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Surely this is why you rang your brother in the first place, a voice in him said testily.
Constantine rubbed his aching hand over his face, wishing he knew how to do more thanwant.
On his end, Balthazar made a considering sort of sound Constantine opted not to interpret. “Has she indeed. That is enterprising of her.”
And Constantine had half a mind to throw his mobile across the cavernous great room he had heard described ascontaining a loftlike vibe. Surely a little bit of destruction would liven the place up. Chip one of the sharp edges of his furniture that was decidedly not made for human habitation. This was a flat to admire from afar, or peer at in the pages of architectural magazines, notlivein. Because Constantine did notliveanywhere. He traveled between places and personas, always with the same goal in mind—revenge.
But now he had no goal and all his years of plotting vengeance sat heavily in him. He wanted to take the strange overly modern pieces in this flat and hurl them out one of his vast windows. Because it did not escape his attention that he had taken Molly on a tour of only his most beautiful properties. As if he had needed to make sure that a creature as beautiful as she was could only ever be surrounded by similar beauty.
As if he had imagined that he could bask in both. He had.
Now he stood in the reality of his life, such as it was, without her. Without the idea of her that had sustained him for years. And without the live, flesh-and-blood woman who had turned him inside out.
And it was cold. Impersonal. Incomprehensible in places.
Hewas all of those things.
And here he was on the phone to an older brother who had only ever been another soldier in the same dreadful foxhole. It had never occurred to Constantine that a brother could be—or should be—anything else.
But he wanted...
The mawkishness almost drove him to his knees, but he knew. What he wanted was a friend. Constantine certainly had none of those. If he wanted one, he would have to take his chances here.
And so, feeling very much as if he was flinging himself off his own balcony in lieu of his terrible, uncomfortable furniture, he told Balthazar...everything.
Everything he’d told Molly. And more besides.
When he was done, he felt sick. And something like hollow. And his head pounded so hard and erratically that he wasn’t entirely sure he would hear Balthazar as he spoke.
Or maybe he only wished he wouldn’t.
“A wise woman once told me that the best revenge of all is living well,” Balthazar said. “And I must tell you, I’ve taken it to heart.”
Constantine let out a dark laugh, not at all surprised to find that he was rubbing at his chest. As if he could press his heart back into place. “I live well enough as it is.”
“The key is happiness, brother. If money could buy it, we would have had a far better childhood than we did.”
“Happiness,” Constantine said, pronouncing the word as if he wasn’t sure how the syllables came together. Or if it might sting him while he worked it out.
“We could talk all day about the many sins of Demetrius Skalas,” Balthazar continued. “And in fact, I would enjoy it. There’s nothing about that man I admire and I take it as a personal challenge to make certain that I never hand on any part of him to my children.”
“I will also take this challenge,” said Constantine, who until that moment had never so much as considered the possibility that he would bring a child into this world.
And yet the moment he considered it, he could only think of one woman who could possibly be the mother to those children. His children.
Theirchildren.
The thought of Molly, ripe with a child they’d made, made him hiss out a small breath as if he’d been punched deep in the gut.
“But we must also talk about our mother,” Balthazar was saying, unaware that yet another sea change was sweeping his brother away as he spoke. “Both you and I went to such lengths to avenge her, though our approaches were different. I was furious about what had been done to her. You were furious at what was done to her memory.”
“I fail to see the difference,” he managed to say.
“You want her to be a saint, Constantine.” Balthazar’s voice was quiet, but direct. “When, like the rest of us, she was only a person.”
“She is still a person,” Constantine gritted out.
“You and I both know that isn’t entirely true.” His brother’s voice stayed quiet. And powerful. “One of these days, when she has stopped clinging to what little life she has left in her, you and I will do what we must to honor her. But in the meantime, do you imagine that if she were not in that bed she would applaud what you were doing?”
