Chapter 14 Constantine
Constantine
Rocco and I sat together in the stands of the small stadium at the Temple, the place where we conducted our affairs in the heart of Rome, a private building gifted to us by the Republic. We’d made a couple of changes and built our own Colosseum inside of it, a fraction of the size of the real one.
A large statue of Mars, the Roman god of war, was mounted over the prisoner’s gate. The walls were carved with Roman numerals and Latin, the coffers on the walls gilded. The top of the ceiling was a dome, decorated in a similar fashion to the one in Saint Peter’s.
I relaxed in the chair and waited for the games to begin. “Should have brought some popcorn.”
“How’s your ma?” Rocco asked.
“She’s good. Health is good. Busy with the restaurant.”
“She’s one hell of a cook.”
“Damn right she is,” I said proudly.
“Didn’t hear from you much.”
“Because I was on vacation, and the last thing I wanted to do was listen to your bullshit.” I didn’t get much time off, so I treasured it whenever it was possible. As the First Roman Emperor of the Roman Republic, not only was all of Rome my responsibility, but the rest of the country too.
He gave a slight smirk. “Figured you were buried in pussy.”
I was definitely buried balls deep in one pussy in particular.
When I didn’t confirm it or deny it, he turned to me. “Don’t tell me you fucked around with Isabella again.”
“God no,” I blurted, regretting that idiotic decision even more now.
The god of fortuna had been on my side that evening, keeping Aurelia inside the house so she wouldn’t have to witness the very complicated drama with my ex.
An ex I hadn’t been involved with for almost a decade.
And I had been stupid enough to think we could just fuck and that would be the end of it.
“She give you any shit?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
He slowly shook his head. “I fucking told you.”
“I know you did.” I fully admitted it. It was a mistake, and I should have listened to Rocco when he’d warned me not to give her any form of hope whatsoever.
“You could have any woman you want, but you decide to start shit.”
“She’d been married and divorced at that point. I thought it would be fine.”
“Still could have fucked literally anyone else, Con.”
“She’s crazy good in the sack, all right?”
“Not good enough to justify the bullshit.”
“Whatever,” I said. “It’s done.” I stared down at the bottom of the coliseum, the sand pit that was illuminated by the golden glow that came from the lights overhead. “We got into it at my mother’s house. I brought someone to dinner, and she lost it.”
He slowly turned his head to look at me. “You brought a woman to your ma’s house?”
“Yeah.”
“To meet your family?”
“That wasn’t why I brought her, but yeah.”
He looked ahead at the pit again before he turned back to me. “Why are you acting like this isn’t a big deal?”
“I’m not acting like it’s not a big deal.”
“Whoa, whoa, then let’s back up here.” Rocco straightened in his chair and pivoted so he could face me better. “Who is she?”
Brick stepped out of the prisoner’s door, a smaller door that was away from the gate. “We’re ready.”
“Ten minutes!” Rocco shouted across the coliseum.
“What the fuck? Why?”
“Fuck off!” Rocco yelled back.
Brick flipped him off before he walked back through the door.
“Who is she?” Rocco asked. “She lives in Taormina?”
“She lives in Rome, but we met there.” I told him the whole story.
How we met, that she’d just ended her long-term relationship with that little punk-ass bitch, and we spent the whole week together.
“She insisted on staying with her friend and says she needs time to heal. So I’ll give her some space. ”
“Or maybe she’s just not that into you and is trying to let you down easy.”
The smirk that stretched over my face was instantaneous. “No, she’s into me.”
“Then why would she sleep on someone’s couch instead of in your bed?”
“She’s got to figure her shit out. I get it, it’s fine.
She’s gonna go through dick withdrawal at some point, so I’ll hear from her then.
” I continued to smile, remembering all the faces she made when she came.
She was so pretty when she cried, her tears like diamonds.
Or when her face was pressed into the sheets and her makeup stained everything. “I’m not worried about it.”
“What’s her name?”
“Aurelia.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, I like it too.”
“So her last relationship ended a week ago?”
“About.”
“And you want to get involved in that?”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“Then you must really like her.”
I hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Every time I checked my phone, I hoped her name would be there.
The second I got back in town, my regulars had started to hit me up because their dick withdrawal had kicked in before I’d returned to Rome, but my dick didn’t even twitch. There was only one woman I wanted.
But she’d asked for space, and I wouldn’t violate that request. I wouldn’t be the first to make a move when she’d asked me to hit the brakes.
I wanted her, but I had too much pride to chase a woman who didn’t want to be chased.
If I didn’t hear from her after a couple weeks or a month, then that would be the end of it.
But I was certain it wasn’t the end of it.
The iron gate started to lift. The beaters with bats took their positions around the edges of the coliseum so there was no escape for the prisoners, but of course, they ran out like they always did . . . as if there was anywhere else to go.
The music came through the speakers, music that would play over an action-adventure film.
In rags for clothes and covered in dirt from the cells they slept in, they ran forward across the sand, some losing their balance because they tried too hard, too fast. These were the criminals who had been gathered in the last week, those found guilty of rape, murder, and direct violations of the Roman Republic.
Not every violation was punished with the same severity, but these men were the worst of the worst, those who chose to hurt innocent people for their own bottom line.
Now, they would be put to death.
“It’s showtime.” I got to my feet and walked down the stairs to the platform over the pit.
“For your crimes against the Roman Republic, I give you the opportunity to fight for your freedom—or die.” For every prisoner, there was a guard with a bat—but not just any bat, a bat studded with metal shards and nails.
A single hit was a death blow. “Let the games begin.”
Graffiti was a big problem in Rome. Assholes decided they had the right to stain our Roman history, and one of our agendas was to erase those marks from our beautiful city.
President Barsetti couldn’t do much other than enforce the law, which threw those assholes in jail for a couple of months before they were out on the streets again, doing the same shit.
Because Roman history was my history, I took that pretty fucking personally.
So, we stationed our men at all the main monuments, and whenever they caught someone, they smashed their faces into the cobblestones and forced them to eat the paint from the bottles.
Most of them ended up in the hospital, and word had spread that the Roman Republic would come for anyone who tried that shit again.
Graffiti in the city had dropped exponentially. President Barsetti was happy, the locals appreciated it, and I defended the work of my ancestors. We paid for a cleanup team out of our own pockets to scrub all the paint off the walls and to carefully restore the stone.
Rocco and I approached the square of the Pantheon, one of the oldest and fully intact monuments that had survived all the ages. The Roman Forum contained pieces of our history, but that’s all they were—pieces.
But the Pantheon remained.
We stopped and examined the side wall, the area that had been riddled with different-colored paint and gang symbols, marking this beautiful piece of history. Now, all of that was gone.
The stone had been restored.
Rocco held a piece of Roman pizza in his hand by the waxed paper. He took a bite as he examined it in silence. “How it should have been.”
“Yeah. She cleans up good.”
“Took a year to clean all this shit up, but it was worth it.”
Anyone who was caught trying to graffiti the walls again would get a worse punishment—and lose a hand. That way, if anyone thought we’d relaxed our security, they would be sadly mistaken. And then they would fear what we would do next if they tried again . . . and they might lose more than a hand.
President Barsetti wouldn’t agree with that measure, but we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.
Rocco stared at the monument in silence, just eating and appreciating the beauty before him. Other locals got used to the Roman landmarks and forgot their power, but for people like Rocco and me, we never did. We treated this city like it was our own home. Appreciated it every day.
“Heard from Aurelia?” he suddenly asked.
It’d been over a week since I’d dropped her off at her friend’s house. I hadn’t heard a peep from her. “No.”
He took another bite of his pizza, chewing quietly.
I’d hoped I would have heard from her by now. I’d rejected all the offers that had fallen into my lap in the hope she’d call. In the hope she’d return to my bed where she belonged.
He moved his hand to my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Sorry, man.”
“I haven’t given up.”
“A week is a long time.”
The longest week of my fucking life. “She’ll reach out.”
He gave me another pat on the shoulder then finished his pizza. “We’ve got a long night. Let’s get moving.”