The Breaker (Roman Republic #3)

Chapter 1 Constantine

Constantine

“Thanks for this, Santino.” I admired the contraption he’d made with Medusa’s measurements, a walker that would allow her three legs to move freely but her fourth to be supported with a wheel. We’d gone to school together, and he’d become a contractor and could pretty much build anything.

“So you’re in town for a while?” He crossed his arms over his chest before he leaned against the counter of his front office. His receptionist was in the back on her break.

“More than a while,” I said. “More like permanently.”

“Yeah?” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Your mother must be ecstatic.”

“Haven’t told her yet, but yeah, she will be.” Her scream would probably split my eardrums.

He pushed off the counter with his hips. “Let me know if it needs adjustments. Happy to swing by.”

“Thanks, man.”

I put the seats down in the back of my Range Rover, placed the walker inside, and then headed back toward Taormina, up the mountain over the village, where my villa was nestled on the cliff face.

It was still an extraordinary property with nine thousand square feet divided among the three floors, but the palace had felt like a city in comparison.

Sometimes it bothered me to know Darius was shitting in my toilet and fucking his whores in my bed . . . but I had what really mattered.

When I returned home, I carried the walker through the entryway and the main common room with twenty-foot-tall floor-to-ceiling windows that showed the sea in the distance.

The main floor had two different living rooms, an office, and a formal dining room, and then upstairs was where the bedrooms were located.

Aurelia sat on the rug on the floor with her back to one of the couches, next to the dog bed, and she gave Medusa soft, loving strokes across her cheek to help her relax.

A cup of coffee sat on the table, and it still wafted with steam like she’d just made it.

She looked at the walker when I put it down in front of them. “Wow, that’s it?”

Medusa opened one of her eyes and stared at me, but she didn’t get up to greet me like she normally would. She was still in pain, even with the meds, so she wasn’t quite herself.

It killed me to see her like that, but I knew I just had to be patient and I’d see her running around again. “Yeah, now she’ll be able to get around on her own. I know she misses being a dog.”

She looked down at Medusa and stroked her cheek. “Yeah.”

Most women liked dogs, but they liked the little ones you could carry in one arm or stuff in your purse.

Medusa was a full-grown seventy-pound German shepherd.

More like a wolf than a dog. But I knew Aurelia loved Medusa as much as I did.

I could see it in the way she cared for her as if she’d had her since she was a puppy.

It was so real it couldn’t be faked. “Baby girl, let’s give this a try.

” I patted my thigh so Medusa would get up.

She lay there and released a breath through her nostrils.

“Maybe later,” Aurelia said. “She’s having a hard time today.”

When I’d brought Medusa home, I’d just wanted a dog around the house. I never expected to love her like this, to feel like she was a piece of my heart outside of my body. I’d take another bullet to fix her broken leg if I could.

I moved to the other side of Medusa, my arm resting over the cushions of the couch so I could touch the back of Aurelia’s neck, and together, we sat with our dog.

Aurelia continued to pet her fur as she looked at me, wearing nothing but one of my T-shirts, without makeup, doing nothing else except caring for Medusa since she woke up.

With the light coming through the windows before us, her eyes were lit up in a glorious way, and she was fucking stunning. “How’s your arm?”

“What do you mean?”

Her hand paused momentarily in Medusa’s fur. “You were shot, remember?”

“Oh, that,” I said with a smirk. “Yeah, I already forgot about it.”

Her eyes did that thing where they shifted back and forth frantically as if I’d just said something crazy. “Isn’t getting shot painful?”

“Not at all. Now getting a shot . . . that’s the worst.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Any time I’ve been shot, it’s been in the middle of chaos.

Adrenaline is high and I’m focused on killing someone, so it’s impossible to feel anything.

You just feel your body jerk back from the speed of the bullet, but that’s it.

But when you need a shot at the doctor’s office, you just have to sit there and wait for them to stick a big-ass needle in your skin. It’s the worst.”

“The worst?” she repeated like I was a nutcase. “A shot can’t kill you.”

“Well, I’ve been shot a lot, and it’s never killed me.”

“Yet.”

“Well, those days are behind me, so that was probably the last one.” Something I wouldn’t miss. Sometimes when I flew commercial, the bullets I hadn’t been able to get out set off the metal detectors. That was always a gun story to tell airport security.

“At least you’re feeling good.”

“I don’t even notice it.” I looked down at Medusa, a dog I loved even though we’d never said a word to each other. I had her back, and she had mine. If I hadn’t taken that bullet, she would have died. In the moment, I didn’t think twice—and I’d do it again.

“How many times have you been shot?”

“This year or . . . ?”

She released a sigh and shook her head. “Jesus . . .”

I grinned. “I’m just messing with you, sweetheart. I’ve probably been shot . . . four times? Maybe five?”

“Maybe? You aren’t even sure?”

“Well, I’ve been stabbed a lot too, so after a while, you get things mixed up.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah,” I said with a chuckle. “Good times.”

“Does your mother know all this?”

“God no,” I said quickly. “Give my mom a heart attack.”

