You betrayed me, I understand, but what went through your fucking mind that made you throw an innocent, sweet, already hurting boy to these rapist pigs? Have I never truly known you? The man I knew as my brother would never stoop so low. You are someone else. So, tell me. Why?

“I wanted your power,” Constantine answers. “I wanted you gone, so I could run things. You don’t deserve your position. Den se noiázei kan.” You don’t even care about it.

Impossibly soft, Nikolaus laughs. The sound is hollow, metallic—like echoing steel against stone—and contains no warmth, no humor, only a raw disbelief that tastes bitter on the tongue.

“You wanted my power.”

Constantine’s spine snaps straight, his tailored jacket creasing at the shoulders as though that admission alone restores him. He forces a smirk. “You abandoned it,” he says. His voice cuts through the silence, brittle as broken glass. “You stopped caring. Everyone saw it. The board saw it. Our people saw it. You were letting everything fall apart because you couldn’t stop thinking about him.” His hand flicks toward me.

Nikolaus follows his gesture, taking in the ragged remnants of my clothes clinging in tatters, the bruises blooming purple and yellow across my body, the dried rivulets of blood stiffening on my cheek.

Pain flickers across his face, deeper than anger—a tearing grief that reaches down into his bones. He turns back to Constantine, each word weighted with unspoken agony. “If you had asked me,” he breathes, “I would have given it to you.”

Constantine blinks, as if struck by a thunderclap. Nikolaus steps forward, each footfall stirring motes of dust into the air.

“If you had come to me like a brother and said you wanted the company, the board, the money, the influence—any of it—I would have handed it over myself.” His gaze holds Constantine’s without wavering. “Do you understand what you’ve done?”

“Niko—” Constantine starts, but Nikolaus cuts him off in a whisper that carries through the cavernous room.

“My life is Charlie now.”

The confession detonates amid the silence. Nikolaus glances back at me; his expression fractures into something raw and heart-aching. “He is my future.” His voice is hushed but absolute. Constantine’s face drains of color. “He is the first thing I think about when I wake up.” Nikolaus steps closer, and his words come rough, ragged with emotion. “The last thing I think about before I sleep. I love him more than I’ve ever loved anything in my entire life.” The words hang in the stale air, raw and undeniable. “And you handed him over to be tortured.”

Constantine’s mouth opens, then closes. He wants to argue, to protest, but the words choke in his throat.

Nikolaus shakes his head slowly, sorrowful. “There’s no going back from this.”

At last, fear colors Constantine’s features—a terror so stark it seems to warp the grimy walls around him. “Brother—” he whispers.

A single shot cracks the silence. Constantine’s body jerks backward, frozen for a heartbeat with shock, then collapses in a thud that vibrates through the floorboards. He lies motionless, a stark silhouette on cracked concrete.

One Russian curses under his breath; another bolts for the side door. But before he can reach it, every exit floods with movement—armed men in disciplined formation, weapons raised, voices barking commands. Within heartbeats, the warehouse swarms with them. My tormentors stare at the array of barrels pointed their way; their own firearms left useless on the folding table yards off. Too far away. Hands rise in defeat.

Through it all, Nikolaus doesn’t glance sideways. Not at the kneeling captives, not at his friend’s body. Only at me. He slides his pistol home into its holster, then strides across the distance as though wading through water. He drops to his knees beside me.

His hands shake—actual tremors—as they hover uncertainly above my battered form before settling on my cheek with a tenderness that feels like a lifeline.

“Charlie.” His eyes, bright and raw with grief, trace every cut and bruise as though each one slashes through him anew. “Oh, baby,” he breathes. He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them, resolve shining through sorrow. “You’re safe now.” His thumb strokes across my skin, gentle as falling rain.

Niko’s voice hovers at the edge of my consciousness when I try to speak. The sound that slips out is a wet, broken gasp.

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m right here.”

I strain to speak, to tell him I knew he’d come, to tell him I love him back, but the words won’t form. My vision begins to dim around the edges.

His voice is a hoarse whisper when he says, “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

My eyelids grow impossibly heavy. I murmur, “I have…” and his face softens with anguish.

He leans closer. “What is it, baby?”

I swallow, voice faint as the last breath of a breeze. “I still have… your bracelet… on…”