“Maybe it’s for the best that we’re here, then.”

A painful bomb of guilt dropped on my heart, and I looked at Medusa again, doing my best to hide the pain from her . . . and from myself. “Yeah. Maybe it is.”

Medusa was much more animated the next day, so I helped her into the walker and locked it into place.

It took her a second to figure out how it worked, but she was a smart dog, so a couple minutes later, she figured it out.

She was able to move around the house without putting weight on her injured leg, and instantly, her tail started to wag again.

I smiled like a proud dad who’d just taught his kid how to ride a bike. “Attagirl.” I opened one of the enormous back doors, and she walked right out onto the patio to explore, the sound of her wheel audible everywhere she went.

“Aww, she loves it.” Aurelia moved past me and stepped onto the patio, wearing a sundress with a long slit up her thigh that exposed one of her toned legs.

Her hair was in loose curls down her back, and she’d already taken to Taormina so well, like it was her home.

She took a seat on the couch and watched Medusa head to the gardens.

I sat down beside her, my arm moving around her shoulders, and together, we sat in the shade and watched our dog be happy again.

Her hand automatically moved to my thigh in my sweatpants.

We hadn’t made love since we’d arrived here.

The longest dry spell we’d ever had. I hadn’t initiated anything because I’d been too emotionally exhausted to be in the mood.

She didn’t try anything either—maybe because she was too preoccupied with Medusa’s well-being to think about it either.

But despite the lack of intimacy, I’d never felt closer to her, never felt my soul come so in tune with someone else’s.

I headed into the village the next morning.

The first thing my mom did every day was visit my brother at the cemetery. Well, visit his headstone, actually. Because the grave was empty, and the coffin had probably disintegrated years ago.

And the man who’d killed him was living in my house.

A sharp pain moved through my chest at the realization, and it was like swallowing a rock as a pill.

Her next stop was Rosticceria Da Cristina, where she worked in the office because she didn’t trust anyone else to handle the books or the supply orders or the staff schedule. When I got to the front door, I went to push it open but realized it was locked.

Because she always locked it after she came in, unlike me.

I still had a key, so I unlocked it and let myself inside. “Ma, it’s me!” I yelled so she wouldn’t freak out at the sound of the door.

“Con!” My mother’s frantic voice came from down the hallway.

“Yeah, I’m home.”

I heard her quick footsteps, and then a moment later, she appeared nearly at a run.

“Oh, I’m so happy.” She clapped her hands quickly, then gave an excited scream when her eyes landed on mine.

In dark jeans and a blouse, with a gold cross that hung around her neck, she came to me with her arms outstretched and hit me with her momentum.

I caught her with a chuckle, my arms hooking around her and giving her a tight squeeze. “I’m happy to see you too.”

She squeezed me back, then cupped my face and gave each of my cheeks a kiss, probably leaving lipstick marks there. “My boy.” She patted my cheeks. “Is Aurelia with you?” she asked hopefully.

“Yeah, she’s at the house. Medusa is hurt right now, so someone needs to be with her at all times.”

She looked happy at the mention of Aurelia, but the news about my dog changed her mood. “Why is she hurt?”

“She broke her leg.”

“Oh, that poor baby. But why did you bring her here?”

I took a step back from her. I was so close, I could smell her perfume. “That brings me to the reason for my visit today . . . we’ve decided to move back to Taormina.”

Her face was like a fireworks display, explosions and sparklers going off in her eyes.

Her hands cupped her mouth, and she took a step back as she tried to process the greatest news she’d ever received.

Even her eyes started to smart because having me close was her dream, a dream she’d never forced on me.

She stood there and started to breathe harder and harder, like she really might burst into soul-racking sobs.

“Oh, Con, I can’t remember the last time I was this happy. ”

Now I felt guilty for two different reasons.

One, I wasn’t back in Taormina because I wanted to be there.

And two, I still felt like shit for leaving Rome and letting the Skull King turn it into his playground.

Whatever horrible things happened to that city and her people .

. . would all fall on me because I wasn’t there to defend it.

“You mean it?” She dropped her hands and blinked to stop the tears. “You’re here to stay?”

It pained me to do it, but I nodded.

Then the tears she fought so hard to defeat returned with a vengeance.

“Oh, Con.” She moved back into me and hugged me hard, hugged me like I’d just returned from service in war.

Her face planted in my chest, and she cried for another moment before she composed herself. “All of my children . . . together.”

Except it wasn’t all of us.

Edric was probably in my old home at that very moment, because Darius was enough of a prick to move him there, to turn him into a nightstand like he promised, in the room where I used to sleep every night.

I’d made my decision and wouldn’t turn back, but fuck, it was a hard decision to live with.

My mother pulled away. “What about work? Did something happen?”

She and I had a mutual understanding never explicitly stated that we wouldn’t discuss my job.

That I would let her bury her head in the sand because it was the only way she could cope.

After the loss of one son, she wouldn’t be able to breathe if she lost the other.

So I didn’t share the details, let her know as little as possible. “It’s just time to move on.”